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University  of  California  •  Berkeley 


THE 


Overland  Monthly 


DEVOTED   TO 


THE   DEVELOPMENT  Of   THE   COUNTRY. 


VOL.  VI. — SECOND  SERIES. 


SAN    FRANCISCO: 

No.  120   SUTTER   STREET. 

1885. 


F  9f  f 
.-0  H-tT 


BACON  &  COMPANY 
Printers. 


OMMsmft 
CONTENTS. 


Accomplished   Gentlemen 206 

Alvarado,  Juan  Bautista,  Governor  of  California. .  Theodore  H.  Hitte.ll 338,  459 

Anti-Chinese  Riot,  The  Wyoming A.  A.  Sargent 507 

"  Anti-Chinese  Riot,   The    Wyoming."—  Another 

View J. 573 

August  in  the  Sierras Paul  Meredith 170 

Battles    of    Lookout   Mountain    and    Missionary 

Ridge,  The J.  W.  A.   Wright 138 

Bent  of  International  Intercourse,  The J.  D.  Phelan 162 

Bonaparte,  Napoleon,  Youth  and  Education  of Warren  Olney 402 

Book  Reviews : 

Adams's  (Oscar  Fay)  Brief  Handbook  of  American  Authors;  Brief  Handbook  of  English  Au- 
thors, 666. — Adams,  Samuel  (James  K.  Hosmer,  "American  Statesmen  "),  221. — Afghanis- 
tan and  the  Anglo-Russian  Dispute,  209. — Aldrich's  (Thomas  Bailey)  Poems,  439. — American 
Commonwealths:  Cooley's  Michigan;  Shaler's  Kentucky.  664;  Spring's  Kansas,  665. — Amer- 
ican Statesmen:  John  Marshall  (Magruder),  112;  Samuel  Adams  (Hosmer),  221.— Androme- 
da (George  Fleming),  55~'. — Anecdotes  Nouvelles,  224. — Annual  Index  to  Periodicals  (Q.  P. 
Index),  112.— Anstey's  (F.)  The  Tinted  Venus,  328.— Art  and  the  Formation  of  Taste,  560.— 
As  It  Was  Written  (Sidney  Luska),  551. — Aulnay  Tower  (Miss  Howard),  323. 

Balzac's  Pere  Goriot,  554. — Bar  Sinister,  The,  553.— Beers's  (Professor  Henry  A.)  Prose  Writ- 
ings of  N.  P.  Willis,  224. — Besaut's  (Walter)  Uncle  Jack  and  Other  Stories,  328. — Biglow 
Papers,  The  (Lowell),  560.— Birds  in  the  Bush  (Torrey).  336. — Brief  Handbook  of  American 
Authors;  Brief  Handbook  of  English  Authors  (Oscar  Fay  Adams),  666. — Bureau  of  Educa- 
tion, Reports  of,  101,  215. — Burrouglis's  (John)  Wake-Robin,  11^. — By  Shore  and  Sedge 
(Bret  Harte),  327. — By- Ways  of  Nature  and  Life  (Clarence  Deming),  560. 

Camp-Fire,  Memorial  Day,  and  Other  Poems  (Kate  Brownlee  Sherwood),  438. — Cattle-rais- 
ing on  the  Plains  of  North  America,  665.— Children's  Books,  662. — Chinese  Gordon,  the  Un- 
crowned King,  112. — Cleveland's  (Miss  Rose  E.)  George  Eliot's  Poetry  and  Other  Studies, 
334. — Color  Studies  (Thomas  A.  Janvier),  551.— Coming  Struggle  for  India,  The  (Vambery), 
558. — Cooke's  (J.  Esten)  The  Maurice  Mystei-y,  549.— Cooley's  (Professor)  Michigan,  664. — 
Cooperative  Commonwealth,  The  (Lawrence  Groulund),  430. — Cooperative  Index  to  Period- 
icals, 112. — Coues's  (Professor  Elliott)  Key  to  American  Birds,  110. — Craddock's  (Charles 
Egbert)  Down  the  Ravine,  327;  The  Prophet  of  the  Great  Smoky  Mountains,  553.— Craw- 
ford's (F.Marion)  Zoroaster,  323.— Criss-Cross  (Grace  Denio  Litchfield),  552. 

Defective  and  Corrupt  Legislation,  546. — Directory  of  Writers  for  the  Literary  Press  in  the 
United  States,  112.— Discriminate,  222.— Down  the  Ravine,  (Charles  Egbert  Craddock),  327. 
—Due  South,  559. 

Educational  Reports,  101,  215. — Elegy  for  Grant,  An,  436. — Ely's  (Professor  Richard  T. )  Recent 
American  Socialism,  429. — Endura,  549. 

Fall  of  the  Great  Republic,  The,  432.— Fiction,  Recent,  323,  547.— Fish  and  Men  in  the  Maine 
Islands  (W.  H.  Bishop),  447. — Fleming's  (George)  Andromeda,  552. — For  a  Woman  (Nora 
Perry),  551. — Forbes's( Archibald)  Souvenirs  of  Some  Continents,  447. — Frolicsome  Girls,  560. 

George  Eliot's  Poetry  and  Other  Studies  (Miss  Cleveland),  334. — German  Simplified  (Knoflach), 
223,  666.— Glenaveril  (Earl  of  Lytton,  "  Owen  Meredith"),  439. 

Halevy's  Un  Mariage  d'Amour,  112. — Harte's  By  Shore  and  Sedge,  327;  Maruja,  550. — Haw- 
thorne's (Julian)  Love  or  a  Name,  551.— Hawthorne's  (Nathaniel)  The* Scarlet  Letter,  554. — 
Historic  Boys  (E.  S.  Brooks),  663.— Holiday  Books,  661.— Holmes's  The  Last  Leaf,  661.— 
Hosmer's  (James  K.)  Samuel  Adams,  221. — Houp  La  (John  Strange  Winter),  549. — Howard's 
(Blanche  Willis)  Aulney  Tower,  323.— Howells's  (W.  D.)  Venetian  Life,  112;  Rise  of  Silas 
Lapham,  553.— How  Should  I  Pronounce  ?  (Phyfe),  222.— Hunter's  Handbook,  The,  666. 

Idylles  (Henry  Greville),  666.— Ingelow's  (Jean)  Poems  of  the  Old  Days  and  the  New,  440. — 
Italy,  1815-1878  ^Probyn),  110. 

John  Marshall  (Allan  Magruder),  112. — Journals  of  General  Gordon  at  Kartoum,  335. — Joyous 
Story  of  Toto,  The,  663. 

Kamehameha  (C.  M.  Newell),  323.— Kansas  (L.W.  Spring,  American  Commonwealths),  665. — 
Kentucky  (N.  S.  Shaler,  American  Commonwealths),  664. — Key  to  North  American  Birds, 
(Professor  Coues),  110. — Kindergarten  Chimes  (Kate  Douglas  Wiggin),  224. 

Last  Leaf,  The  (O.  W.  Holmes),  661. — Le  Monde  ou  Ton  s'Enniue  (Pailleron),  666. — Lenape 
Stone,  The,  111. — Lilith  (Ada  Langworthy  Collier),  438. — Litchneld's  (Grace  Denio)  Criss- 
Cross,  552. — Little  Country  Girl,  A  (Susan  Coolidge),  663. — Lone  Star  Bopeep,  A,  and  Other 
Stories  (Howard  Seely).  551. — Love  or  a  Name  (Julian  Hawthorne),  550. — Lowell's  Biglow 
Papers,  560.— Luck  of  the  Darrells,  The  (James  Payn),  549.— Lytton's  Glenaveril,  439.— -Lus- 
ka's  As  It  Was  Written,  551. 

Mahdi,  The.  560. — Man's  Birthright,  434. — Magruder's  (Allan)  John  Marshall,  112. — Maruja 
(Bret  Harte),  550.— Marvels  of  Animal  Life,  The,  663.— Marvin's  The  Russians  at  the  Gates 
of  Herat,  209. — Maurice  Mystery,  The  (J.  Esten  Cooke),  549. — Michel  Angelo  Buonarotti, 
560.— Michigan  (T.  M.)  Cooley,  American  Commonwealths,  664 — Morals  of  Christ,  The,  666. 

National  Academy  Notes  and  Catalogue,  112. — Nature  and  Re  dity  of  Religion,  The  (Spencer 
and  Harrison),  448. — Nemesis,  A,  329. — New  England  Conscience,  A,  329. — Newton's  (R. 
Heber)  Philistinism,  559.— Nimrod  in  the  North  (Frederick  Schwatka),  661. 


IV 


Contents. 


Old  Factory,  The  (William  Westall),  548.— Old  Maid's  Paradise,  An  (Miss  Phelps),  327.— Our 
Penal  Machinery  and  Its  Victims,  545. 

Parson  o'Dumford,  The,  547.— Patroclus  and  Penelope  (Theodore  Ayrault  Dodge),  111.— Pep- 
pino,  223  — Pere  Goriot  (Honor6  de  Balzac),  554.— Perry's  (Nora)  For  a  Woman,  551.—  Phelps -s 
(Elizabeth  Stuart)  An  Old  Maid's  Paradise,  327.— Philistinism  (R.  Heber  Newton),  559.— Phi- 
losophy of  Art  in  America,  The,  560.— Philosophy  of  Disenchantment,  The,  336.— Philoso- 
phy of  a  Future  State,  The,  223.— Pliny  for  Boys  and  Girls,  662.— Poems  of  Nature  ( J.  G. 
Whittier),  661.— Poems  of  the  Old  Days  and  The  New  (Jean  Ingelow),  440.— Poems  of  Thom- 
as Bailey  Aldrich,  The,  439.— Poetry,  Recent,  436.— Prophet  of  the  Great  Smoky  Mountains, 
The  (Charles  Egbert  Craddock),  553.— Prose  Writings  of  N.  P.  Willis,  224.— Public  Relief 
and  Private  Charity  (Josephine  Shaw  Lowell),  543. 

Reading  Club,  The,  560.— Readings  from  Macaulay,  560.— Readings  from  Ruskin,  560.— Recent 
American  Socialism  (Professor  Ely),  429.— Recent  Fiction,  323,  547.— Recent  Poetry,  436.— 
Recent  Sociological  Discussion,  429,  542.— Reports  of  the  Bureau  of  Education.  101,  215.— 
Rise  of  Silas  Lapham,  The  (W.  D.  Howells),  553.— Rudder  Grange  (Frank  Stockton),  662.— 
Russians  at  the  Gates  of  Herat,  The  (Charies  Marvin),  209.— Russian  Revolt,  The,  209.— Rus- 
sia Under  the  Czars  (Stepniak),  209. 

Samuel  Adams  (James  K.  Hosmer),  221.— Satinwood  Box,  The  (J.  T.  Trowbridge),  663.— Saxe 
Holm  Stories,  The,  554.— Scarlet  Letter,  The,  554.— Schwatka's  Nimrod  in  the  North,  661.— 
She's  All  the  World  to  Me,  329.— Social  Experiment,  A  (A.  E.  P.  Searing),  550.— Social  Sil- 
houettes (Edgar  Fawcett),  666.— Sociological  Discussions,  Recent,  429,  542 — Souvenirs  of 
Some  Continents  (Archibald  Forbes),  447.— Spencer's  (Herbert)  and  Harrison's  Nature  and 
Reality  of  Religion,  448.— Spring's  (Professor  Leverett)  Kansas,  665.— Stepniak's  Russia  Un- 
der the  Czars,  209. — St.  Nicholas  Songs,  664.— Stockton's  (Frank)  Rudder  Grange,  662. — 
Stowe's  (Mrs.)  Uncle  Tom's  Cabin,  554. — Struck  Down,  548. — Sweet  Mace,  547. 

Talks  Afield  (L.  H.  Bailey,  Jr.),  447.— Tinted  Venus,  The  (F.  Anstey),  328.— Torrey's  (Brad- 
ford) Birds  in  the  Bush,  336  —Travels  of  Marco  Polo  (Thomas  W.  Knox),  663. 

TJncle  Jack  and  Other  Stories  (Walter  Besant),  328.— Uncle  Tom's  Cabin,  554.— Un  Mariage 
d' Amour  (LudovicHale'vy),  112. 

Vagrant  Wife,  A  (Florence  Warden),  548.— Vain  Forebodings,  328.— Venetian  Life  (W.  D. 
Howells),  112. 

Waters  of  Hercules,  The,  328.— Whittier's  Poems  of  Nature,  661.— Willis,  N.  P.,  Prose  Writ- 
ings of,  224.— Wit  of  Women,  The  (Kate  Sanborn),  662.— World  of  London,  The  (Vasili),  447. 
Zoroaster  (F.  Marion  Crawford),  323. 

Brave  Life,  A M.H.F 360 

Brindle  and  Others D.  S.  Richardson 378 

Building  of  a  State,  The— 

VII.  The  College  of  California S.  H.  Willey 26 

VIII.  Early  Days  of  the  Protestant  Episcopal 

Church  in  California Edgar  J.  Lion 203 

Bureau  of  Education,  Reports  of . .  101,  215 

Byways  and  Bygones Sarah  D.  Halsted 285 

Celestial  Tragedy,  A C.  E.  B 577 

College  of  California,  The S.  H.  Willey 26 

Cruise  of  the  Panda,  The J.  S.  Bacon 527 

Debris  from  Latin  Mines Adley  H.  Cummins 48 

Doctor  of  Leidesdorff  Street,  The C.  E.  B 258 

Early  Days  of  the  Protestant  Episcopal  Church  in 

California Edgar  J.  Lion  203 

Early  Horticulture  in  California Charles  Howard  Shinn 117 

Egypt,  Modern Franklina  Gray  Bartlelt 276 

Etc.: 

Editorial : 

Desirable  Data  as  to  High  School  Graduates.— The  Case  of  One  Class.— Statistics  of  Univer- 
sity Graduates. — Death  of  Henry  B.  Norton 104 

The  Eminence  of  General  Grant  in  Public  Esteem.— Military  Glory.— The  Relation  of  Gen- 
eral Grant  to  the  People.— The  Good  and  Evil  of  Travel 219 

The  Endowment  of  Newspapers.—"  The  College  of  the  American  People."— The  Difficulty  of 

Regulating  It.— The  Endowment  Plan.— Mrs.  Jackson's  Literary  Remains 329 

The  Chinese  Massacres.— Probable  Character  of  the  Aggressors.— Lines  of  Class,  as  against 

Lines  of  Race 442 

The  Appointment  of  a  President  to  the  State  University.— The  Presbyterian  Plan  for  a  De- 
nominational College 555 

Recent  Events  of  Interest.— First  Thoughts  on  the  Stanford  Gift.— Expulsion  of  Chinese  in 

Washington  Territory  and  California.— Comment  on  a  Contributor's  View 659 

Contributed : 

Bibliography  of  John  Muir E.  A.  Avery 445 

Gold  and  Silver F.  0.  Layman     , . . .  .331 

Good  Advice '. 323 

Grave  Subjects g  ..108 

Literary  Training G .'.'.'. ...  .107 

New  Goethe  Papers Albin  Putzker  ....  '.  !'.443 


Contents.  v 

Poetry : 

After  an  Old  Master Francis  E.  Sheldon 331 

After  Many  Years H.  C.  G 106 

August H.  C 221 

Forget  Me  Not Albert  S.Cook 660 

Golden  Thread,  The Amelia  Woodward  Truesdell 558 

Idleness 109 

In  the  Moonlight Wilbur  Larremore 444 

That  Little  Baby  that's  Dead Flora  De  Wolfe 220 

Tecumseh  not  Killed  by  Colonel  Johnson. .  .L.  P.  McCarthy 557 

Type  of  Philistinism,  A C.  S.  G , 444 

W  ith  Gloves G.  A .  M 557 

Women  and  Politics  in  Paris L.H.T 556 

Federal  Constitution,  Thoughts  towards  Revising 

the C.  T.  Hopkins 388 

Fiction,  Kecent  323,  547 

Fine  Art  in  Romantic  Literature Albert  S.  Cook 52 

Four  Bohemians  in  Saddle Stoner  Brooke 91 

Free  Public  Libraries 424 

From  the  Nass  to  the  Skeena George  Chismore 450 

General  Grant,  Reminiscences  of: 

Grant  and  the  Pacific  Coast A.M.  Loryea 19? 

Grant  and  the  War Warren  Olney 199 

Great  Lama  Temple,  Peking,  The C.  F.  Gordon-Gumming 383 

Hawaiian  Volcanism Edward  P.  Baker '.602 

Helen  Hunt  Jackson,  Mrs.,  Last  Days  of Flora  Haines  Apponyi 310 

Hermit  of  Sawmill  Mountain,  The Sol  Sheridan 152 

"H.  H.,"  The  Verse  and  Prose  of M.  W.  Shinn 315 

Hilo  Plantation,  A E.  C.  S 186 

How  the  Blockade  was  Run J.  W.  A.  Wright 247 

Impossible  Coincidence,  An 66 

"I'm  Tom's  Sister." William  S.  Hutchinson 512 

Indian  Question,  A  Suggestion  on  the E.  L.  Hnggins 569 

In  the  Summer  House Harriet  D.  Palmer 129 

Is  Modern  Science  Pantheistic George  H.  Howison 646 

John  McCullough 566 

Juan  Bautista  Alvarado,  Governor  of  California. .  Theodore  H.  Hittell 338, 459 

La  Santa  Indita Louise  Palmer  Heaven 114 

Last  Days  of  Mrs.  Helen  Hunt  Jackson Flora  Haines  Apponyi 310 

Legend  of  the  Two  Roses,  The Fannie  Williams  McLean 516 

Libraries,  Free  Public 424 

Lick  Observatory,  The Edward  S.  Holden 561 

Metric  System,  The John  Le  Conte  174 

Midsummer  Night's  Waking,  A H.  Shewin 96 

Mills  College,  The  New Katharine  B.  Fisher 537 

Modern  Egypt Franklina  Gray  Bartlett 276 

Musical  Taste Richard  J.   Wilmot 281 

My  First  Wedding G.  M.  Upton   353 

Napoleon  Bonaparte,  Youth  and  Education  of. ...  Warren  Olney , 402 

Nass,  From  the,  to  the  Skeena George  Chismore 449 

New  Mills  College,  The  Katharine  B.  Fisher 537 

Plea  before  Judge  Lynch,  A W.  S.  H , 252 

Poetry,  Recenjb 436 

Problem  of  Love,  A Charles  A.  Murdock 612 

Protestant  Episcopal  Church  in  California,  Early 
Days  of Edgar  J.  Lion 203 

Rancheria  Affair,  The 398 

Recent  Fiction 323>  547 

Recent  Poetry • ^ 


vi  Contents. 

Recent  Sociological  Discussions -429,  542 

Reminiscences  of  General  Grant: 

Grant  and  the  Pacific  Coast  A.  M.  Loryea 197 

Grant  and  the  War Warren  Olney 199 

Reports  of  the  Bureau  of  Education 101,  215 

Revising     the     Federal    Constitution,    Thoughts 

towards. C.  T.  Hopkins 388 

Riparian  Rights  from  Another  Standpoint John  H.  Durst 10 

Rough  Notes  of  a  Yosemite  Camping  Trip Joseph  Le  Conte 414,  493,  624 

Roses  in  California I-  C.  Winton 191 

Russians  at  Home  and  Abroad,  The S.  B.  W 209 

San  Francisco  Iron  Strike,  The Iron  Worker 39 

Shttsta  Lilies Charles  Howard  Shinn 638 

Skeena  From  the  Nass  to  the.    George   Chismore 449 

Sociological  Discussions,  Recent 429,  542 

Squatter  Riot  of  '50  in  Sacramento,  The Josiah  Rnyce 225 

Suggestion  on  the  Indian  Question,  A E.  L.  Hue/gins 5(59 

Terrible  Experience,  A Bun  Le  Roy 16 

Thirty-Fifth  and  Thirty-Sixth  Congresses,  The S.  S.  Cox  290 

Thoughts  towards  Revising  the  Federal  Constitu- 
tion  C.  T.  Hopkins 388 

Transportation  Aristocrat,  A Emelie  Tracy  Y.  Swett 368 

Travels  in  South  America Louis  Deyener 588 

Verse  and  Prose  of  "  H.  H.,"  The M.  W.  Shinn 315 

Victor  Hugo .   F.  V.  Paget 81 

Volcanism,  Hawaiian Edward  P.  Baker 602 

Was  it  a  Forgery  ? Andrew  McFarland  Davis 1 

Wedding  among  the   Communistic  Jews  in  Ore- 
gon, A 606 

Wyoming  Anti-Chinese  Riot,  The A.  A.  Sargent 507 

"Wyoming    Anti-Chinese    Riot,  The" — Another 

View J 573 

Yosemite  Camping  Trip,  Rough  Notes  of  a Joseph  Le  Conte 414,  493,  624 

You  Bet Henry  DeGroot 305 

Youth  and  Education  of  Napoleon  Bonaparte,  The.  Warren  Olney 402 

Zegarra:  A  Tale  of  the  Scotch  Occupation  of  Da- 
rien George  Dudley  Lawson 485 

POETRY. 

Ashes  of  Roses Charles  S.  Greene 536 

Blue  Eyes  and  Black  Eyes E.  L.  Hug  gins 412 

El  Mahdi Thomas  S.  Collier 246 

For  a  Preface Francis  E.  Sheldon 169 

Force E.  R.  Sill 113 

Faliillment E.  R.  Sill 484 

Helen  Hunt  Jackson  ("  H.  H.") Ina  D.  Coolbrith 309 

Life  and  Death I.  H. 15 

O,  Eager  Heart Marcia  D.  Crane 185 

On  the  Desert Sylvia  Lawson  Corey 623 

Picture  of  Bacchus  and  Ariadne,  The Laura  M.  Marquand 202 

Ruskiu Charles  S.  Greene 257 

Sehnsucht M.  F.  Rowntree 359 

Song E:  C.  Sanford 601 

Successful  Rival,  The M.  W.  Shinn 458 

That  Second  Mate George  Chismore 303 

Their  Days  of  Waiting  are  So  Long Wilbur  Larrtmore 95 

Two  Sonnets:  Summer  Night;  Warning 48 

Violets  and  Daffodils Charles  S.  Greene 576 

Willow  Tree,  The Wilbur  Larremore. . .  506 


THE 


OVERLAND  MONTHLY. 


DEVOTED    TO 


THE  DEVELOPMENT  OF   THE   COUNTRY. 


VOL.  VI.  (SECOND  SERIES.)— JULY,  1885.— No.  31. 


WAS  IT  A  FORGERY? 


To  reproduce  in  fiction,  in  such  vivid  form 
as  to  deceive  the  reading  public,  scenes  pur- 
porting to  be  from  actual  life,  requires  a  fac- 
ulty for  accurate  description  accompanied  by 
an  acute  memory  for  details.  When  we  con- 
sider the  enormous  volume  to  which  the  lit- 
erature of  fiction  has  grown,  the  great  talents 
which  have  been  devoted  to  writing  novels 
and  stories,  and  the  careful  study  which 
many  writers  have  applied  to  their  work,  we 
must  regard  it  to  their  credit,  that  so  few 
have  been  tempted  to  test  the  credulity  of 
their  readers  by  passing  off  the  coinage  of 
their  brains  as  truth.  There  are,  however, 
occasional  instances  where  men  have  written 
stories  whose  object  was  to  deceive.  This  has 
been  done  by  them  for  the  amusement  of 
hoaxing  the  public  or  for  the  purpose  of  gain. 
One  notable  case  there  is  of  a  writer,  who, 
to  his  astonishment,  found  that  what  he  had 
intended  to  pass  for  a  story  with  a  moral, 
had  been  so  well  told  that  it  was  accepted 
by  many  as  the  truth. 

De  Foe's  "  Apparition  of  Mrs.  Veal  at 
Canterbury,"  is  said  to  have  been  written 
with  intent  to  aid  the  flagging  sale  of  the 
work  on  "  Death,"  then  recently  published 
by  his  friend  Drelincourt.  It  is  a  conspicu- 
ous instance  of  success  on  the  part  of  a  writer 


celebrated  for  the  verisimilitude  of  his  style. 
The  allegedvoyage of  Admiral  Fonte  was  orig- 
inally published  anonymously  in  a  London 
periodical  called  "  Memoirs  for  the  Curious." 
The  author  of  the  story  could  hardly  have 
expected  to  deceive  the  cartographers  of 
the  day,  otherwise  he  would  have  spared 
his  readers  many  of  the  absurdities  with 
which  the  tale  is  overloaded.  Nevertheless, 
for  many  years  after  its  publication,  no  dis- 
cussion of  the  probable  existence  of  the 
northwest  passage  would  have  been  consid- 
ered complete,  which  did  not  allude  to  the 
story  of  Fonte's  voyage,  and  this,  too,  not- 
withstanding the  exposure  of  its  preposterous 
character  by  many  intelligent  reviewers.  It 
was,  indeed,  gravely  cited  by  Onis,  the  Span- 
ish Ambassador  to  this  country,  in  one  of 
his  arguments  concerning  the  Louisiana 
boundary  question.  Crude  as  Locke's 
"  Moon  Hoax  "  seems  to  us  today,  it  found 
a  reading  public  ready  to  believe  it,  and 
easily  shouldered  out  of  its  way  the  more  ar- 
tistic attempt  in  the  same  line  which  Poe 
was  then  publishing  elsewhere.  The  stren- 
uous assertions  of  Mr.  Hale,  that  his  "Man 
Without  a  Country "  had  no  foundation  in 
fact  will,  perhaps,  never  be  believed  by  sev- 
eral people  who  have  deluded  themselves 


VOL.  VI.— i. 


(Copyright,  1885,  by  OVERLAND  MONTHLY  Co,     All  Rights  Reserved.) 


Was  it  a  Forgery  ? 


[July, 


with  the  idea  that  they  had  met  the  hero  of 
the  story. 

These  examples  furnish  types  of  remarka- 
ble successes  in  this  line  of  literature,  which 
include  the  wilful,  the  humorous,  and  the 
unintentional  hoax.  What  follows  is  a  digest 
of  a  paper  read  before  the  American  Anti- 
quarian Society.  If  its  conclusions  are  ac- 
cepted, it  will  consign  to  the  same  general 
classification  the  remarkable  story  told  by 
Le  Page  du  Pratz,  in  his  "  Histoire  de_la 
Louisiane,"  on  the  authority  of  a  Yazoo  In- 
dian, who  claimed  to  have  made  a  journey 
across  our  continent  about  1700  A.  D.,  and 
to  have  met  on  the  Pacific  Coast  bearded 
white  men,  whose  clothing  and  general  ap- 
pearance would  readily  enable  us  to  identify 
them  with  the  Orientals. 

The  simple  narrative  of  the  Indian  rivals 
the  best  work  of  De  Foe  in  its  quaint  air  of 
truthfulness.  It  was  republished  in  the  "  Re- 
vue d'Anthropologie,"  in  1 88 1, by  M.  de  Quat- 
refages,  who  there  demonstrated  to  his  own 
satisfaction  that  the  journey  was  actually  ac- 
complished, and  that  the  bearded  white  men 
must  have  come  from  Lieou-Tchou,  or  the 
eastern  isles  of  Japan.  Whether  true  or 
false,  the  story  is  interesting.  On  the  one 
hand,  ethnologists  the  world  over  are  con- 
cerned in  its  details,  which  would  go  far  to- 
wards settling  the  origin  of  the  tribes  of 
North  America.  On  the  other,  there  is  add- 
ed to  the  curious  literature  of  hoaxes  a  char- 
acteristic story,  amplified  and  enlarged  for 
purposes  of  deception,  whose  details  fail  to 
reveal  their  origin  in  the  imagination  of  the 
writer,  except  under  the  closest  inspection 
and  with  the  resources  of  a  large  library  at 
hand  for  purposes  of  comparison  and  analy- 
sis. 

The  story  is  so  little  known  that  M.  de 
Quatrefages  congratulates  himself  on  being 
the  first,  as  he  supposes,  to  call  attention  to 
its  ethnological  value,  and  it  is  of  sufficient 
intrinsic  merit  to  rivet  the  attention  of  the 
reader,  if  he  be  endowed  with  but  a  moder- 
ate amount  of  interest  in  historical  subjects. 
To  determine  whether  we  shall  exalt  this  tale 
to  the  position  assigned  it  by  the  French  an- 
thropologist, or  classify  it  with  De  Foe's 


"  Mrs.  Veal  "  and  Locke's  "  Moon  Hoax," 
we  must  first  know  something  of  the  histo- 
rian and  his  surroundings,  and  then  subject 
the  story  itself  to  a  critical  examination. 

In  the  autumn  of  1718,  the  "  Company  of 
the  West "  forwarded  to  America  a  party  of 
eight  hundred  emigrants,  among  whom  was 
M.  Le  Page  du  Pratz.  The  future  author  of 
the  "Histoire  de  la  Louisiane"  settled  first  at 
New  Orleans,  but  very  soon  joined  a  party 
which  was  about  to  start  a  new  village  at 
Natchez.  He  remained  on  the  farm  which 
he  then  acquired  eight  out  of  the  sixteen  years 
that  he  was  in  this  country.  We  gather  from 
his  book  that  he  had  previously  served  in 
the  army  in  Germany,  and  that  he  had  re- 
ceived a  fair  education.  He  tells  us  that  he 
picked  up  the  language  of  the  natives,  and 
he  records  a  variety  of  speculations  concern- 
ing their  origin,  the  mysteries  of  their  relig- 
ion, and  the  laws  regulating  the  hereditary 
succession  of  their  chiefs,  which  indicate  a 
close  observer  and  an  active  mind. 

The  origin  of  the  Indian  tribes  was  to  him 
a  mystery  of  special  interest.  Thinking 
that  some  clue  to  their  migrations  might  be 
discovered  in  the  oral  traditions  of  the  tribes, 
he  lost  no  opportunity  to  talk  with  their  old 
men,  whose  minds  were  stored  with  stories 
handed  down  to  them  from  their  ancestors. 
The  zeal  with  which  he  pursued  his  investi- 
gations is  impressed  upon  us  as  we  read  his 
work,  and  we  are  irresistibly  led  to  compare 
the  fervor  of  the  secluded  ethnologist  upon 
his  farm  in  the  wilderness  with  the  self-sac- 
rificing spirit  of  Lieutenant  Gushing  in  our 
time,  who  is  following  precisely  the  same 
slender  thread  of  research  in  the  Pueblo  of 
the  Zunis.  In  1758  he  published  his  history, 
and,  in  addition  to  the  personal  experiences 
and  observations  there  recorded,  he  has 
treasured  up  for  posterity  in  this  work  much 
that  he  garnered  from  these  conversations. 
He  tells  us  that  he  was  particularly  perplexed 
about  the  origin  of  certain  of  the  red-men 
who  were  found  by  the  Natchez  living  on 
both  sides  of  the  Mississippi  River,  "  for  they 
had  not,  like  the  Natchez,  preserved  their 
traditions,  nor  had  they  arts  and  sciences 
like  the  Mexicans,  from  which  one  can  draw 


1885.] 


Was  it  a  Forgery  ? 


3 


inductions."  It  is  not  difficult  to  imagine  the 
pleasure  with  which  this  solitary  enthusiast, 
pursuing  his  researches  day  by  day  among 
his  red-skinned  neighbors,  learned  that  among 
the  Yazoos,  one  of  the  tribes  whose  history 
was  such  an  enigma  to  him,  there  was  a  kin- 
dred spirit — an  old  man  who  was  himself 
imbued  with  a  love  of  research,  and  who, 
like  Le  Page,  lost  no  opportunity  of  gather- 
ing information  upon  these  subjects;  who 
had  given  up  seven  or  eight  years  of  the 
prime  of  life  to  perilous  travel  in  the  pursuit 
of  knowledge  upon  these  points,  and  who, 
in  his  mellow  old  age,  would  be  glad  to  sit 
and  chat  with  his  fellow  scientist  upon  the 
subject  in  which  they  were  both  interested. 
The  very  name  of  the  old  man,  "  Moncacht- 
Ape," — "One  who  destroys  obstacles  and 
overcomes  fatigue," — was  a  testimonial  to 
the  respect  in  which  his  travels  caused  him 
to  be  held  by  his  friends  ;  while  the  name  by 
which  he  was  known  among  the  French — 
"  The  Interpreter," — was  in  turn  a  tribute  to 
his  extensive  knowledge  of  Indian  tongues, 
acquired  during  his  wanderings. 

The  Yazoo  district  was  distant  from  the 
residence  of  Le  Page  about  forty  leagues. 
It  was  inevitable  that  the  sympathy  of  these 
two  men  should  bring  them  together.  If 
Moncacht-Ape  had  not  come  to  Le  Page, 
Le  Page  must  have  gone  to  Moncacht-Ape. 
Here  were  all  the  elements  to  render  the  story 
immortal — a  good  story-teller  and  an  in- 
terested listener;  a  history  of  personal  ad- 
venture to  be  repeated  to  an  auditor  whose 
heart  sympathized  with  the  motive  for  the 
journey,  whose  hand  cheerfully  responded 
to  the  task  of  recording  what  he  heard,  and 
whose  clear,  lucid  style  preserved  in  transla- 
tion the  truthful  simplicity  of  the  Indian's 
narrative. 

We  can  understand  the  delight  of  Le  Page 
at  a  visit  paid  him  by  this  native  of  the  Ya- 
zoo nation,  and  we  can  appreciate  his  satis- 
faction at  the  evident  pleasure  afforded  the 
Indian  by  the  request  for  "  an  account  of  his 
travels,  omitting  nothing." 

Seated  in  the  rude  cabin  of  this  pioneer  of 
the  Mississippi  valley,  the  native  began  his 
story.  Its  opening  sentence  furnishes  the 


key  to  the  interest  which  has  led  to  the  pres- 
ervation of  the  recqrd  :  "  I  had  lost,"  he 
said,  "  my  wife,  and  the  children  that  I  had 
by  her  were  dead  before  her,  when  I  under- 
took my  trip  to  the  country  where  the  sun 
rises.  I  left  my  village,  notwithstanding  all 
my  relations.  It  was  my  plan  to  take  coun- 
sel with  the  Chicasaws,  our  friends  and  neigh- 
bors. I  remained  there  some  days  to  find 
out  if  they  knew  whence  we  all  came,  or, 
at  least,  if  they  knew  whence  they  themselves 
came — they,  who  are  our  ancestors,  since  it 
is  through  them  that  the  language  of  the 
people  comes ;  but  they  could  tell  me  noth- 
ing new.  For  this  reason  I  resolved  to  visit 
the  people  in  the  country  where  the  sun 
rises,  and  to  find  if  their  old  language  was 
the  same." 

It  was  thus  that  he  announced  the  mission 
in  pursuance  of  which  he  plunged  alone  into 
the  depths  of  the  mighty  forest  which  then 
covered  all  that  portion  of  the  country,  and 
entered  upon  the  solitary  pilgrimage  in  search 
of  knowledge  of  his  ancestors  which  led  him 
first  to  the  shores  of  the  Atlantic,  and  then, 
after  a  brief  rest,  to  that  far-distant  region, 
the  northwestern  coast  of  America,  which 
was  the  bane  of  the  geographer  and  the  hope 
of  the  explorer  of  that  day. 

We  can  easily  identify  the  course  that  he 
took  upon  his  eastern  trip.  His  astonish- 
ment at  the  tides  of  the  Bay  of  Fundy  and 
his  wonder  at  the  Falls  of  Niagara  betray 
themselves  in  expressions  so  delicious  in 
their  simplicity  that  they  amount  almost  to 
arguments  in  favor  of  the  story.  The  lone- 
liness of  the  western  country  at  that  time  is 
brought  vividly  before  our  eyes,  as  we  read 
that  he  floated  down  the  Ohio  River  in  his 
dug-out  without  meeting  any  man  on  the 
way. 

The  only  result  of  this  expedition  was  that 
Moncacht-Ape  had  learned  that  he  must 
turn  his  steps  westward  if  he  would  pursue 
his  investigations.  "  His  failure,"  says  Le 
Page  du  Pratz,  "far  from  extinguishing  the 
desire  that  he  had  to  learn,  only  excited  him 
the  more.  Determined  to  dispel  the  shades 
with  which  he  perceived  that  he  was  sur- 
rounded, he  persisted  in  the  design  of  dis- 


Was  it  a  Forgery  ? 


[July, 


covering  the  origin  of  his  people ;  a  design 
which  demanded  as  much  spirit  as  courage, 
and  which  would  never  have  entered  the 
brain  of  an  ordinary  man.  He  determined 
then  to  go  from  nation  to  nation  until  he 
should  find  himself  in  the  country  from 
which  his  ancestors  migrated,  being  persuad- 
ed that  he  could  then  learn  many  things 
forgotten  by  them  in  their  travels. 

His  preparations  being  made,  he  started 
upon  his  journey  up  the  Mississippi  valley. 
He  crossed  the  Ohio  on  a  raft  of  canes  at  a 
point  high  enough  above  its  mouth  to  pre- 
vent his  being  swept  by  the  current  into  the 
Mississippi,  and  began  his  journey  upon  the 
prairies.  Crossing  the  lower  part  of  what  we 
now  know  as  the  State  of  Illinois,  he  pre- 
pared to  cross  the  great  river,  so  as  to  land 
to  the  north  of  the  mouth  of  the  Missouri, 
using  the  same  means  and  taking  the  same 
precautions  that  he  did  when  he  crossed  the 
Ohio.  His  graphic  description  of  the  min- 
gling of  the  waters  of  the  Missouri  and  the 
Mississippi  is  another  of  the  startling  land- 
marks which  we  reach  from  time  to  time  in 
this  story,  which  bear  witness  to  the  fact 
that  the  speaker  had  seen  what  he  talked 
about. 

For  several  days  after  this  he  ascended 
the  north  bank  of  the  Missouri  until  he 
reached  the  Missouri  Nation,  with  whom  he 
remained  during  the  winter,  and  thus  learned 
their  language.  He  was  much  impressed 
with  the  enormous  herds  of  buffaloes  which 
thronged  the  prairies,  and  speaks  of  the  diet 
of  the  Missouris  as  being  almost  exclusively 
meat.  The  winter  being  over,  he  renewed 
his  journey  up  the  Missouri  till  he  came  to  a 
tribe  called  by  Le  Page  the  Canzes,  but 
which  the  Indian  speaks  of  as  the  Nation  of 
the  West.  From  them  he  learned  somewhat 
of  the  difficulties  of  the  journey  which  was 
still  before  him,  and  he  heard  for  the  first 
time  of  the  head-waters  of  another  river 
near  those  of  the  Missouri,  but  flowing  from 
east  to  west.  He  was  advised  to  leave  the 
Missouri  after  traveling  up  its  course  for 
about  a  month,  and  to  strike  across  to  the 
northward  to  the  headwaters  of  this  other 
river,  which  he  could  thus  reach  in  about 


seven  days'  journey.  He  was  informed  that 
he  wouid  find  upon  the  banks  of  this  river  a 
tribe,  called  the  "Otters,"  who  would  re- 
ceive him  kindly,  and  from  them  he  could 
learn  what  was  necessary  for  him  to  do  in 
order  to  further  pursue  his  explorations.  So 
far  as  the  journey  in  the  river  was  concerned, 
he  could  descend  it  in  a  dug-out,  traveling 
great  distances  without  fatigue. 

Following  the  instructions  of  his  friends, 
he  ascended  the  Missouri  for  one  moon,  but 
he  hesitated  to  strike  across  the  country  to 
the .  northward  at  the  proper  point,  for  he 
was  among  the  mountains,  and  feared  that 
he  might  become  footsore  in  crossing  the 
rocky  passes.  The  time,  however,  had  come 
when  he  must  make  up  his  mind  whether  to 
take  the  course  which  had  been  advised,  or 
abandon  it  altogether ;  and  he  had  arrived 
at  the  conclusion  that  he  must  act  the  next 
day,  when  by  a  lucky  chance,  he  saw  smoke 
ascending  from  a  distant  camp-fire.  Sus- 
pecting that  the  party  could  only  be  hunters 
from  the  tribe  of  which  he  was  in  search,  he 
took  advantage  of  the  remaining  daylight  to 
guide  himself  by  this  smoke  to  the  camp. 
He  was  kindly  received,  notwithstanding  the 
surprise  which  his  appearance  occasioned, 
and  the  fact  that  communication  could  be 
interchanged  only  by  signs.  In  thus  meet- 
ing these  hunters  at  this  critical  moment  he 
was  very  fortunate,  for  when,  in  the  course 
of  a  few  days,  he,  with  a  portion  of  the  par- 
ty, proceeded  towards  their  home,  instead 
of  striking  at  once  across  the  country  to  the 
northward,  as  he  was  about  to  do,  they  as- 
cended the  Missouri  for  nine  short  days' 
journey  farther,  and  then  traveled  five  days 
to  the  northward  before  reaching  a  river  with 
clear,  beautiful  water,  flowing  to  the  west, 
which  they  called  "la  belle  Riviere." 

Down  the  banks  of  this  stream  they  trav- 
eled, until  they  reached  the  spot  where  the 
boats  of  the  party  had  been  concealed. 
Here  his  guide  selected  his  own  boat,  and 
the  party  descended  to  their  village,  which 
they  reached  the  same  night.  After  a  brief 
stay,  he  started  from  this  place  in  company 
with  a  party  who  were  bound  down  the  river 
on  a  visit  of  ceremony,  to  smoke  the  pipe  of 


1885.] 


Was  it  a  Forgery  ? 


peace  with  a  tribe,  who,  he  says,  were  broth- 
ers of  those  whom  he  was  about  to  quit,  and 
spoke  the  same  language  with  some  slight 
changes.  For  eighteen  days  this  expedition 
floated  down  the  river,  putting  on  shore  from 
time  to  time  to  hunt.  The  contrast  between 
this  easy  method  of  traveling,  and  his  weari- 
some ascent  of  the  Missouri  was  so  great 
that  it  fired  the  enthusiasm  of  our  pilgrim, 
and  he  was  for  pushing  on.  from  this  he  was 
dissuaded  by  his  friends,  who  advised  him  to 
learn  the  language  used  by  the  tribes  farther 
west  before  doing  so.  He  had  apparently 
reached  a  point  in  his  journey  where  all  the 
tribes  that  he  might  be  expected  to  encoun- 
ter were  supposed  to  speak  different  dialects 
of  the  same  language. 

He  lingered  awhile,  but  before  warm 
weather  was  entirely  over,  he  was  off  again, 
this  time  alone  in  a  dug-out.  Equipped 
simply  with  what  was  essential  for  traveling, 
including  some  sort  of  a  substitute  for  maize 
in  his  diet,  he  pathetically  observed,  "  Noth- 
ing would  have  been  wanting  if  I  had  had 
some  Indian  corn."  He  was  surprised  to 
find  that  maize  was  not  cultivated  in  this  re- 
gion, although  the  soil  seemed  to  him  to  be 
good.  Floating  down  the  river  at  his  ease, 
he  came  to  a  tribe  where  short  hair  was 
looked  upon  as  a  badge  of  servitude.  In 
consequence  of  the  shortness  of  his  own 
hair,  a  tart  colloquy  ensued  on  the  bank  of 
the  river  between  himself  and  the  chief  of 
the  tribe.  Finally  he  landed,  and  was  cor- 
dially received  by  the  father  of  the  chief,  a 
very  old  man,  to  whom  he  had  been  com- 
mended by  an  old  man  among  his  friends, 
the  "  Otters."  "  Learning,"  he  says,  "  from 
what  parts  I  had  come,  he  received  me  as  if 
I  were  his  son,  took  me  into  his  cabin,  and 
had  all  that  was  in  my  dug-out  brought  there. 
The  next  day  he  taught  me  those  things 
that  I  wished  to  know,  and  assured  me  that 
all  the  nations  on  the  shores  of  the  Great- 
Water  would  receive  me  well  on  telling  them 
that  I  was  the  friend  of  Big  Roebuck.  I  re- 
mained there  only  two  days,  during  which 
time  he  caused  to  be  made  some  gruel  from 
certain  small  grains — smaller  than  French 
peas — which  are  very  good,  which  pleased 


me  all  the  more,  because  for  so  long  a  time 
I  had  eaten  only  meat." 

From  this  point  to  the  coast  he  appears  to 
have  made  the  descent  of  the  Columbia 
alone.  He  does  not  enumerate  the  tribes 
through  which  he  passed,  but  simply  says  he 
did  not  stop  more  than  one  day  with  each 
of  them.  The  last  of  these  nations  he  found 
at  the  distance  of  one  day's  journey  from  the 
ocean,  and  also  at  a  distance  of  about  a 
league  from  the  river.  "  They  remain,"  he 
says,  "  in  the  woods,  to  conceal  themselves, 
as  they  say,  from  the  bearded  men.  I  was 
received  in  this  nation  as  if  I  had  arrived  in 
my  family,  and  while  there  I  had  good  cheer 
of  all  sorts;  for  they  have  in  this  country 
an  abundance  of  the  grain  of  which  Big 
Roebuck  had  made  me  a  gruel,  and  although 
it  springs  up  without  being  sowed,  it  is  bet- 
ter than  any  other  grain  that  I  have  eaten. 
There  are  some  large  bluebirds  which  come 
to  feed  upon  this  grain,  which  they  kill, 
because  they  are  good.  These  people  have 
also  meat  from  the  water.  It  is  an  animal 
which  comes  ashore  to  eat  grass.  It  has  a 
head  shaped  like  a  young  buffalo,  but  not  of 
the  same  color.  They  eat  also  many  fish 
from  the  Great- Water,  which  are  larger  and 
much  better  than  our  large  brills,  as  well  as 
a  large  variety  of  shell-fish,  some  of  which 
are  very  beautiful. 

"Although  they  live  well  in  this  country, 
it  is  necessary  to  be  on  the  watch  against 
the  bearded  men,  who  do  all  they  can  to 
carry  away  the  young  people,  but  have  never 
captured  any  of  the  men,  although  they  could 
have  done  so.  They  told  me  that  these  men 
were  white,  that  they  had  long,  black  beards, 
which  fell  upon  their  breasts,  that  they  were 
short  and  thick  of  stature,  and  covered  their 
heads,  which  were  large,  with  cloth  ;  that 
they  always  wore  clothing,  even  in  the  hot- 
test weather ;  that  their  coats  fall  to  the  mid- 
.  die  of  their  legs,  which,  as  well  as  their  feet, 
were  covered  with  red  or  yellow  cloth.  For 
the  rest,  they  did  not  know  of  what  their  cloth- 
ing was  made,  because  they  had  never  been 
able  to  kill  one,  their  arms  making  a  great 
noise  and  a  great  fire.  Nevertheless,  they 
retire  when  they  see  more  red  men  than  their 


6 


Was  it  a  Forgery? 


[July, 


own  number,  and  then  go  aboard  their  vessel, 
where  they  number  sometimes  thirty,  never 
more." 

The  story  of  these  Indians  was  that  the 
mysterious  bearded  men  came  from  the  west 
each  year,  in  the  spring  time,  in  search  of  a 
certain  wood  valuable  as  dyewood,  which 
they  described  as  being  yellow  and  as  having 
a  disagreeable  smell.  In  order  to  relieve 
themselves  from  the  fear  of  losing  some  of 
their  young  people  by  capture  on  the  occa- 
sion of  these  annual  visits,  this  tribe  followed 
the  advice  of  one  of  their  old  men,  and 
killed  off  all  the  specimens  of  this  tree  near 
the  river,  leaving  for  their  own  use  only  scat- 
tered trees  in  the  interior.  This  had  the 
desired  effect,  so  far  as  visits  to  the  lands  of 
this  particular  tribe  was  concerned;  but 
some  of  their  neighbors  could  not  imitate 
their  action,  because  the  yellow  wood  was 
the  only  wood  that  they  had,  and  the  bearded 
men  transferred  their  visits  to  that  part  of  the 
coast.  These  others  had  apparently,  in  turn, 
endured  this  periodical  fear  for  the  safety  of 
their  young  people  until  the  burden  was  too 
great  for  their  patience,  and  the  arrival  of 
Moncacht-Ape'  at  the  time  when  the  annual 
visit  of  the  bearded  men  was  impending, 
found  the  several  tribes  of  this  part  of  the 
coast  prepared  for  a  formidable  rendezvous 
at  the  customary  landing-place  of  the  vessel. 
They  hoped  through  their  great  superiority 
of  numbers  to  destroy  the  expedition,  so 
that  others  would  be  frightened  and  prevent- 
ed from  coming.  The  presence  among 
them  at  such  a  time  of  a  man  who  had  seen 
fire-arms  and  who  had  met  white  men  was 
especially  gratifying  to  them,  and  they  urged 
him  to  accompany  them,  adding  that  their 
expedition  lay  in  the  same  direction  that  he 
must  go.  Even  while  thus  joining  his  friends 
on  the  war-path,  this  remarkable  savage 
frankly  admits  that  he  was  influenced  by  his 
thirst  for  knowledge. 

"  I  replied  that  my  heart  found  that  it  was 
good  that  I  should  go  with  them.  In  that 
I  had  a  desire  that  I  wished  to  satisfy.  I 
was  anxious  to  see  these  bearded  men  who 
could  not  resemble  the  French,  the  English, 
nor  the  Spaniards  that  I  had  seen,  all  of 


whom  trim  their  beards  and  wear  different 
clothes.  My  cheerful  assent  created  much 
pleasure  among  these  people,  who  thought 
with  reason  that  a  man  who  had  seen  whites 
and  many  nations  ought  to  have  more  in- 
telligence than  those  who  had  never  left  their 
homes  and  had  only  seen  red  men." 

The  place  of  rendezvous  was  to  the  north- 
ward five  days'  journey,  and  here  the  Indians 
assembled  at  the  appointed  time.  They 
waited  seventeen  days  for  the  bearded  men 
before  there  were  signs  of  their  arrival,  when 
two  vessels  were  seen  to  approach.  A  skill- 
ful ambuscade  had  been  arranged  under  the 
advice  of  Moncacht-Ape,  which  in  the  event 
of  their  landing  and  dispersing  as  usual  to 
cut  wood,  promised  the  annihilation  of  those 
who  landed.  But  the  white  men,  instead  of 
landing  at  once,  busied  themselves  for  three 
days  "  in  filling  with  fresh  water  vessels  of 
wood  similar  to  those  in  which  the  French 
place  fire-water."  It  was  not  until  the  fourth 
day  that  they  went  ashore  to  cut  wood. 
"Then,"  says  Moncacht-Ape",  "the  Indians 
carried  out  the  attack  which  I  had  advised. 
Nevertheless  they  killed  only  eleven;  I 
do  not  know  why  it  is  that  red  men,  who  are 
so  sure  in  shooting  at  game,  aim  so  badly  at 
their  enemies.  The  rest  gained  their  vessels 
and  fled  upon  the  Great- Water,  where  we  fol- 
lowed them  with  our  eyes  and  finally  lost 
them.  They  were  as  much  intimidated  by 
our  numbers  as  we  were  afraid  of  their  fire- 
arms. 

"We  then  went  to  examine  the  dead 
which  remained  with  us.  They  were  much 
smaller  in  stature  than  we  were,  and  were 
very  white.  Their  heads  were  large,  and 
their  bodies  large  enough  for  their  height. 
Their  hair  was  long  only  in  the  middle  of 
the  head.  They  did  not  wear  hats,  like  you, 
but  their  heads  were  twisted  around  with 
cloth.  Their  clothes  were  neither  woolen 
nor  made  of  bark,  but  something  similar  to 
your  old  shirts,  very  soft  and  of  different  col- 
ors. That  which  covered  their  legs  and  their 
feet  was  of  a  single  piece.  I  wished  to  try 
on  one  of  their  coverings,  but  my  feet  would 
not  enter  it. 

"  All  the  natives  assembled  in  this  place 


1885.] 


Was  it  a  Forgery  ? 


divided  up  their  garments,  their  beards,  and 
their  scalps.  Of  the  eleven  killed,  two  only 
had  firearms  and  powder  and  balls.  Al- 
though I  did  not  know  as  much  about  fire- 
arms as  I  do  now,  still,  inasmuch  as  I  had 
seen  some  in  Canada,  I  wished  to  try  them. 
I  found  that  they  did  not  kill  as  far  as  yours. 
They  were  much  heavier.  The  powder  was 
mixed — coarse,  medium,  and  fine — but  the 
coarse  was  in  greater  quantity.  See  what  I 
have  observed  concerning  the  bearded  men, 
and  the  way  in  which  the  Indians  relieved 
themselves  of  them.  After  this  I  thought 
only  of  continuing  my  journey." 

Joining  a  party  of  natives  who  lived 
further  north,  he  traveled  with  them  along 
the  coast  of  the  northwest  to  their  homes, 
where  he  remained  for  several  days.  "  I 
noticed,"  he  says,  "  that  the  days  were  much 
longer  than  with  us,  and  the  nights  very 
short.  I  wanted  to  know  from  them  the 
reason,  but  they  could  not  tell  me." 

"  The  old  men  advised  me  that  it  would 
be  useless  to  go  farther.  They  said  the  coast 
still  extended  for  a  great  distanqe  to  the 
northwest ;  that  then  it  turned  short  to  the 
west,  and  finally  it  was  cut  through  by  the 
Great- Water  from  north  to  south." 

He  found  a  tradition  among  this  people 
that  these  straits  were  once  dry  land,  and 
the  Asiatic  and  American  coasts  were  united. 
He  had  now  reached  a  point  so  far  north 
that  his  friends  dissuaded  him  from  proceed- 
ing on  the  ground  of  the  harshness  of  the  cli- 
mate, the  sterility  of  the  country,  the  scarc- 
ity of  game,  and  the  consequent  lack  of  in- 
habitants. They  all  advised  him  to  return 
home.  This  he  did  by  the  same  route  as  that 
which  he  took  in  going,  and  the  story  of  his 
return  trip  he  condensed  into  a  few  words. 
When  questioned  as  to  the  time  which  he 
should  require  to  repeat  the  trip,  he  replied 
that  he  could  go  over  the  same  ground  again 
in  thirty-two  moons,  although  the  original 
trip  had  occupied  five  years. 

This  story,  romantic  as  it  is  in  tone,  and 
interesting  as  its  details  are  to  the  student  in 
ethnology,  has  never  attracted  much  public 
attention.  It  has  not,  however,  been  entire- 
ly overlooked.  As  early  as  1765  it  was  sub- 


jected by  Mr.  Samuel  Engel  to  a  careful 
analysis,  in  a  paper  devoted  to  the  discussion 
of  certain  geographical  questions.  He  con- 
structed a  chart  which  he  published  with  his 
paper,  on  which  he  laid  down  the  Indian's 
path,  the  course  of  the  Missouri,  and  that  of 
the  Beautiful  River,  and  he  shows  the  point 
upon  the  coast  where  Moncacht-Ap^  turned 
back.  The  point  reached  by  Moncacht-Ape" 
is  also  entered  upon  a  chart  in  a  supple- 
mental volume  of  plates  of  the  French  En- 
cyclopoedia,  which  was  published  in  1777. 
The  story  was  translated  by  Mr.  Andrew 
Stuart,  and  published  in  the  proceedings 
of  the  Quebec  Literary  and  Historical  So- 
ciety, in  1829.  Greenhow,  whose  "  His- 
tory of  Oregon"  was  the  only  creditable 
result  of  the  "  fifty-four  forty  or  fight  "  cry, 
refers  to  it  with  a  qualified  approval.  It  is 
not  surprising,  however,  that  the  attention  of 
M.  de  Quatrefages  was  not  attracted  to  either 
of  these  authorities,  and  it  is  not  unlikely 
that  other  writers  may  also  have  discussed 
the  credibility  of  the  story.  Mr.  H.  H.  Ban- 
croft, in  a  volume  of  his  history  which  has 
been  issued  since  the  publication  of  the  pa- 
per referred  to,  devotes  a  chapter  to  the  story 
of  the  Indian. 

In  making  our  examination  of  the  proba- 
ble truth  of  this  story,  we  must  bear  in  mind 
that  Le  Page  du  Pratz  was  manifestly  a  the- 
orist and  an  enthusiast.  To  him  the  roman- 
tic notion  that  this  venerable  red-skin  had 
undertaken  his  journey  for  the  purpose  of 
hunting  up  a  genealogical  record  would  be 
conspicuously  apparent,  where  the  thought 
of  such  a  motive  might  have  been  entirely 
overlooked  by  one  not  afflicted  with  the  eth- 
nological craze.  Filled  with  his  peculiar  no- 
tions, his  natural  tendency  would  be  to  ex- 
aggerate such  portions  of  the  tale  as  coincid- 
ed with  his  views,  and  to  hold  back  other 
details  which  perhaps  another  person  would 
have  regarded  as  more  important.  But,  how- 
ever this  may  be,  was  the  journey  itself  a 
possibility  ?  Could  this  solitary  traveler  have 
penetrated  a  region  the  secrets  of  which  were 
withheld  from  public  knowledge  until  they 
were  yielded  to  the  bold  attacks  of  Lewis 
and  Clark  in  the  year  1804? 


8 


Was  it  a  Forgery  ? 


[July, 


Cabe£a  de  Vaca  with  his  three  compan- 
ions, tossed  about  from  tribe  to  tribe,  half 
starved  and  terribly  maltreated,  was  nine 
years  in  making  his  way  across  the  continent, 
but  he  finally  reached  a  place  of  safety  un- 
der the  Spanish  flag  on  the  Pacific  slope. 
Colonel  Dodge,  in  "  Our  Wild  Indians,"  tells 
of  an  Indian  who  traveled  "  on  foot,  gener- 
ally alone,  from  the  banks  of  the  Mississippi 
to  the  mouth  of  the  Columbia,  and  who  af- 
terwards in  repeated  journeys  crossed  and 
recrossed,  north,  south,  east,  and  west,  the 
vast  expanse  of  wilderness,  until  he  seemed 
to  know  every  stream  and  mountain  of  the 
whole  great  continent."  Captain  Marcy,  in 
"The  Prairie  Traveler,"  tells  of  another, 
who  "  had  set  his  traps  and  spread  his  blan- 
kets upon  the  head-waters  of  trie  Missouri 
and  Columbia,  and  his  wanderings  had  led 
him  south  to  the  Colorado  and  Gila,  and 
thence  to  the  shores  of  the  Pacific." 

Granting,  then,  the  physical  possibility  of 
the  trip,  the  question,  What  could  Mon- 
cacht-Ape  or  Le  Page  have  known  about  the 
Columbia  River?  must  be  answered,  before 
we  can  estimate  at  its  proper  value  the  argu- 
ment based  upon  the  coincidences  of  the 
narrative  with  subsequent  discovery.  What 
there  was  of  rumor  or  statement  about  this 
region  could  at  that  time  have  come  only 
from  Indian  sources.  The  interview  between 
Le  Page  and  the  Indian  must  have  taken 
place  about  1725.  The  Indian  was  an  old 
man,  and  the  journey  was  a  story  drawn 
from  his  memory.  If  we  allow  that  the  trip 
took  place  about  1700,  we  shall  not  place  it 
too  early.  We  have  no  authentic  account 
of  the  landing  of  any  white  man  on  the 
Pacific  Coast  north  of  43°  N.  prior  to  that 
time.  There  were,  however,  among  the  In- 
dians in  the  Mississippi  Valley,  rumors  con- 
cerning a  great  sea  to  the  west,  and  a  great 
river  flowing  into  it,  and  stories  about  them 
were  passed  from  mouth  to  mouth,  treading 
closely  upon  facts  and  suggesting  a  founda- 
tion in  actual  knowledge.  The  various 
writers  of  that  day  record  enough  concerning 
the  rivers  flowing  westerly  and  the  sea  into 
which  they  empty  to  convince  one  who  ex- 
amines the  subject  that  the  Indians  knew 


about  the  Columbia,  and  probably  also  about 
the  Colorado  rivers.  There  was  no  knowl- 
edge in  detail  of  the  character  of  the  Pacific 
Coast  or  of  its  inhabitants  ;  but  the  rumor 
passed  from  mouth  to  mouth  of  the  river, 
the  ocean,  and  also  of  visits  from  foreigners 
whom  the  French  fathers  identified  with  the 
Chinese  or  Japanese.  All  such  information 
would  naturally  be  accepted  by  the  contem- 
poraries and  friends  of  Le  Page  as  corrobor- 
ating his  story ;  but  with  us  it  simply  tends 
to  reduce  the  value  of  the  argument  of  coin- 
cidences. 

During  the  time  that  Le  Page  du  Pratz 
was  in  Louisiana,  an  officer  named  Dumont 
was  stationed  there.  In  1753  he  published 
a  description  of  the  country  with  an  account 
of  his  life  there,  entitled  "  Memoires  de  la 
Louisiane."  He  also  gives  an  account  of 
the  journey  of  Moncacht-Ab£ — as  he  calls 
him — -whom  he  says  in  the  preface  he  knew. 
The  account  of  the  journey,  however,  he 
credits  to  a  friend,  who  was,  as  we  are  told 
in  a  note,  Le  Page  du  Pratz.  It  is  a  curious 
fact  that  this  version  of  the  story,  although 
purporting  to  come  from  the  same  source  as 
the  other,  has  an  entirely  different  ending. 
In  Dumont's  account  there  is  no  fight  with  the 
bearded  men,  no  gunpowder  with  its  pecu- 
liar mixture  of  different  sized  grains,  no  jour- 
ney  to  the  north  along  the  coast,  and  no 
speculations  as  to  Behring's  Straits.  Instead 
of  all  this,  the  Indian  is  prevented  from 
reaching  the  coast  by  a  hostile  tribe.  He 
joins  a  war  party  against  them,  secures  a  fe- 
male slave,  whom  he  marries,  wins  her  con- 
fidence by  kindness,  and  from  her  mouth  re- 
ceives the  narrative  of  the  arrival  of  the 
bearded  men,  the  vessels  with  masts  and 
sails,  the  boat  that  goes  and  comes  between 
the  larger  vessel  and  the  shore,  and  the  tak- 
ing in  of  water  and  yellow  dyewoods,  all  told 
with  the  same  air  of  truthfulness  and  sim- 
plicity which  gives  so  much  weight  to  the 
Other  version.  "  They  were  five  days,"  said 
she,  "  taking  in  wood  and  water,  after  which 
they  all  returned  into  the  large  vessel,  with- 
out our  being  able  to  understand  how  they 
could  raise  the  smaller  vessel  into  the  large 
•  one,  because  we  were  so  far  off.  After  that, 


1885.] 


Was  it  a  Forgery  ? 


9 


having  caused  the  thing  which  was  hung  high 
up  on  the  great  vessel  to  inflate,  they  were 
borne  far  off,  and  disappeared  from  sight  as 
if  they  had  entered  the  water." 

Which  of  the -two  men  is  responsible  for 
the  difference  in  the  endings  of  the  two  ver- 
sions of  the  story?  The  two  books  were 
published  about  the  same  time — Dumont's 
in  1753,  Le  Page'sin  1758.  Prior,  however, 
to  this  date,  Le  Page  had  published  in  the 
"  Journal  CEconomique  "  what  he  terms  an 
abridgment  of  his  history.  Dumont,  in  his 
"  Memoires,"  accuses  Le  Page  of  borrowing 
his  manuscript  and  of  appropriating  his  work; 
and  while  repeatedly  speaking  of  him  as  his 
friend,  charges  him  with  inaccuracies,  blun- 
ders, and  falsehood.  The  credulity  of  the 
reader  of  the  "  Memoires  "  is  taxed  by  the 
author's  assertion  that  he  saw  a  rattlesnake 
twenty-two  feet  in  length,  and  a  frog  that 
weighed  thirty-two  pounds.  On  the  other 
hand,  Le  Page's  volumes  are  free  from  all 
exaggeration  of  statement,  are  void  of  per- 
sonalities, and  except  for  certain  speculations 
on  the  origin  of  the  native  races  and  their 
religion,  which  betray  a  fondness  on  his  part 
for  theories  of  his  own,  seem  perfectly 
reliable.  Were  it  not  for  the  fact  that  Le 
Page  must  have  been  in  France  at  the  time 
of  the  publication  of  Dumont's  book,  where 
he  could  hardly  have  escaped  seeing  the  ver- 
sion of  the  storjr  there  given,  with  himself  as 
authority,  we  should  have  little  hesitation  in 
charging  Dumont  with  the  responsibility  for 
the  change.  As  it  is,  however,  we  must 
search  further  for  a  satisfactory  explanation 
of  the  two  endings. 

About  the  same  time  that  these  books 
were  going  through  the  press,  a  great  war 
was  going  on  among  the  European  cartog- 
raphers on  the  subject  of  the  northwest  coast 
of  America.  Into  this  war  our  two  historians 
drifted.  Dumont  ranged  himself  with  his 
countrymen.  For  Le  Page  to  have  taken 
the  same  step,  would  have  been  to  abandon 
Moncacht-Ape'.  We  may  feel  sure  that  if 
Le  Page  originally  believed  in  the  story  of 
the  Indian,  the  fires  of  his  faith,  now  that  he 
had  become  mixed  up  in  this  partisan  con- 
troversy which  questioned  its  truth,  would- 


be  fanned  to  a  fiercer  glow;  while,  if  the 
story  was  a  fiction  of  his  own  construction, 
he  would  avail  himself  of  any  opportunity  to 
build  it  up  and  increase  its  strength. 

In  the  sixteen  years  which  elapsed  between 
the  return  of  Behring's  expedition  and 
the  publication  of  Le  Page's  History,  more 
or  less  of  the  information  gathered  by  that 
expedition  had  been  furnished  to  the  public. 
With  his  senses  sharpened  by  participation 
in  the  war  of  the  geographers,  it  would  not 
be  wonderful  if  Le  Page  had  heard  that  the 
natives  of  the  coast  were  in  the  habit  of  eat- 
ing roots,  and  that  the  seals  furnished  them 
with  meat.  There  had,  however,  been  no 
such  publication  of  these  facts  as  would  jus- 
tify us  in  saying  that  he  must  have  known 
them. 

The  outline  of  our  coast,  as  suggested  by 
Moncacht-Ap^  in  his  travels,  shows  a  much 
better  conception  of  the  facts  than  do  the 
hypothetical  maps  of  the  French  cartogra- 
phers, which  were  hampered  in  their  con- 
struction by  the  fictions  of  Fonte  and  Mal- 
donado.  The  Russians  published  a  chart 
about  this  time,  based  upon  knowledge 
which  was  public  and  freed  from  the  preju- 
dices of  upholding  geographical  theories, 
which  corresponds  very  closely  with  our 
coast  as  we  now  know  it,  and  would  easily 
answer  to  Moncacht-Ape's  general  descrip- 
tion. 

To  just  the  extent  that  we  may  believe  Le 
Page  to  have  come  into  possession  of  the 
knowledge  upon  these  subjects  which  we 
have  shown  to  have  been  possibly  within  his 
reach,  will  the  argument  of  coincidences  be- 
tween the  stat  ements  of  the  Indian  and  the 
revelations  of  subsequent  discoveries  be 
weakened.  It  depends  upon  our  views  on 
this  point  what  weight  we  shall  give  to  the  In- 
dian's astonishment  at  the  absence  of  Indian 
corn,  his  yearning  for  it,  and  the  inadequacy 
of  the  breadstuff  furnished  him  as  a  substi- 
tute— the  natural  and  probable  experience  of 
a  traveler  over  this  route.  So,  too,  with  ref- 
erence to  the  use  of  seal's  meat  as  food. 

And  now,  what  about  the  bearded  men, 
who  came  habitually  to  the  coast  with  such 
regularity  that  their  arrival  could  be  predict- 


10 


Riparian  Rights  from  another  Standpoint. 


[July, 


ed  within  a  few  days ;  whose  purpose  sim- 
ply was  to  get  a  cargo  of  dye  wood,  and  who 
had  no  expectation  of  traffic  in  their  annual 
visits  ?  If  we  admit  this  part  of  the  story  to 
be  true,  we  shall  have  no  difficulty  in  accept- 
ing the  learned  argument  of  M.  de  Quatre- 
fages  to  prove  that  the  foreigners  came  from 
Lieou-Tchou  or  the  eastern  islands  of  Japan, 
but  if  we  submit  the  tale  to  a  careful  scru- 
tiny, it  is  not  an  easy  one  to  believe. 

There  is  not  sufficient  evidence  to  justify 
the  belief  that  the  Japanese  or  Chinese  ever 
made  such  ventursome  voyages.  We  have 
both  record  and  tradition  of  the  arrival  of 
Japanese  vessels  on  our  coast,  but  they  were 
plainly  unwilling  visitors.  There  is  no  known 
wood  upon  our  coast  of  particular  value  as  a 
dye-wood,  and  there  is  no  part  of  the  North 
Pacific  coast  where  the  extermination  of  a 
particular  tree  would  leave  the  inhabitants 
without  wood.  The  collection  of  a  cargo  of 
dye-wood  in  a  country  which  has  no  wood 
valuable  for  that  purpose  is  not  a  sufficient 
motive  for  the  annual  voyage.  If,  for  the 
purpose  of  rendering  the  story  more  plausi- 
ble, we  admit  that  the  bearded  men  came 
for  the  purposes  of  trade,  then  we  should 
expect  to  find  some  traces  of  its  existence  in 
the  hands  of  the  Indians.  A  careful  exam- 
ination of  the  authorities  does  not  disclose 
any  evidence  of  such  a  trade  ever  having  ex- 
isted. 


Our  conclusions,  then,  are  that  the  journey 
of  the  Indian  was  not  only  a  possibility,  but 
that  the  accumulation  of  testimony  showing 
knowledge  of  the  river  and  sea  of  the  West 
bears  evidence  of  the  existence  of  intercourse 
between  the  tribes  inhabiting  the  valleys  of 
the  Mississippi  and  the  Columbia.  We  can 
not  accept  as  probable  the  habitual  visita- 
tions of  the  bearded  men;  and  since  Dumont 
acknowledges  that  he  receives  the  version 
that  he  gives  from  the  lips  of  Le  Page,  we 
must  hold  Le  Page  responsible  for  their  in- 
troduction in  the  story  and  for  the  double 
endings.  That  Moncacht-Ape'  existed,  that 
he  had  a  reputation  as  a  traveler,  and  that 
he  made  some  such  trip  as  is  described  in 
the  story,  may  be  inferred  from  Dumont's 
statement  that  he  knew  the  Indian ;  and  al- 
though he  does  not  give  full  credit  to  the 
story,  still  his  publication  of  it  shows  that  he 
felt  that  there  might  be  some  foundation  for  it. 

Should  the  students  who  may  hereafter 
have  access  to  Oriental  records  find  mate- 
rial there  which  will  justify  the  belief  that  the 
shores  of  the  North  Pacific  Coast  of  Amer- 
ica were  frequently  visited  by  the  Japan- 
ese or  Chinese,  we  shall  gladly  withdraw 
our  conclusions  that  a  large  part  of  the  story 
of  Moncacht-Ape",  as  told  by  Le  Page  du 
Pratz,  is  to  be  assigned  to  the  literature  of 
hoaxes,  and  cheerfully  join  in  restoring  it 
to  the  region  of  history. 

Andrew  McFarland  Davis. 


RIPARIAN   RIGHTS  FROM   ANOTHER   STANDPOINT. 


WHAT  can  be  done  in  the  matter  of  irri- 
gation by  the  State  of  California  ?  How  far 
and  in  what  manner  can  the  waters  of  our 
streams  be  diverted  from  their  natural  chan- 
nels for  the  purpose  of  rendering  fruitful  the 
great  arid  valleys  of  the  State  ?  These  are 
destined  to  become  shortly  the  most  promi- 
nent questions  of  the  day,  because  within  a 
few  years  a  great  effort  will  be  made  to  util- 
ize to  their  utmost  the  waters  flowing  from  the 
Sierras  in  the  work  of  irrigation.  The  Sac- 
ramento and  San  Joaquin  valleys  are  now, 


for  the  most  part,  treeless  plains.  The  late 
rains  enable  the  growth  of  small  grains,  but 
forage  plants,  fruits,  and  vines  cannot  be 
grown  with  success.  A  thousand  acres  will 
not  afford  a  reasonable  living  to  more  than 
one  family.  Were  it  possible  by  a  network 
of  ditches  to  bring  into  these  valleys  an 
abundant  supply  of  water,  a  metamorphosis 
could  and  would  be  accomplished  in  their 
agricultural  condition.  The  soil  is  rich  and 
the  climate  warm.  With  the  requisite  mois- 
ture, forage  plants,  trees,  and  vines  would 


1885.] 


Riparian  Rights  from  another  Standpoint. 


11 


grow  with  rapidity  and  luxuriance.  The 
broad  valleys  would  become  a  vast  garden 
laid  out  in  orchards,  vineyards,  alfalfa  and 
grain  fields.  One  hundred  acres  would 
yield  an  increase  sufficient  to  support  a  fam- 
ily in  affluence. 

In  the  June  number  of  the  OVERLAND 
a  very  able  article  discussed  the  power  of  the 
State  legislature  to  make  the  waters  of  our 
streams  public  property,  and  the  justice  and 
wisdom  of  the  common  law  doctrine  of  ripar- 
ian rights  as  applied  to  the  State  of  Califor- 
nia. The  writer  concluded  in  favor  of  the 
existence  of  the  power  mentioned,  and  pro- 
nounced the  common  law  doctrine  as  thus 
applied  unwise  and  unjust. 

The  correctness  of  his  conclusions  may 
well  be  doubted.  The  State  government 
has  not  the  power  to  declare  the  waters  of 
the  streams  of  this  State  public  property. 
At  common  law,  the  owner  of  land  upon  a 
stream  has  a  right  to  the  use  of  the  waters 
thereof  for  household  purposes  and  for  water- 
ing his  stock;  to  the  natural  irrigation  of  his 
land,  worked  by  the  percolation  of  the  wa- 
ters through  the  soil ;  to  the  use  of  the  waters 
for  artificial  irrigation,  so  far  as  it  is  consis- 
tent with  the  undiminished  flow  of  the 
stream ;  and  to  the  water  power  derivable 
from  the  natural  fall  of  the  stream  while 
passing  his  land.  He  is  entitled  to  have  the 
waters  flow  down  as  they  have  flowed  from 
time  immemorial,  undiminished  in  quantity 
and  unimpaired  in  quality.  This  right  is  not 
an  incident  or  appurtenance  to  the  land. 
It  is  as  much  a  part  and  parcel  of  the  land 
as  the  soil,  or  as  the  stones  and  the  trees 
upon  it.  (Angell  on  Water-courses,  Sec.  92.) 
So  far  as  the  public  lands  have  not  passed 
from  the  United  States  to  individuals,  the 
title  to  the  water-rights  as  a  part  and  par- 
cel of  the  lands  resting  upon  the  running 
streams  is  in  the  United  States.  The  State 
has  no  more  property  in  the  waters  than  in 
the  soil  of  the  public  domain.  The  lands 
of  this  State,  with  every  part  and  parcel 
thereof,  the  soil,  the  trees,  and  the  waters 
and  water-rights,  passed  to  the  United  States 
by  grant  from  the  Mexican  government,  be- 
fore the  State  of  California  emerged  above 


the  political  horizon  as  a  new  but  brilliant 
star  in  the  firmament  of  States ;  and  those 
lands  have  remained  in  the  United  States, 
except  where  granted  to  private  individuals, 
or,  as  in  the  case  of  the  sixteenth  and  thirty- 
sixth  sections,  to  the  State.  It  is  hardly 
necessary  to  say  that  the  State  can  no  more 
declare  the  waters  of  the  public  lands  of 
the  United  States  public  property,  thereby 
debarring  the  United  States  from  passing 
the  usual  water-rights  to  individuals,  than  it 
can  declare  the  soil  or  trees  public  property, 
subject  to  the  disposition  of  the  State  legis- 
lature. 

Where  public  land  has  passed  by  sale  and 
grant  from  the  United  States  to  individuals, 
the  water-right,  as  a  part  and  parcel  of  the  land, 
has  passed  to  the  individual.  A  conveyance  of 
land  situated  upon  a  stream  conveys  the  usual 
water-right  without  express  words  to  that  ef- 
fect. It  is  no  more  necessary  to  express  a 
grant  of  the  water-right  than  it  is  necessary 
to  express  a  grant  of  the  trees  or  stones  upon 
the  land.  (Angell  on  Water-courses,  Sec. 
92.)  The  United  States  patents  are  no  ex- 
ception. Their  operation  as  conveyances  are 
to  be  determined,  not  by  the  civil,  Spanish, 
or  Mexican  law,  but  by  the  common  law. 
Private  water-rights  may  not  have  existed  in 
California  under  the  Mexican  regime.  But 
the  national  government,  vested  with  the 
title  both  to  the  soil  and  the  water  of  the  pub- 
lic lands,  has  passed  to  its  grantees,  by  its 
common  law  conveyances,  the  soil  and  cer- 
tain water-rights,  and  we  are  bound  to  re- 
sort to  the  common  law  to  ascertain  the  na- 
ture and  the  extent  of  those  rights;  as  in 
the  case  of  a  marriage  contracted  in  Cali- 
fornia previous  to  the  cession  of  the  State  to 
the  United  States,  and  property  acquired  to 
the  married  couple  previous  to  such  cession, 
we  are  bound  to  resort  to  the  Mexican  law, 
to  ascertain  what  rights  the  husband  and 
wife  respectively  possess  in  such  property. 
It  cannot  be  claimed  that  the  United  States' 
grants  have  not  had  this  operation.  Such  a 
position  would  involve  the  contention  that 
the  United  States'  patents  made  to  lands  in 
Ohio,  Kentucky,  and  all  the  other  States 
east  of  the  Mississippi  River,  passed  no  rights 


12 


Riparian  Rights  from  another  Standpoint. 


[July, 


in  the  waters  whose  nature  and  extent  we  have 
to  ascertain  from  the  common  law. 

But  if  the  water-rights  have  passed  to  indi- 
viduals, they  cannot  be  arbitrarily  divested 
by  the  State.  The  legislature  can  no  more 
extinguish  such  rights  by  its  arbitrary  decree 
than  it  can  thus  extinguish  the  right  held  by 
one  by  virtue  of  a  private  grant,  to  flow 
water  from  another's  reservoir.  It  would  be 
depriving  a  man  of  his  property  without  due 
process  of  law,  and  taking  private  property 
for  public  use  without  compensation  there- 
for. Were  the  State  to  pass  an  act  declar- 
ing such  rights  public  property,  the  State 
courts  would  be  bound  to  declare  the  act  un- 
constitutional. If  they  failed  to  do  so,  the 
Supreme  Court  of  the  United  States  would 
adjudge  the  act  void.  An  appeal  would  lie, 
because  the  act  sought  to  take  private  prop- 
erty without  due  process  of  law  in  violation 
of  the  fourteenth  amendment  to  the  National 
Constitution.  A  strenuous  effort  was  made, 
in  the  case  of  Lux  et  al.  vs.  Haggin  et  al.t  to 
induce  the  Supreme  Court  of  this  State  to 
reject  the  doctrine  of  riparian  rights,  but  that 
court  remained  true  to  the  law.  Had  our 
court  not  done  so,  on  appeal  to  the  Supreme 
Court  of  the  United  States  the  decision 
would  have  been  reversed.  The  water-rights 
now  existing  in  individuals  in  this  State  can 
only  be  extinguished  by  condemnation  to 
public  use  in  the  exercise  of  the  power  of 
eminent  domain.  An  alteration  in  our  code 
will  not,  and  cannot,  affect  the  riparian  rights 
of  land-owners.  They  derive  their  rights 
from  the  national  government  solely,  and 
now  hold  them  as  vested  rights.  The  code 
operates  only  in  the  case  of  public  lands. 
Where  parties  acquire  water-rights  upon  such 
lands  under  the  codes,  they  can  enforce 
them  against  all  persons  not  holding  title 
from  the  United  States.  The  case  is  identi- 
cal with  the  possession  of  our  public  lands. 
Under  our  State  laws,  a  possessor  of  such 
land  can  hold  the  same  until  the  United 
States  or  a  grantee  from  the  same  interferes. 
In  the  case  of  lands  still  a  part  of  the  public 
domain,  the  United  States  can,  if  it  sees  fit, 
reserve  from  the  operation  of  subsequent 
land  grants  the  water-rights,  or  it  can  grant 


the  same  separate  and  apart  from  the  soil. 
The  latter  it  has  heretofore  done  to  some  ex- 
tent in  the  case  of  mining  and  irrigating 
ditches,  by  the  United  States  statute  of  July 
26th,  1866.  (Rev.  Stat.  U.  S.  '78,  p.  2,339.) 

The  legislature  of  California  cannot  there- 
fore abolish  the  riparian  doctrine  or  the 
riparian  rights.  It  can  only  provide  for  the 
condemnation  of  water-rights  for  the  public 
use.  It  can  authorize  the  formation  of  water 
companies,  and  empower  them  to  institute 
judicial  proceedings  for  the  condemnation 
of  the  waters  of  the  streams.  This  con- 
demnation may  involve  an  enormous  ex- 
pense, for  it  will  be  necessary  to  condemn 
the  water-right  of  every  owner  of  land  upon 
both  sides  of  a  stream  from  the  point  of 
diversion  to  the  mouth.  It  must  be  remem- 
bered, however,  that  this  expense  is  incurred 
to  secure  to  these  riparian  owners  an  equiva- 
lent for  a  valuable  property  of  which  they 
are  divested,  and  the  institution  of  a  system 
of  irrigation  cannot  be  profitable  to  the  State 
unless  the  diversion  of  the  water  enhances 
the  fertility  of  a  country  greater  in  area  than 
the  lands  deprived  of -water  and  rendered 
unnaturally  dry  and  infertile.  And  in  that 
case  the  owners  of  the  lands  enhanced  in 
value  should,  in  justice,  compensate  those 
whose  lands  are  rendered  less  fruitful.  But 
it  is  a  mistake  to  suppose  that  irrigation  nec- 
essarily involves  the  extensive  condemnation 
of  water-rights.  The  attempt  to  divert  the 
waters  of  the  small  streams  in  the  San  Joaquin 
is  in  reality  an  attempt,  not  to  utilize  waters 
which  do  not  serve  any  purpose  of  irrigation, 
but  to  divert  to  lands  not  now  naturally  ir- 
rigated, the  waters  which  now  naturally  irri- 
gate equal  if  not  greater  areas  of  land.  The 
true  system  of  irrigation  should  aim  to  utilize, 
for  the  purpose  of  irrigating  our  arid  plains, 
the  surplus  waters  over  and  above  the  waters 
which  annually  serve  to  naturally  irrigate  the 
lands  along  the  banks  of  the  streams  of  our 
State. 

These  surplus  waters  are  the  waters  that 
come  down  in  the  spring  and  winter  freshets. 
These  should  be  hemmed  up  in  huge  artifi- 
cial lakes  in  the  gorges  of  the  Sierra  Nevadas, 
and  the  waters  thus  stored  should  be  drawn 


1885.J 


Riparian  Rights  from  another  Standpoint. 


13 


off  in  ditches  during  the  summer  months, 
and  conducted  into  the  valleys.  No  con- 
demnation of  water-rights  would  be  neces- 
sary, for  the  storing  of  the  surplus  flow  of 
the  streams  would  not  interfere  with  the  use 
of  the  waters  for  domestic  purposes,  with 
the  natural  irrigation  along  the  streams,  and 
with  the  water  power  derivable  from  the  nat- 
ural fall.  The  hydraulic  mining  companies 
adopted  this  system  for  mining  purposes. 
They  erected  enormous  dams  in  the  Sierra 
Nevadas,  and  thereby  secured  for  themselves, 
without  diminishing  the  usual  flow  of  the 
streams,  a  supply  for  their  summer  opera- 
tions. 

The  doctrine  of  riparian  rights,  as  applied 
to  California,  has  been  stigmatized  as  unjust, 
unwise,  and  as  conducing  to  monopolies. 
But  it  is  very  questionable  whether  that  doc- 
trine is  not  eminently  just  and  wise.  The 
owner  of  lands  upon  a  stream  does  not  claim 
the  right  to  divert  its  waters  and  to  vend 
them  to  the  public.  He  claims  only  the 
right  to  enjoy  the  natural  advantages  secured 
to  his  lands  by  their  situation.  He  has  a  mo- 
nopoly of  the  advantages  resulting  from  the 
stream  in  the  sense  only  in  which  a  man  has 
the  monopoly  of  a  mine  when  he  owns  the 
land  upon  which  it  is  discovered,  or  of  the  ad- 
vantages resulting  from  a  fertile  soil,  or  from  a 
valuable  stand  of  timber  upon  his  property. 
He  has  not  a  monopoly  in  the  sense  that  he 
has  the  control  of  something  which  is  of  no 
value  to  him  except  so  far  as  he  can  compel 
others  to  pay  him  tribute  for  the  use  thereof. 
The  irrigationists  propose  to  deprive  him  of 
an  intrinsic  source  of  value  to  his  land,  in 
order  that  they  may  reap  an  equivalent,  but 
no  greater,  value.  The  many  men  who  pur- 
chased lands  upon  our  streams,  purchased 
the  same  from  the  government,  with  the  view 
of  enjoying  their  natural  advantages ;  and  to 
deprive  them  of  that  which  renders  their 
property  valuable  is  equally  unjust  and  un- 
wise. The  waters  flowing  down  our  streams 
during  the  months  when  irrigation  is  neces- 
sary are  sufficient  to  irrigate  but  a  small  por- 
tion of  the  lands  of  the  great  valleys.  They 
now  serve  to  naturally  irrigate  certain  strips 
of  territory,  in  the  possession  of  private  own- 


ers. There  is  neither  justice  nor  wisdom  in 
the  diversion  of  that  water  to  other  strips 
of  territory,  leaving  the  former  dry  and  in- 
fertile. The  State  is  not  enriched  thereby. 
The  only  result  is  the  impoverishment  of  one 
class  for  the  benefit  of  another.  Were  it  com- 
petent for  the  State  to  declare  the  waters  of 
our  streams,  public  property,  the  only  conse- 
quence would  be  a  struggle  to  appropriate  the 
same,  resulting  in  the  exclusive  appropriation 
of  the  waters  naturally  running  during  the 
summer  months  to  the  use  of  a  limited  terri- 
tory or  class.  Ultimately,  the  method  of  stor- 
ing the  winter  floods  would  have  to  be  resort- 
ed to,  as  the  only  means  of  supplying  irriga- 
tion facilities  to  the  entire  territory  within 
our  valleys. 

The  riparian  doctrines  of  the  common  law 
are,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  a  magnificent  founda- 
tion upon  which  to  base  a  State  system  of 
water  laws  and  irrigation  rights.  They  de- 
termine with  accuracy  the  rights  of  all  par- 
ties to  the  natural  and  ordinary  flow  of  our 
streams.  The  particular  objections  urged  to 
the  doctrines  on  the  score  of  justice  are  more 
specious  than  real.  The  case  frequently  cit- 
ed as  an  instance  of  their  unjust  operation, 
when  carefully  examined,  is  found  to  involve 
no  element  of  injustice.  That  case  is  where 
an  owner  of  lands,  extending,  say,  ten  miles 
from  the  side  of  a  stream,  divides  the  land 
into  twenty-acre  lots,  and  sells  the  same  to 
different  purchasers.  It  is  urged  that  an 
injustice  is  done  to  the  owners  of  the  lots 
not  bordering  upon  the  stream ;  but  such  is 
not  the  case.  It  is  true  that  the  owners  of 
the  lots  adjoining  the  stream  alone  enjoy 
the  use  of  the  stream  for  domestic  purposes, 
alone  enjoy  the  water  power  and  the  op- 
portunity to  artificially  irrigate  their  lands, 
so  far  as  they  can  do  so  without  diminish- 
ing the  volume  of  the  natural  flow.  But 
they  have  paid  for  those  advantages  by 
paying  a  greater  price  for  their  lands ; 
while  the  owners  of  outlying  lots  have  pur- 
chased their  lands  with  full  knowledge  of  the 
absence  of  such  advantages.  The  latter  are 
not  debarred  from  the  privilege  of  divert- 
ing the  water  for  purposes  of  artificial  irriga- 
tion because  of  the  rights  or  for  the  benefit 


14 


Riparian  Rights  from  another  Standpoint. 


[July, 


of  the  riparian  owners  between  them  and 
the  stream,  but  because  of  the  rights  and  for 
the  benefit  of  the  hundreds  of  owners  of 
lands  below  upon  the  stream.  Were  the  ripa- 
rian owners  between  them  and  the  stream 
to  assent,  the  diversion  could  not  be  accom- 
plished, because  it  would  involve  injury  to 
those  hundreds  below.  Nor  are  the  owners 
of  the  outlying  tracts  without  benefit  from 
the  riparian  doctrine.  So  far  as  their  lands 
are  in  the  river  plain,  and  are  naturally  irri- 
gated by  the  seepage  or  percolation  through 
the  soil  of  water  from  the  stream,  they  have 
riparian  rights.  Were  all  the  owners  of  lands 
upon  the  banks  of  the  stream  to  consent  to 
the  diversion  of  all  the  water  of  the  stream 
at  a  point  above,  these  owners  of  outlying 
tracts  would  have  a  remedy,  in  case,  through 
the  cessation  of  natural  irrigation  through  the 
soil,  their  lands  were  rendered  appreciably 
dry  and  less  fruitful. 

The  provisions  of  the  civil  code  of  Cali- 
fornia (pp.  1410,  1422),  while  they  cannot 
authorize  an  interference  with  riparian  rights, 
and  therefore  cannot  authorize  the  appro- 
priation of  waters  ordinarily  flowing  down  our 
streams  during  the  summer  months,  are  adapt- 
ed to  enable  the  appropriation  of  the  flood 
waters  of  our  rivers  and  their  storage  in  reser- 
voirs in  the  canons  in  the  Sierra  Nevadas. 
The  riparian  owner  has  no  property  in  the 
water.  His  right  is  confined  to  the  advan- 
tages he  derives  from  the  ordinary  flow  of 
the  stream.  In  the  absence  of  such  provis- 
ions, no  company  could  dam  up  and  thus 
appropriate  flood  waters  with  any  assurance 
that  they  might  not  be  deprived  of  the  same 
at  any  moment.  If  the  State  so  desires,  it 
may  convert  the  right  to  reservoir  these 
waters  and  to  distribute  them  to  the  valley 
lands  into  a  privilege  subject  to  conditions 
imposed  by  the  State,  and  subject  to  regula- 
tion as  to  water  rates  exacted,  and  as  to  facil- 
ities extended  to  the  agricultural  districts. 
Thereby  many  of  the  abuses  which  might 
otherwise  spring  from  the  private  control  of 
the  means  of  artificial  irrigation  may  be  pre- 
vented. If  the  State  sees  fit,  the  State  may 
itself  proceed  to  build,  at  its  own  expense, 
dams  and  ditches,  and  to  operate  the  same. 


But  private  enterprise  would  probably  ac- 
complish the  desired  end  with  greater  cer- 
tainty and  efficiency  and  at  less  expense.  In 
this  connection,  it  is  to  be  noticed  that  the 
abolition  of  riparian  rights,  if  it  could  be  ac- 
complished, would  leave  the  waters  open  to 
appropriation,  and  the  valuable  property 
would  inevitably  fall  to  the  strongest,  that  is 
into  the  hands  of  private  monopolies.  If  the 
State  should  attempt  to  manage  its  waters 
through  its  governmental  machinery,  as 
public  property,  a  paternal  element  would 
be  introduced  into  the  State.  Such  an 
element  is  especially  dangerous,  when  we 
consider  that  in  proportion  as  the  adminis- 
tration partakes  of  that  character  can  the 
State  be  converted  to  the  purpose  of  com- 
munism with  greater  ease.  The  State 
would  have  appropriated  property  claimed 
by  individuals,  and  would  be  administering 
it  for  the  so-called  good  of  all.  What  better 
precedent  is  needed  for  the  progressive  en- 
croachment upon  the  rights  of  individuals 
for  the  assumed  good  of  all  ?  What  greater 
aid  can  be  given  to  those  who  seek  to  use 
the  State  to  a  paternal  or  communistic  end, 
than  can  be  given  by  creating  a  large  class  of 
government  employees,  engaged  in  the  man- 
agement of  governmental  works  of  great  mag- 
nitude, and  a  large  attendant  class  seeking 
for  governmental  employment,  and  eager  to 
enlarge  the  industrial  activity  of  the  State  in 
order  to  increase  the  number  of  its  em- 
ployees ?  The  unsuitableness  to  our  coun- 
try of  the  laws  of  France,  Italy  and  other 
states,  relating  to  water,  consists  in  the  in- 
tensely paternal  government  required  for 
their  administration. 

The  true  course  for  the  State  is  to  protect 
vested  rights  by  recognizing  the  water  rights 
of  riparian  owners ;  to  provide  for  their  con- 
demnation, if  necessary,  to  the  public  use; 
and  to  authorize  the  appropriation  of  the 
flood  waters  by  private  companies  and  cor- 
porations, not  in  absolute  property,  but  in 
pursuance  of  a  privilege  extended  by  the 
State  and  subject  in  its  enjoyment  to  State 
regulation.  Thereby  rights  will  be  protected, 
monopolies  prevented,  and  yet  all  progress 
towards  a  paternal  government  be  avoided. 
John  H.  Durst. 


1885.]  Life  and  Death.  15 


LIFE  AND  DEATH. 

Two  Angels,  clad  in  untouched  white, 
Met,  once,  upon  a  highway  near  the  sea. 
One  wore  a  smile  of  summer  light, 
The  other's  look  was  that  the  midnight  has 
When  stars  crowd  close  the  solemn  sky, 
Tender,  sweet,  convincing. 

This,  a  golden  goblet,  shining  to  the  brim 

With  living  water,  pure  and  clear ; 

And  he,  that  other,  held  a  chalice 

Dim  and  deep  and  empty, 

Save  for  one  half-clinging  drop. 
"  Whither  goest,  Angel  ? "  said  the  smiling  one, 

While  yet  they  stood,  in  doubt,  apart. 
"To  yonder  palace,  brother  sweet, 

Unto  the  queen.     And  whither  thou?" 
"  Unto  the  prince,  her  son,  that  is  to  be." 

"If  must  be,  hand  in  hand  we  go," 

Said  Life,  and  bowed  his  shining  head ; 
"  It  must  be,  brother,  but  I  follow  thee, 

And,  lingering  by  the  door,  I  wait 

Till  thine  own  errand  is  fulfilled." 

So  Life  went  in ;  and  Death  awaited  there, 

Then,  closely  following,  stood  beside  the  queen. 

The  other  pressed  him  back, — "Too  late!"  he  cried, 
44  It  is  too  late  !  she  knew  not  what  she  did, 

And  snatched  my  goblet,  drinking  half." 
"Yet  would  she  rather, — had  she  known, — 

Have  taken  mine,"  mused  Death. 
"Ay,  or  no,  I  cannot  tell,"  said  Life; 
"  For  may  the  prince  be  better  served 

With  half,  than  all  the  lotted  years, 

And  may  the  world  be  better  served 

With  half  a  life  this  mother  guides — " 
"Ay,  or  no,  we  cannot  tell,"  mused  Death. 

Then,  hand  in  hand,  they  left  the  hall, 

And  Sleep,  soft  trailing  through  the  chamber  door, 

Stooped  low  above  the  mother-queen, 

And  lapped  the  infant  prince  in  dreams. 

LH. 


16 


A  Terrible  Experience. 


[July, 


A  TERRIBLE  EXPERIENCE  :    A  TALE  OF  THE  ARIZONA  MOUNTAINS. 


THE  following  story  was  related  to  me  by 
the  leading  actor  in  the  adventure  himself.  I 
have  written  it  in  the  way  he  told  me,  using 
his  language  as  nearly  as  possible,  only  sub- 
stituting fictitious  for  the  real  names  of  the 
parties  concerned. 

I  was  in  love  with  my  employer's  daughter 
Alice — the  old  story — and  was  too  poor  to 
pay  my  addresses  to  her,  although  I  felt  sure 
in  my  heart  she  loved  me.  Her  father,  a 
large  importer  of  fine  cloth,  was  a  proud  old 
man,  subject  to  frequent  attacks  of  rheuma- 
tism; so  it  fell  to  my  lot  to  perform  my  busi- 
ness duties  in  the  handsome,  spacious  library 
of  his  Fifth  Avenue  mansion,  instead  of  in  the 

dingy  down-town  office  in street.  I  am 

a  short-hand  expert,  so  Mr.  Baxter  would  dic- 
tate to  me  his  voluminous  correspondence, 
and  I  would  take  it  down  in  short-hand,  and 
afterward,  in  my  own  room,  in  script.  This 
room  of  mine,  away  down  in  the  lower  part 
of  town,  was  poor  and  bare  enough,  I  assure 
you,  with  not  a  superfluous  article  in  the  way 
of  furniture  or  ornamentation — indeed,  hardly 
the  necessities  of  life,  I  thought  then.  All 
that  can  be  said  in  favor  of  it  is,  that  it  was 
neat  and  clean.  It  was  on  the  "basin  and 
pitcher  floor "  of  a  once  fine  house,  now 
fast  falling  into  disrepair,  in  a  quiet  street, 
where  I  could  see  from  my  short,  square  attic 
window  the  tall,  misty  masts  of  the  great  ships 
lying  at  the  city  docks. 

Somehow  the  constant  sight  of  these  masts 
made  me  restless,  suggesting  as  they  did  far- 
away countries,  and  seas,  and  foreign  soil; 
and  not  without  reason  altogether,  for  at  the 
time  I  speak  of  I  had  been  guilty  of  a  great 
imprudence,  of  the  enormity  of  which,  at 
that  moment,  I  was  fortunately  in  ignorance. 
I  imagined  I  was  making  the  great  strike  of 
my  life.  But  I  must  be  more  explicit  : 

There  was  a  reason  for  my  economy  and 
poverty.  Although  I  received,  comparatively 
speaking,  a  large  salary,  for  fourteen  long 
months  I  had  prepared  my  breakfast  and 


supper  on  a  miniature  oil  stove,  brewing  my 
tea  and  boiling  my  couple  of  eggs,  with  a  roll 
or  two  from  the  neighboring  baker's.  My 
one  square  meal  had  been  in  the  middle  of 
the  day,  at  a  place  I  had  patronized  for  a 
long  time — an  odd,  poor  little  Italian  restau- 
rant in  an  obscure  portion  of  the  city,  where 
I  could  get  a  hearty  dinner  with  soup  for 
twenty-five  cents.  This  resort  was  patron- 
ized by  men  as  poor  and  Bohemian  as  my- 
self apparently,  and  as  reserved,  for  they  came 
in  quietly,  and  although  seated  table  cThbte 
rarely  exchanged  words  or  even  common- 
place remarks.  Many  frequenting  the  res- 
taurant daily  for  months,  never  made  ac- 
quaintances; and  almost  invariably  they  came 
alone,  and  not  in  companies  of  twos  and 
threes.  I  had  discovered  this  queer  little 
place  in  my  Bohemian  days,  when  I  was  a 
reporter  on  one  of  the  big  daily  papers  and 
my  work  took  me  into  all  and  any  of  the 
mysterious  nooks  in  the  wonderful  city  of 
New  York.  I  kept  going  there  even  after 
my  engagement  with  "Baxter  &  Bros.,"  and 
had  managed  to  put  by  quite  a  considerable 
sum,  when  I  came  into  contact  with  the  in- 
fluence which  changed  my  whole  life. 

I  had  known  Miss  Baxter  then  for  several 
months — a  beautiful,  brown-eyed,  brown- 
haired  girl  of  twenty  or  thereabouts,  with  the 
most  winning  smile  ever  seen  on  a  woman's 
face.  Her  father  could  not  bear  her  out  of 
his  sight,  so  she  would  bring  her  work  to  the 
library  and  there  sit  beside  him,  as  he  dic- 
tated to  me  his  correspondence.  Mr.  Baxter 
always  treated  me  like  a  gentleman.  The 
idea  of  his  amanuensis  falling  in  love  with 
his  daughter  never  seemed  to  enter  his  mind, 
and  as  I  aimed  to  be  a  man  of  honor,  I  never 
by  word  or  sign  violated  his  confidence ;  for 
although  I  could  not  sit  day  after  day  in  the 
society  of  his  charming  daughter  without  fall- 
ing in  love  with  her,  I  never  told  her  of  it, 
and  the  opportunities  were  many.  I  was 
proud  and  poor  ;  for  paltry  enough  was  the 


1885.J 


A  Terrible  Experience. 


17 


sum  in  my  possession  with  which  to  aspire 
to  the  hand  of  an  heiress. 

It  was  a  warm,  sultry  day  in  the  early  part 
of  September,  and  while  going  to  dinner  I  felt 
nearly  overcome  by  the  heat.  My  work  had 
been  almost  doubled  for  several  .days,  and  I 
was  completely  fagged  out.  Distracted  by 
my  own  cares  and  thoughts,  I  entered  at  noon 
on  this  fatal  September  day,  Taglionini's  little 
restaurant.  I  sat  languidly  down  at  my 
place  at  table,  and  pushed  from  before  me 
my  plate  of  soup,  for  I  had  no  appetite  or 
wish  for  anything.  As  I  did  so,  a  man,  who 
for  some  time  had  been  my  vis-avis,  regarded 
me  with  serious  and  fixed  attention.  He 
had  long  been  a  subject  of  curious  observa- 
tion and  speculation  to  me,  for  he  was  to- 
tally unlike  any  of  the  other  frequenters  of 
Taglionini's,  or,  indeed,  any  one  I  had  ever 
seen  before.  Tall,  magnificently  built,  strik- 
ingly handsome,  and  of  commanding  appear- 
ance, he  seemed  wholly  out  of  place  among 
the  worn-out  specimens  of  humanity  who 
were,  for  the  time  being,  his  companions. 

As  I  pushed  my  plate  from  rne,  he  took 
from  the  inner  pocket  of  his  coat  (which  was 
of  fine,  foreign-looking  material )  a  small 
vial;  then  pouring  a  few  drops  of  dark  liquid 
from  it  into  a  glass  of  water,  passed  it  to 
me,  and  told  me  to  drink.  He  spoke  with 
a  slight  accent,  barely  noticeable;  but  his 
language  was  singularly  pure.  I  felt  ashamed 
of  my  momentary  hesitation,  as  I  saw  the 
dark  color  rise  to  his  bronzed  cheeks ;  for 
his  eyes  were  frank,  brown  eyes,  having,  I 
noted  at  the  time,  a  remarkable  brilliancy. 
I  drank  the  liquor  and  returned  the  glass, 
observing,  as  I  did  so,  on  the  third  finger  of 
his  left  hand  a  curious  gold  ring  of  singu- 
larly reddish  gold,  hammered  rudely  into 
the  form  of  a  serpent,  with  sparkling  ruby 
eyes. 

When  I  rose  to  go,  my  chance  acquaint- 
ance rose,  and  joined  me  at  the.  door,  and 
we  walked  down  the  street  together.  Though 
not  by  any  means  a  small  man,  I  felt  insig- 
nificant beside  him,  for  he  was  head  and 
shoulders  taller  than  I,  with  the  physique  of 
an  athlete — as  I  had  cause  to  remember  long 
after. 

VOL.  VI.— 2. 


For  many  weeks  we  met  daily,  and  once, 
in  a  mood  of  confidence  and  anxiety — for 
my  affairs  seemed  to  grow  more  hopelessly 
entangled  as  I  saw  more  of  Alice — I  invited 
him  to  my  simple  quarters,  and  in  response 
to  a  sympathy  and  influence  he  seemed  to 
exert  over  me,  told  him  my  history  and  po- 
sition. 

He  listened  attentively,  then  ran  his  hand 
thoughtfully  through  his  rich  curly  hair. 
"  Is  this  Alice,  this  Miss  Baxter,  beautiful, 
my  friend?" 

"  Lovely  as  a  dream ! "  I  cried  enthusias- 
tically. 

"Good?" 

"  As  an  angel ! "  I  cried. 

"In  love  with  you  ?" 

"Well,"  I  hesitated,  "she  has  many  ad- 
mirers, but  I  think  she  is  not  indifferent  to 
me." 

"Then,"  he  continued  soberly,  "so  far, 
so  well.  I  think  I  can  direct  you  to  a  way 
to  fortune.''  , 

"How?"  I  questioned  eagerly,  glancing 
round  my  shabby  little  room.  "  Tell  me,  I 
beg  of  you." 

"  Hush,"  he  replied,  significantly  putting 
his  finger  to  his  lips.  "  The  walls  are  thin; 
we  may  be  heard.  This  is  a  secret  between 
you  and  me.  Draw  your  chair  up  by  the 
window,  closer,  so — there  can  be  no  eaves- 
dropping there  ;  it  is  too  high.  My  friend, 
there  is  a  fortune  in  store  for  you — an  im- 
mense fortune — for  you  and  me."  His  eyes 
snapped  brilliantly,  and  he  leaned  back  in 
his  chair  to  see  the  effect  of  his  announce- 
ment. 

"Where?"  I  cried,  striving  to  control  my 
excitement. 

"  In  the  mines,"  he  murmured  softly;  "in 
the  gold  mines  of  Arizona.  I  had  just  re- 
turned here  when  I  first  met  you  at  Taglio- 
nini's, with  assays  and  rich  specimens  in  my 
pocket,  to  see  if  I  could  raise  capital  to  work 
my  rich  discovery.  A  very  little  I  need — 
but  no;  these  people  are  too  occupied  to 
pay  attention  to  me.  And  yet,  my  friend, 
there  are  millions  in  it,  which  would  make 
the  fortune  of  the  wealthiest  of  them  a  mere 
bagatelle  in  comparison." 


18 


A   Terrible  Experience. 


[July, 


My  strange  friend  had  grown  curiously  ex- 
cited. So  eloquent  was  he,  that  it  was  not 
long  before  I  was  equally  enthusiastic ;  and 
before  many  days  had  passed  I  had  arranged 
to  place  at  his  disposal  for  investment  all 
of  my  little  hoard,  so  hardly  saved,  reserving 
only  a  small  amount  in  case  of  actual  sick- 
ness or  necessity. 

In  a  week  his  plans  were  matured;  he 
took  steamer  by  way  of  Panama  to  a  Mexi- 
can port,  and  from  there  secured  passage  on 
a  coaster  up  the  Colorado  river  to  Arizona. 

I  heard  from  him  regularly.  His  letters 
were  written  in  the  highest  spirits,  for  he  was 
evidently  of  a  sanguine  temperament ;  and 
they  contained  nothing  but  what  gave  me 
renewed  confidence  in  him  and  his  ability, 
for,  as  I  have  remarked  before,  it  was  obvi- 
ous he  was  no  common  man. 

So  matters  continued  for  a  year.  I  had 
pinched  myself  to  the  last  penny,  so  as  to 
send  more  means  for  the  mine's  development. 
At  its  close,  I  found  myself  in  very  straitened 
circumstances  and  in  delicate  health,  owing 
to  poor  living  and  overwork.  There  came 
a  letter  at  this  critical  period  from  my 
strange  partner,  calling  for  more  funds  or  my 
personal  attention  at  the  mines,  as  my  ad- 
vice was  needed  in  many  ways  as  to  the  de- 
velopment of  the  property. 

I  was  totally  ignorant  in  such  matters,  yet 
so  eager  to  force  and  gain  possession  of  my 
prospective  wealth  to  lay  at  the  feet  of  my 
lady-love,  that  I  actually  wrote  to  my  part- 
ner acquiescing  in  his  plans,  and  started  out 
for  my  employer's  mansion  to  tell  him  of  my 
intended  departure. 

I  found  him  confined  to  his  bed  with  his 
old  malady.  Alice  met  me  in  the  library, 
and  told  me  of  his  illness;  for,  promoted  to 
the  responsible  position  of  private'  secretary, 
I  was  a  privileged  member  of  the  household. 

"  Miss  Alice,"  I  said,  before  starting  for 
Mr.  Baxter's  room,  which  was  in  the  wing  of 
the  house,  "  I  must  bid  you  good-bye  ;  I  am 
on  the  eve  of  departure." 

She  stood  dressed  for  walking  in  some  ma- 
terial of  a  rich,  mossy  brown  color,  a  jaunty 
little  hat  with  bright  colored  wings  crushed 
down  over  her  lovely  hair.  "  On  the  eve 


of  departure,  Mr.  Maxwell  ! "  she  repeated, 
changing  color.  "  That  surely  cannot  be. 
Is  this  not  something  very  sudden?  But 
where  is  it  ?  " 

"  Arizona,"  I  replied. 

"  O,  surely  not,"  she  ejaculated  with  al- 
most a  cry.  "  This  is  very  unthought  of, 
surely.  Why  you  cannot  be  in  earnest ;  you 
must  not  go  to  that  far  away  place.  You 
will  never  come  back  again,"  and  she  lifted 
her  pretty  eyes  pleadingly  to  my  face. 

How  her  words  came  back  to  me  long 
afterwards :  "  You  will  never  come  back 
again  ! " 

She  was  very  much  in  earnest,  and  held 
her  hands,  in  their  beautiful  little  gloves, 
clasped  tightly.  My  heart  gave  a  great 
bound  at  her  apparent  emotion,  for  perhaps 
she  really  cared  for  me. 

"  I  must  go,"  I  continued,  considerably 
moved.  "It  is  very  kind  of  you,  Miss  Alice, 
to  care  what  becomes  of  such  a  poor  dog  as 
I,  but  my  presence  is  imperatively  needed  in 
the  West,  to  look  after  some  property."  I 
spoke  this  latter  clause  with  a  little  thrill  of 
pride. 

"  And  how  long  will  you  be  gone  ?" 

"  It  is  uncertain,"  I  replied ;  and  then  we 
went  upstairs,  and  after  a  short  interview 
with  Mr.  Baxter,  in  which  all  business  mat- 
ters were  satisfactorily  settled,  I  descended 
the  stairs  for  the  last  time. 

I  bade  Alice  good-bye  in  the  library.  She 
had  not  gone,  but  was  waiting  for  me ;  and 
still  determined  not  to  speak,  I  held  myself 
under  control.  She  was  very  pale,  and  I 
fancied  her  hand  trembled  as  I  held  it. 

"  You  must  let  us  hear  from  you,"  she 
said  kindly;  and  I  assured  her  I  should 
write,  she  little  knowing,  poor  girl,  what  the 
parting  cost  me,  or  what  was  in  store  for  us. 
On  leaving  the  vestibule,  I  discovered 
I  had  left  behind  some  maps  of  the  mine, 
which  were  of  great  importance;  so  I  re- 
traced my  steps,  and  as  I  entered  the  library, 
found  Alice  sobbing  wildly  on  the  lounge, 
her  face  buried  in  her  hands.  She  had  not 
heard  my  step,  but  I  could  not  leave  her  in 
that  way.  I  called  her  name  softly  :  "  Alice  ! 
Alice  ! " 


1885.] 


A   Terrible  Experience. 


19 


She  sprang  to  her  feet,  and  threw  her 
handkerchief  over  her  face  to  hide  the  tear- 
stains. 

"My  dear  young  lady,"  I  cried,  "forgive 
this  unintended  intrusion,  but  what  is  it  that 
troubles  you?" 

"  My  father,"  she  cried,  in  a  broken  voice, 
"he  is  very  ill — and — 

"  But  he  will  get  well,"  I  interrupted. 

"I  fear  not,"  she  said.  "O  Mr.  Max- 
well, I  am  so  miserable — why  will  you,  must 
you,  go  and  leave  us  so  ?  " 

"  My  dear  girl,"  I  cried,  taking  her  cold 
hand  in  mine,  "  am  I  deceiving  myself — are 
these  tears  for  me  ?  " 

"  I  do  not  know — I  cannot  bear  it — I — " 

"Alice,"  I  said,  taking  her  in  my  arms, 
"  my  darling,  do  you  realjy  care  for  me  ? 
Heaven  knows  what  it  costs  me  to  leave  you  ; 
it  is  for  your  sake  that  I  go  to  these  wilds  to 
make  my  fortune,  so  as  to  be  able  honorably 
to  win  your  love." 

"  It  is  yours  already,"  she  said  softly,  be- 
tween her  sobs  ;  "you  are  all  the  world  to  me. 
You  will  break  my  heart  if  you  go  away." 

I  comforted  her  as  well  as  I  could ;  the 
separation  should  not  be  for  long ;  I  should 
hurry  back  to  her  side;  there  was  no  happi- 
.ness  for  me  out  of  her  society.  Then,  kiss: 
ing  her  sweet  face  and  bidding  her  be  a  brave 
girl,  I  tore  myself  away,  not  daring  to  trust 
myself  any  longer. 

I  shall  pass  over  the  details  of  my  depart- 
ure and  my  journey — the  wearisome  staging 
over  the  great  sandy  desert,  and  my  arrival 
at  "  Roseta,"  the  little  town  from  which  we 
bought  our  stores,  received  our  mail,  and 
did  business  generally — the  connecting  link, 
as  it  were,  although  a  slight  one,  between 
civilization  and  the  desert.  This  was  the 
stage  center  for  the  many  distant  mining 
districts,  and  although  one  hundred  miles 
from  the  nearest  railroad  switch,  was  a  re- 
sort for  all  miners  and  ranchers  for  leagues 
around.  My  friend  met  me  as  I  alighted 
from  the  stage — dusty,  travel-stained,  worn, 
from  my  long  ride.  I  felt  pale  and  insignifi- 
cant beside  the  stalwart,  strong,  sunburnt 
men  who  clustered  noisily  around  and 
about  the  conveyance,  surveying  it  and  its 


passengers  with  undisguised  curiosity.  My 
dress  seemed  inappropriate  in  comparison 
with  theirs.  I  was  clad  in  a  light  gray  tweed 
suit,  with  a  stiff  traveling  hat,  somewhat  the 
worse  for  the  late  banging  and  jostling  it  had 
received;  while  they  wore  the  careless  cos- 
tume of  the  miner — dark  shirt  and  pants  and 
high-top  boots. 

I  was  only  too  glad  to  escape  from  the  lit- 
tle crowd  and  go  quietly  with  my  friend,  be- 
fore the  group  had  dispersed  and  the  horses 
had  been  unharnessed,  to  a  lightly  constructed 
frame  building,  where  he  had  taken  a  room 
for  us,  so  primitive  in  its  appointments  that 
my  humble  quarters  in  New  York  seemed 
quite  luxurious  in  comparison.  There  was 
a  tin  basin  and  a  pitcher  of  water  on  a  rude, 
unpainted  wash-stand;  also  a  clean  towel  and 
a  piece  of  coarse  brown  soap,  which  I  dis- 
covered subsequently  to  have  been  quite  a 
mark  of  attention  to  a  stranger.  The  walls 
were  so  thin  we  could  hear  everything  going 
on  in  the  next  room,  also  the  whole  of  the 
conversation,  which  seemed  to  be  between 
a  man  and  his  wife — very  noisy,  indeed,  and 
relative  to  dinner. 

It  was  then  about  noon.  My  friend 
seemed  much  the  same,  only  more  bronzed 
and  handsomer,  if  possible,  than  of  old; 
there  was  a  little  more  gray  in  his  hair,  which 
he  had  allowed  to  grow  longer  ;  it  added  to 
his  picturesque  appearance.  He  was  clad  in 
the  same  working  costume  as  the  others — a 
dark  blue  flannel  shirt,  belted  in  at  the  waist, 
with  a  revolver  securely  and  conspicuously 
fastened  in  it,  a  slouched  hat,  and  immense, 
heavy  boots.  He  grasped  both  my  hands 
warmly  when  we  were  in  the  room  together, 
and  seemed  to  me  a  little  excited  ;  the  cor- 
diality of  his  welcome  dispersed,  however, 
any  little  homesickness  I  felt  at  the  strange- 
ness of  my  surroundings. 

"I  have  brought  you  here,"  he  said,  walk- 
ing restlessly  up  and  down,  "  so  you  should 
be  free  from  the  crowd  of  loungers  and  gos- 
sips who  swarm  about  the  Eagle  Hotel  and 
fall  upon  a  stranger.  Here  we  are  alone  by 
ourselves,  with  no  one  to  disturb  us  or  annoy 
us  in  our  plans ;  the  woman  serves  our  meals 
and  we  are  free  from  intrusion." 


20 


A   Terrible  Experience. 


[July, 


I  appreciated  his  thoughtfulness,  and  soon, 
arrayed  in  the  costume  he  had  provided  for 
me,  went  with  him  to  dinner.  The  florid 
woman  of  the  house  provided  us  with  a  sub- 
stantial meal,  surveying  us  curiously  the 
while ;  her  husband,  on  a  bench  in  front  of 
the  shanty,  smoking  his  pipe,  threw  his  head 
over  his  shoulder  now  and  again  to  favor  us 
with  the  same  prolonged  gaze.  I  noted  this 
at  the  time  and  felt  uneasy  under  it,  but  my 
friend  warned  me  to  ignore  this  imperti- 
nence. "They  know  no  better,"  he  said, 
"and  are  consumed  with  curiosity.  They 
will  question  you  unmercifully  if  they  have 
the  opportunity,  but  we  must  hold  them  at  a 
distance  and  have  no  intercourse  with  them. 
They  would  know  the  secret  of  our  mine, 
our  prospects,  our  bonanza,  and  wrench  it 
from  us  if  they  could,"  he  continued,  speak- 
ing softly  across  the  table;  "but  I  am  too 
shrewd  for  them,  although  they  are  a  sly  set. 
But  you  and  I  understand  each  other.  For 
the  present  moment  we  are  relatives — cous- 
ins. We  want  nothing  from  them.  You  see, 
many  of  these  adventurers  have  wished  to 
join  me  in  my  enterprise,  but  I  fought  shy 
of  them.  They  are  at  a  disadvantage,  for  I 
am  independent  of  them  :  I  make  all  my 
own  assays,  and  so  cautious  have  I  been 
that  they  have  not  the  slightest  clue  to  the 
whereabouts  of  our  wonderful  mine,  although 
they  have  tracked  me  many  times  to  find 
it." 

He  snapped  his  fingers  triumphantly  as 
he  spoke.  So  ignorant  was  I  of  the  practi- 
cal details  of  any  business  outside  of  my 
own,  that  this  strange  conversation  did  not 
strike  me  at  the  time  as  in  any  way  unnat- 
ural, although  I  had  cause  to  remember  it 
later  in  my  travels,  when  it  came  to  me  with 
terrible  meaning. 

As  it  was,  I  drank  in,  innocently,  every 
word  my  companion  uttered;  and  quite 
elated  and  contemptuous  toward  the  poor 
devils  who  were  not  so  richly  provided  for 
with  mines  as  ourselves,  crossed  the  road, 
and  on  to  a  small  room,  resembling  an  of- 
fice, to  the  right  of  a  large  frame  building, 
like  the  one  we  occupied.  Here  I  procured 
my  baggage,  and  transacted  some  trifling  bus- 


iness in  exchanging  coin  for  notes.  It  was 
express,  post  office,  telegraph  office  in  one ; 
and  in  one  corner  of  the  room  stood  Wells, 
Fargo's  clerk,  behind  a  tall,  weather-beaten 
desk.  He  was  a  fine  looking  young  fellow, 
nimble  and  light  on  his  feet,  with  sharp, 
brown  eyes,  and  lightish  hair  like  my  own, 
closely  shingled.  He  looked  at  me  pleas- 
antly, then  curiously,  when  he  saw  my  com- 
panion, looking  up  from  the  accounts  he 
was  apparently  busy  over,  as  I  strolled  about 
the  room. 

As  he  produced  my  trunk  and  valise,  and 
I  passed  him  the  check,  he  questioned  me 
with  apparent  carelessness. 

"  Going  to  be  long  in  these  parts?  " 
"I  do  not  know,"  I  replied  evasively. 
"From  the  East?" 
"  Yes." 

"Bound  for  the  mines?  " 
"Yes." 

"What  mines?" 

I  colored  a  little,  resenting  his  curiosity, 
and  almost  at  a  loss  for  an  answer. 

"  I  am  journeying  with  my  cousin,"  I  re- 
plied, "  quite  a  distance  into  the  interior,  on 
a  prospecting  tour.  I  hardly  know  myself 
what  course  we  shall  take,  but  somewhere 
toward  the  Spanish  Peaks." 

It  was  the  truth,  as  far  as  it  went.  He 
looked  thoughtful  a  second,  and  would  have 
added  more,  I  think,  but  my  friend,  who  had 
been  detained  in  the  further  corner  of  the 
room,  and  had  been  watching  our  conversa- 
tion suspiciously,  beckoned  me  away,  under 
some  pretext,  and  we  left  the  room  together. 
From  this  time  on,  he  never  was  from  my 
side  until  the  moment  of  our  departure, 
which  was  at  the  next  midnight. 

.  All  the  necessary  preparations  had  been 
made;  we  left  the  house  in  the  gloom  of 
night,  walked  a  few  paces  ahead,  and  then 
turned  to  the  left,  continuing  our  way  until 
we  came  to  a  small  raresal,  where  we  found 
an  Indian  in  waiting  with  three  mules,  two 
for  our  individual  use,  and  one  for  the  pack, 
which  was  quite  heavy  with  provisions,  blank- 
ets, and  various  necessities  for  our  mountain 
trip.  We  were  well  armed,  and  when  I  was 
mounted,  the  Indian,  who  was  a  Yaqui,  with 


1885.] 


A  Terrible  Experience. 


21 


a  copper-colored,  stoical  face,  came  forward, 
and  fastened  a  pair  of  spurs  to  my  stout 
boots. 

"  Here,  poor  devil,"  I  said  carelessly,  and 
tossed  him  dos  reales  (twenty-five  cents).  He 
gave  a  queer  grunt  in  acknowledgment,  and 
watched  us  until  we  rode  out  of  sight.  That 
piece  of  silver  saved  my  life.  I  little  thought 
what  power  lay  in  that  savage  hand,  or  knew 
that,  as  we  journeyed  over  those  long  miles 
apparently  alone,  a  step  noiseless  as  a  cat's 
was  tracking  our  trail,  so  silently  that  even 
the  vigilance  of  the  leader  was  deceived. 

We  had  little  fear  of  the  Apaches,  for 
there  had  been  no  outbreak  in  their  midst  for 
some  time.  As  we  jogged  along  and  felt  the 
fresh  air  in  our  faces,  my  friend's  spirits  rose 
perceptibly.  I  had  discovered  that  he  was 
a  brilliant  talker,  and  he  passed  the  hours, 
which  otherwise  would  have  been  monoto- 
nous, in  telling  humorous  stories  of  what 
must  have  been  an  eventful  life. 

He  knew  every  stone  on  the  plain  and 
every  tree  on  the  trail  by  heart,  and  pointed 
out  to  me,  as  we  trotted  along,  the  various 
points  of  interest.  The  night  was  cool,  and 
our  road  lay  along  the  valley ;  for  the  little 
town  of  Roseta  lay  in  an  enclosure  of  dull, 
round  mountains,  which  sheltered  it  from 
the  terrible  wind  storms  so  prevalent  in 
these  regions.  The  pack  jogged  along  in  our 
rear,  for  the  old  mule  was  evidently  used 
to  the  way,  and  as  familiar  with  it  as  his 
master. 

We  traveled  all  night,  and  when  the  sun 
rose  from  behind  the  distant  hills,  there  were 
several  leagues  between  us  and  Roseta. 
When  the  first  warm  rays  flooded  the  earth, 
we  drew  up  underneath  a  tree,  on  a  grassy 
plain,  where  we  dismounted,  unbridled,  and 
tethered  out  our  horses  to  crop  a  bit  of  grass. 

We  took  only  a  light  breakfast,  so  as  to 
be  able  to  push  on  our  journey,  and  lose  no 
time.  A  sandwich,  some  jerked  beef,  and 
crackers  formed  our*frugal  meal,  with  a  tin 
cup  of  water  from  the  tiny  stream  close  to 
us.  We  then  wrapped  ourselves  up  in  se- 
rapes  and  lay  down  to  rest,  and  to  snatch  a 
few  minutes'  sleep. 

An  hour  later  found  us  crawling  up  into 


the  Roseta  Mountains,  and  at  noon  that  day 
we  had  made  considerable  headway;  and  at 
six  o'clock  at  night,  had  camped  in  a  little 
canon  and  begun  to  prepare  for  supper.  My 
companion  had  killed  two  cotton-tails.  We 
had  brisk  appetites,  I  assure  you ;  but  imag- 
ine my  surprise  when  my  friend  built  two 
heaps  of  twigs  and  brush,  about  twenty  yards 
apart,  and  then  lighting  them,  .produced  two 
sets  of  camping  and  kitchen  utensils,  one  of 
which  he  presented  to  me. 

"You  must  overlook  a  peculiarity  of  mine/' 
he  remarked  pleasantly — for  he  was  a  most 
courteous  gentleman  in  every  sense  of  the 
word, — "  but  I  make  it  a  rule  each  night,  no 
matter  what  company  I  am  in,  to  make  my 
own  fire,  and  cook  my  own  food,  and  expect 
my  friends  to  do  likewise." 

I  acquiesced  in  this  proposal,  although  a 
chill  sense  struck  me  that  it  was  a  strange 
and  desolate  plan  for  two  lone  companions  to 
follow  in  the  wilds  of  Arizona. 

The  flames  of  my  little  pile  leaped  up 
brightly,  however,  so  I  added  more  fuel,  and 
then  broiled  my  rabbit ;  clumsily  it  is  true, 
but  with  all  the  zest  of  novelty  and  a  raven- 
ous appetite;  then  put  on  my  coffee,  fried 
some  bacon  and  eggs,  and  with  some  biscuit 
from  the  stores,  soon  had  a  supper  fit  for  a 
king.  My  friend  quickly  prepared  his  meal, 
and  long  before  mine  was  ready  had  helped 
me,  then  eaten  his  own  and  laid  him  to  sleep, 
wrapped  snugly  in  his  blankets  with  his  feet 
toward  the  fire. 

I  followed  his  example,  and  it  was  not 
long  before  I  was  unconscious  of  all  my  sur- 
roundings. I  had  looked  at  the  stars  above 
me,  and  thought  of  the  curious  destiny  which 
had  brought  me  thither,  then  consigned  the 
care  of  the  creature  I  loved  best  on  earth  to 
the  love  of  a  watchful  Providence.  If  I  had 
had  a  faint  premonition  of  what  awaited  me, 
should  1  have  slept  'so  soundly?  I  think 
rather,  in  the  depths  of  night,  I  should  fran- 
tically have  tried  to  retrace  my  steps. 

The  next  morning  my  companion  roused 
me  cheerfully  from  a  heavy  slumber,  and 
after  a  hot  breakfast  prepared  from  the  ashes 
of  our  now  faded  fires,  we  mounted  our 
horses,  fresh  after  their  rest,  and  rode  on. 


22 


A  Terrible  Experience. 


[July, 


There  was  little  to  mark  the  day's  advance. 
We  descended  the  mountains,  and  entered 
upon  a  great  desert,  grayish  white  in  appear- 
ance, throwing  up  an  unbearable  glare  to  the 
unprotected  eye.  The  only  growth  was  sage- 
brush, hardly  different  in  tint  from  the  alkali 
dust,  the  tract  extending  unbrokenly  for  miles, 
inhabited  by  no  living  creature. 

Our  provisions  were  ample  for  our  jour- 
ney, but  for  water  we  depended  upon  a  well, 
situated  in  a  little  oasis  which  we  reached  at 
the  end  of  our  second  day's  travel  over  the 
desert. 

About  this  time  my  enthusiasm  concern- 
ing our  mining  enterprise  had  begun  to  wane ; 
the  strain  of  the  ride  over  the  desert,  unac- 
customed as  I  was  to  the  saddle,  the  terrible 
solitude  of  the  place,  its  distance  from  civil- 
ization, all  combined  to  destroy  the  rosy  hue 
with  which  I  had  surveyed  my  prospects.  A 
visible  change  had  also  come  over  my  friend; 
his  talkativeness  and  brilliancy  had  faded 
away.  He  was  a  changed  man  ;  he  appeared 
older,  sterner,  even  a  little  morose. 

The  fifth  night  out,  we  camped  near  the 
well,  surrounded  by  a  patch  of  greenish  grass, 
and  here,  in  the  death-like  stillness  which 
pervaded  the  place,  my  friend,  following  his 
curious  and  persistent  habit,  cooked  his  din- 
ner fifteen  yards  away  from  mine. 

The  aspect  of  the  country  had  changed 
somewhat — still  a  desert,  but  a  curious  one. 
Not  far  to  the  left  of  us  extended  a  range  of 
mountains  so  peculiar  and  weird  in  their  con- 
struction, that  their  memory  will  haunt  me 
to  my  dying  day.  Of  the  same  chalky  ap- 
pearance as  their  surroundings,  they  were 
twisted,  wrinkled,  seamed  as  if  in  some  ter- 
rible convulsion  of  Nature.  Conical  in  shape, 
they  reared  their  snowy  heads  up  into  the 
clear  blue  cloudless  sky,  standing  like  ghastly 
monuments  of  one  knew  not  what — suggest- 
ing the  burnt-out  mountains  with  their  extinct 
craters,  so  graphically  represented  in  the 
maps  of  the  moon. 

In  the  distance  my  companion  pointed  to 
a  far-away  bluish  range,  which  were  the 
"  Spanish  Peaks,"  our  destination,  the  home 
of  our  mines.  After  a  day  and  a  half  of 
steady  traveling  we  reached  them. 


My  friend  had  long  ceased  to  hold  any 
conversation  with  rye.  Handsome,  courtly 
as  ever  in  his  manners,  he  never  addressed 
me  one  word ;  and  when  I  spoke  to  him  in 
sheer  desperation,  answered  me  in  monosyl- 
lables. My  surprise  changed  to  wonder, 
wonder  to  indignation,  indignation  to  suspic- 
ion. What  was  the  matter  with  him  ?  I 
talked  to  my  animal,  to  hear  the  sound  of 
my  own  voice  in  those  awful  solitudes.  To 
my  consternation,  my  companion  began  talk- 
ing to  himself —  at  first,  unintelligibly,  then 
.  in  plainer  accents.  Mines,  mines,  mines,  it 
was  always  mines — prospecting  them,  tun- 
neling them,  opening  them,  but  always  the 
same  subject.  Sometimes  his  voice  rose 
loud  and  clear,  then  calmer  again  ;  then  an- 
gry, again  subdued.  A  terrible  suspicion 
was  creeping  into  my  brain ;  no,  it  could 
not  be.  I  would  not  believe  it.  I  would 
have  proposed  returning  to  Roseta,  and 
abandoning  our  project  altogether,  if  we  had 
not  been  so  near  our  journey's  end. 

As  I  was  about  to  sound  him  on  the  sub- 
ject, however,  his  face  lengthened  percepti- 
bly. "  The  highest  peak  of  our  destination," 
he  remarked,  "  is  only  half  a  day's  jaunt  on- 
ward." 

Here  the  face  of  the  country  changed 
again  ;  it  was  more  wooded.  The  last  few 
hours  of  that  last  day's  travel — I  shall  never 
forget  it.  It  was  a  terrible  climb  ;  when  we 
had  apparently  almost  reached  the  summit, 
we  came  suddenly  upon  an  awful  precipice 
and  chasm,  which  looked  as  if  the  mountain 
had  fallen  away,  or  caved  in  at  this  point. 
The  slide  was  covered  with  a  dense  growth 
of  underbrush,  and  was  wholly  impassable. 

My  companion  and  I  exchanged  glances. 
"  My  friend,"  I  said,  looking  at  him  firmly, 
let  us  abandon  this  hazardous  journey,  and 
return  to  Roseta ;  believe — 

"  Return,"  exclaimed  he  scornfully,  "  on 
the  very  point  of  our  destination,  man  ? 
What  are  you  thinking  of?  I  have  simply 
made  a  mistake  in  the  trail,  and  breasted  the 
mountain  on  the  wrong  side.  We  shall  re- 
trace our  steps,  and  make  the  ascent  just 
opposite  to  where  we  are  now  stopped  short 
by  this  precipice." 


1885.] 


A    Terrible  Experience. 


23 


We  mounted  our  jaded  animals  with  no 
further  words,  and  began  the  descent ;  far 
below  us  stretched  the  plain  and  the  desert, 
glaring  in  the  noon-day  sun,  and  still  farther 
away  the  burnt-up  mountains,  white  still  in 
the  trembling  heat. 

When  we  reached  the  end  of  our  long 
travels,  one  might  readily  believe  the  place 
to  be  the  "  fag  end"  of  God's  earth.  A 
mountain  of  rock  ;  in  its  jagged  sides  a  tun- 
nel ;  at  its  mouth  a  dump  of  what  must  have 
been  ore — in  my  ignorance  I  did  not  know. 
That  was  all.  Not  a  human  being  in  that 
vast  wilderness  but  ourselves.  With  what 
horror  I  entered  that  dark  cavern,  question- 
ing if  I  should  ever  come  out.  That  was 
my  fortune  ;  there  was  my  pile.  What  folly 
I  had  been  guilty  of !  This  was  the  end  of 
my  fine  plans — my  hopes.  Some  little  work, 
sufficient  to  sink  all  our  money,  had  been 
done  on  the  place — a  great  deal  of  it  evi- 
dently by  my  friend's  own  hand,  with  the 
help,  so  he  said,  of  an  Indian,  who  had  de- 
serted during  his  absence.  Poor  wretch, 
how  could  he  have  staid  so  long  ! 

After  he  had  showed  me  the  vein  and  the 
drift,  we  came  out  into  daylight  again,  and 
sat  down  on  two  flat  rocks  at  the  entrance 
of  the  tunnel.  I  do  not  think  I  can  accu- 
rately describe  my  thoughts  ;  one  idea  alone 
possessed  me — that  of  escape.  My  guide 
sat  mumbling  to  himself,  a  few  words  dis- 
tinct now  and  then. 

"  It  can  be  done,  it  can  be  done.  I  plan- 
ned it  out  long  ago.  The  gold  is  there. 
Cowards !  knaves  !  they  would  have  deserted 
me  at  the  last  moment — treachery —  leaving 
me  the  debts  and  responsibilities  to  shoul- 
der." He  looked  fierce  at  times,  and  I 
shuddered.  Had  I  been  lured  to  destruc- 
tion, and  was  there  no  escape!  I  had  al- 
ready begun  to  revolve  in  my  brain  a  plan  : 
could  it  be  made  practicable?  Could  I  find 
and  keep  the  trail?  Could  I  supply  myself 
with  provisions  without  my  companion's 
knowledge?  Was  there  enough  food  for 
both  ? — for  our  trip  already,  by  missing  the 
way,  and  one  thing  and  another,  had  doub- 
led its  length.  Was  I  justified  in  leaving  a 
human  being  alone  in  those  solitudes,  sub- 


ject to  the  attacks  of  Indians  and  wild  ani- 
mals ?  What  if  he  never  returned ;  what 
construction  would  be  put  on  my  solitary 
reappearance  ? 

This  last  thought  influenced  me  more 
strongly  than  any  other,  in  my  morbid  con- 
dition of  mind.  We  went  out  together;  we 
must  return  together.  Suspicion  would  be 
rife  if  I  returned  alone.  The  die  was  cast; 
I  had  drawn  my  conclusions,  outlined  my 
plans,  crude  and  imperfect  as  they  were. 
Get  back  to  Roseta  we  must,  if  not  by  force, 
by  stratagem. 

An  awful  thought  had  taken  possession  of 
me.  Perhaps,  by  this  time,  it  has  made  it- 
self apparent  to  you.  But  I  shall  go  on. 

"  My  dear  friend,"  said  I  stoutly,  striving 
to  hold  my  companion's  attention,  and  catch 
his  brightly  glittering  eye.  "  I  was  a  coward 
and  a  knave  to  wish  to  return  to  Roseta, 
when  such  an  enormous  discovery  of  wealth 
lies  at  our  very  feet.  You  might  well  scorn 
me,  but  I  was  faint  from  the  hardship  and 
fatigue  of  the  journey.  But  we  can  do  noth- 
ing alone.  Let  us  return  to  New  York  and 
secure  capital.  I  have  a  certain  amount  of 
influence;  by  your  efforts  and  mine,  we  can 
raise  sufficient  money  to  float  this  concern 
successfully.  As  it  is  now,  what  we  can  in- 
vest is  like  so  many  drops  in  the  sea.  Be- 
hold, yourself,  how  little  we  have  accom- 
plished." 

"  True,  true,"  said  he,  mournfully  glancing 
around  the  deserted  spot,  and  grasping  at 
the  idea  with  childish  eagerness.  "  Capital, 
capital— that  is  what  we  need.  I  could  have 
pulled  through  with  it  long  ago  if  it  had  not 
been  for  that.  The  knaves !  they  deserted 
me ! " 

I  had  no  idea  to  what  he  referred,  until 
long  afterward ;  but  taking  advantage  of  his 
sudden  change  of  humor,  persuaded  him  to 
mount,  and  taking  a  hurried  survey  of  the 
work  and  the  premises,  we  turned  the  heads 
of  our  tired  animals  homeward.  I  did  not 
feel  fairly  started  until  we  had  descended 
the  mountain,  and  left  the  ill-fated  mine  far 
behind  us. 

Several  times  my  companion  would  have 
retraced  his  steps  and  returned  to  the  tunnel, 


24 


A  Terrible  Experience. 


suspecting  me,  at  the  moment,  of  treachery; 
but  I  assured  him  of  the  genuineness  of  my 
feelings,  and  we  jogged  slowly  along.  We 
continued  our  trip  in  comparative  quiet,  un- 
til the  second  night;  but  then  my  friend 
fell  to  railing  at  some  unseen  persecutors, 
cursing  them  so  wildly  that  I  became  alarmed. 
"  Ruin,  failure,  stares  me  in  the  face,"  he 
cried  plaintively,  "let  us  go  back." 

I  dared  hardly  to  address  him  in  one  of 
these  moods,  but  kept  myself  well  armed. 
At  night,  when  we  camped,  he  cooked  his 
dinner  as  usual,  amid  low  mutterings  and 
expostulations,  which  continued  long  after 
he  had  wrapped  himself  in  his  scrape  and 
lain  down  by  the  fire. 

What  horrors  those  nights  were  to  me,  God 
only  knows.  I  was  tortured  by  fatigue,  yet 
afraid  to  close  my  eyes,  with  the  fear  haunt- 
ing me  of  never  opening  them  again.  I 
formed  the  resolution  of  depriving  my  com- 
panion of  his  arms;  he  was  a  large,  power- 
fully built  man,  as  I  have  said,  and  I  was  in 
his  power.  It  was  impossible  to  steal  his 
shot-gun,  for  he  was  vigilant  as  a  cat,  and  I 
was  never  sure  when  he  really  slept ;  but  one 
evening,  preparing  for  camp,  I  removed  the 
bag  of  shot  from  the  parcel.  It  was  the 
night  we  camped  by  the  well,  and  under 
pretense  of  going  for  water,  while  he  was 
building  his  fire,  I  sunk  the  shot  in  the  well, 
hearing  its  heavy  splash  and  dull  clank  in  an 
agony  of  fear. 

The  next  morning  I  published  the  acci- 
dent. "  My  friend,"  said  I  in  consternation, 
"  we  have  suffered  a  loss  by  my  carelessness'. 
In  removing  and  resetting  the  pack  at  the 
mines,  I  left  the  bag  of  shot  in  the  bushes." 

"  Then  we  must  go  back  for  it,"  he  said 
angrily. 

Almost  in  vain,  I  tried  to  pacify  and  assuage 
his  anger.  Finally,  when  I  represented  to 
him  the  value  of  lost  time,  he  consented  to 
retract  his  decision  and  go  on.  Nothing, 
however,  could  soften  his  angry  feelings  to- 
ward me,  and  he  conducted  himself  in  an 
abused  manner  in  my  presence,  which  did 
not  lessen  my  terrible  anxiety  concerning 
my  safety.  I  fully  determined,  upon  the  con- 
tinuation of  his  revengeful  feelings,  to  de- 


prive him  of  his  revolver,  and  then  take  the 
consequences.  But  how  ?  It  was  a  desper- 
ate expedient. 

It  was  necessary  to  rest  our  jaded  horses; 
every  hour  they  threatened  to  give  out.  So 
we  picketed  them  on  the  grassy  stretch  be- 
fore mentioned.  I  threw  myself  on  the 
ground  and  began  leisurely  taking  my  pistol 
to  pieces,  venturing  to  suggest  to  my  com- 
panion to  do  likewise,  for  the  precaution  was 
becoming  necessary  as  we  entered  the  Indian 
reservation.  He  sneered  at  me  in  answer, 
but  as  I  steadfastly  continued  cleaning  mine, 
he  thought  better  of  it,  and,  seating  himself 
beside  me,  began  taking  his  weapon  apart. 

When  he  was  thoroughly  engaged  upon  it, 
I  sounded  the  alarm:  "A  snake,  a  rattle- 
snake ! " 

"  Where?  "  he  cried  excitedly,  springing  to 
his  feet,  forgetting  everything  at  the  news. 

"  In  yonder  bush,"  I  answered. 

He  sprang  toward  it ;  as  he  did  so,  I  fear- 
fully and  tremblingly  seized  the  barrel  of  his 
revolver,  which  he  had  thrown  on  the  ground 
in  his  haste,  and  held  it  in  my  hand  as  I 
joined  him  in  his  search.  A  cold  shudder 
ran  through  me  as  I  did  so.  My  excited 
imagination  fancied  him  ready  to  pounce 
upon  me  every  instant  for  my  duplicity. 
How  could  I  combat  with  such  an  athlete — 
I,  slight,  nervous,  city-bred  ?  I  felt  myself 
turn  pale ;  what  should  I  do  with  that  piece 
of  metal  in  my  hand,  burning  as  if  into  my 
very  soul. 

"Strange,  where  it  has  crept  to,"  he  sug- 
gested; "it  must  have  gone  into  its  hole." 

He  procured  a  long  stick  and  began  beat- 
ing the  bushes  vigorously. 

"I  did  not  hear  the  rattle,"  he  continued; 
"are  you  sure  you  were  not  mistaken?" 

"Yes,  sure,"  I  replied  firmly,  "  but  I  am 
not  going  to  lose  any  time  in  the  search.  I 
have  my  pistol  to  finish  cleaning." 

I  sat  down  on  the  knoll,  knowing  he,  too, 
must  continue  his  work,  and  that  it  would 
be  some  little  time  before  he  would  miss  the 
barrel  in  putting  his  weapon  together. 

I  revolved  in  my  mind  what  I  should  do. 
Then  a  sudden  lucky  thought  struck  me. 
I  rose,  and  strolled  carelessly  toward  the 


1885.] 


A  Terrible  Experience. 


25 


pack,  found  an  extra  coffee-pot,  packed  full 
to  the  lid  with  ground  coffee,  thrust  the  bar- 
rel into  it  almost  to  the  very  bottom,  and 
replaced  the  tin.  It  was  an  extra  supply; 
ten  to  one  he  would  never  think  of  seeking 
in  such  a  strange  hiding-place. 

On  missing  the  portion  of  his  pistol,  his 
anger  was  something  frightful.  He  raved, 
he  swore,  he  cursed.  I  had  no  influence 
over  him ;  but  when  he  had  calmed  some- 
what, I  suggested  that  he  had  dropped  the 
barrel  in  the  bushes  when  we  went  to  look 
for  the  rattlesnake.  I  helped  him  in  the 
search;  we  hunted  the  stones,  the  shrubs, 
high  and  low,  but  no  tiny  piece  of  the  pis- 
tol. 

After  a  good  deal  of  coaxing,  I  persuaded 
him  to  continue  the  journey.  Comparatively 
speaking,  I  felt  safer,  as  I  had  deprived  him 
of  his  arms,  but  still  my  danger  was  immi- 
nent. One  night,  after  we  had  prepared  our 
camp,  he  fell  into  a  terrible  paroxysm  of 
rage,  recalling  and  dwelling  upon  the  affair 
of  the  shot-gun  and  pistol,  uutil  every  mo- 
ment I  expected  him  to  pounce  upon  me. 
I  had  one  hand  on  my  revolver,  prepared  to 
spring  and  defend  myself  at  a  moment's  no- 
tice. Suddenly,  all  was  quiet.  I  thought 
him  asleep.  Then  I  heard  stealthy  creeping 
footsteps.  It  was  the  dead  of  night,  we  two 
alone,  on  that  vast  silent  desert.  Nearer  and 
nearer  they  came,  but  I  was  ready  —  still 
nearer.  I  sprang  and  confronted  him,  my 
evil  genius. 

"  Coward  !  traitor  ! "  he  hissed,  springing 
toward  me,  seizing  me  in  his  strong,  relent- 
less grasp,  with  a  grip  that  fury  alone  can 
give.  I  was  powerless.  In  those  awful  mo- 
ments, by  the  light  of  the  camp-fire,  my  worst 
fears  were  confirmed.  I  gave  a  low  cry. 
Those  awful,  burning  eyes  seemed  to  scar 
me  with  their  brightness.  What  could  I  do, 
even  with  my  weapons?  The  die  was  cast; 
my  fate  was  sealed.  My  companion  — good 
God  !  no  longer  could  it  be  concealed — was 
mad !  I  was  in  the  power  and  the  hands  of 
a  madman. 

As  this  awful  suspicion  was  realized  (it  had 
haunted  me  for  days  and  nights),  my  strength 
seemed  to  give  way.  Everything  grew  dim. 


I  struggled  to  recall  my  fading  senses.     It 
was  too  late.     I  swooned  away. 

When  I  came  to  my  senses,  I  found  my- 
self in  the  long  freight-room  at  Roseta,  with 
the  face  of  the  young  Wells,  Fargo's  agent 
bending  over  me.  I  was  on  a  cot,  and  the 
countenance  looking  at  me  seemed  full  of 
pity  and  sympathy. 

"  Where  am  I  ?  What  is  it  ?  "  questioned 
I  faintly. 

"  Quite  safe,"  he  answered  reassuringly  ; 
"only  you  must  keep  very  quiet,  for  you 
have  been  very  ill." 

For  days  they  tended  and  watched  me 
like  a  child,  and  when  I  was  strong  enough, 
told  me  the  remaining  items  of  my  awful  ex- 
perience. The  Indian  who  had  saddled  our 
horses  and  prepared  our  pack,  suspected, 
with  the  cunning  of  his  race,  that  I  was  ig- 
norant of  my  companion's  condition.  His 
opinion  was  confirmed  by  the  freight-agent, 
who  judged  me  a  young,  unsophisticated 
Easterner,  especially  when  I  equivocated 
about  the  relationship.  The  plans  of  my 
companion  had  been  laid  as  only  the  tact 
and  slyness  of  a  madman  could  lay  them. 

After  we  had  been  out  some  days,  the  In- 
dian who  had  dogged  our  steps  returned  to 
Roseta,  confirmed  in  his  views,  to  get  more 
help.  With  three  men  he  started  out  again, 
fearing  they  hardly  dared  to  breathe  what. 
As  I  fell  into  the  arms  of  the  maniac,  they, 
guided  by  the  smoke  of  the  camp-fire,  sprang 
to  my  relief  and  manacled  my  unfortunate 
friend. 

My  poor  friend  ;  I  shed  bitter  tears  at  his 
sad  fate.  He  was  a  Count  de  Fontainblesse, 
an  exile  from  his  country,  who  had  spent  an 
immense  fortune  in  the  mines,  a  victim  to 
unscrupulous  speculators.  Left  in  compar- 
ative poverty,  fleeced  by  his  enemies,  he  had 
gone  out  of  his  mind,  yet  continued  to  have 
comparatively  sane  spells,  when  he  deceived 
even  his  nearest  acquaintances  by  his  appar- 
ent sanity.  It  was  in  this  condition  that  he 
had  gone  to  New  York,  at  the  time  that  I 
had  fallen  a  victim. 

The  kind  miners  and  merchants,  know- 
ing my  sad  story,  made  up  a  purse  for  me, 
and  sent  me  back  East  to  New  York  ;  but 


26 


The  College  of  California. 


[July, 


ah  !  not  as  I  had  left  there.  I  was  broken  in 
health,  and  a  strange  thing  had  happened 
to  me  —  my  hair  had  turned  white  as 
snow.  When  I  rose  from  my  bed  in  the 
freight  office,  it  was  as  if  with  the  hoary 
locks  of  age.  Would  my  best  friend  know 
me  ? 

I  reached  the  great  metropolis  almost  in 
want.  Should  I  seek  my  former  employer? 
I  shrank  from  such  a  course  with  the  great- 
est abhorrence.  I  hardly  dared  meet  Alice, 
my  heart's  love,  in  my  present  broken  con- 
dition. I  sought  for  employment,  but  in  vain ; 
finally,  wasted  and  worn  with  the  pangs  of 
hunger — yes,  if  I  must  confess  it,  by  starva- 
tion— I  crawled  to  the  servants'  door  of  the 
handsome  mansion  on  Fifth  avenue,  and 
asked  for  a  piece  of  bread.  That  house,  the 
steps  of  which  I  had  run  up  so  lightly  and 
happily  so  many,  many  times  !  I  knew 
they  would  hardly  know  me.  I  drew  my  tat- 
tered over-coat  up  about  my  ears,  and  wait- 
ed patiently,  for  it  was  snowing  heavily. 

A  strange  house-servant  opened  the  door, 
but  when  he  saw  me  shivering  in  the  merci- 
less storm,  he  bade  me  come  in,  and  brought 
to  me,  standing  in  the  vestibule,  a  sandwich 
and  a  cup  of  hot  coffee.  I  heard  the  bell 
ring  violently — the  drawing-room  bell.  My 
heart  beat  as  if  it  would  suffocate  me ;  my 


hand  trembled  so,  I  could  scarcely  hold  my 
cup.  The  man  at  the  basement  door  was  to 
be  shown  upstairs;  that  was  the  order. 

I  could  barely  stagger  up  the  flight  and 
into  the  library,  full,  oh!  so  full,  with  such 
happy  memories.  How  rich,  how  sumptuous 
everything  looked;  how  exquisite  the  statuary, 
how  superb  the  portieres.  All  this  flashed 
through  my  mind  in  a  moment  of  time.  Who 
was  this,  who  swept  from  behind  the  curtains 
and  the  palms,  in  mourning  robes,  with  her 
exquisite  face  pale  and  thin,  but  oh !  so  beau- 
tiful in  its  sorrow  and  trial? 

"Grey,  Grey,"  she  cried  in  a  passion  of 
tears,  "you  couldn't  deceive  me,  my  poor 
boy.  Oh  !  my  love,  my  love,  how  could  you 
leave  me  so  long?" 

I  forgot  my  hunger,  my  poverty,  every- 
thing except  my  love,  my  passionate  love  for 
this  girl.  I  drew  her  to  my  heart,  and  laid 
my  white  head  beside  her  brown  braids. 

"Providence  has  given  you  back  to  me; 
how  can  I  be  grateful  enough  ! " 

She  cried  for  joy  on  my  breast,  and  I,  in 
this  moment  of  supreme  happiness  drew 
the  veil  over  "my  terrible  experience,"  only 
to  lift  it  once  to  reveal  it  to  you,  although 
my  beautiful  wife,  my  Alice,  shudders  as  I 
do  so,  and  fain  would  blot  it  forever  from 
my  memory. 

Bun  Le  Roy. 


THE   BUILDING  OF    A    STATE.— VII.     THE   COLLEGE  OF   CALIFORNIA. 


I  AM  asked  to  give  as  one  of  the  papers  in 
the  "  Building  of  a  State  "  series,  the  history 
of  the  College  of  California.  That  history 
properly  begins  with  the  preliminary  work  in 
the  year  1849. 

Among  the  crowds  of  young  men  that 
were  then  coming  to  California  for  gold, 
there  were  some  who  came  to  stay  and  make 
homes,  and  help  "  build  a  State  "  here.  They 
did  not  at  first  know  each  other.  All  were 
strangers  then.  But  gradually  they  got  into 
correspondence.  As  soon  as  there  were 
mails  and  post-offices,  they  began  to  get  ac- 
quainted. 


One  of  the  first  subjects  written  about 
and  talked  of  by  those  who  had  faith  in  a 
State  to  come,  was  that  of  education.  To 
be  sure,  there  were  very  few  English-speaking 
children  here  at  that  time,  and  most  people 
thought  it  was  too  soon  to  plan  for  schools. 
But  some  thought  otherwise.  They  thought 
that  there  would  be  children  here  to  be 
taught,  quite  as  soon  as  schools  could  be 
made  ready  to  teach  them.  They  thought 
that  schools  would  bring  children  here,  doing 
away  with  one  of  the  greatest  objections  to 
the  removing  of  families  to  this  country. 
There  were  some  that  went  so  far  as  to  in- 


1885.] 


The  College  of  California. 


27 


elude  the  college  in  the  forecast  of  their 
educational  plans.  Not  that  the  college 
would  be  wanted  soon,  but  they  meant  to  see 
it  well  established,  if  possible,  in  their  life- 
time. 

To  make  this  the  more  sure,  they  thought 
that  it  would  be  worth  while  to  get  land  giv- 
en while  it  was  cheap,  toward  the  foundation 
of  a  college  endowment.  There  were  wealthy 
ranchmen  who  owned  their  leagues,  and  "city 
lots  "  were  being  rapidly  surveyed,  mapped, 
and  offered  for  sale  in  San  Francisco,  San 
Jose,  Benicia,  Sacramento,  and  Stockton,  to 
say  nothing  of  Sutler,  Vernon,  New  York, 
etc. — towns  then  projected  looking  for  great- 
ness, though  they  failed  at  last  to  reach  it. 
It  seemed  possible  to  get  donations  of  such 
property  toward  the  foundation  of  a  college, 
and  probable  that  it  might  become  so  valu- 
able as  to  be  a  material  help  when  the  col- 
lege should  want  it.  I  do  not  know  how 
extensive  the  correspondence  about  the  mat- 
ter was,  but  I  know  that  Sherman  Day,  John 
W.  Douglass,  S.  V.  Blakeslee,  T.  L.  Andrews, 
T.  D.  Hunt,  Frederick  Billings,  J.  A.  Ben- 
ton,  Frederick  Buel,  and  the  present  writer 
took  part  in  it  at  that  time ;  and  it  was  the 
earnest  purpose  of  all  concerned  to  secure 
the  cooperation  of  all  friends  of  higher  edu- 
cation in  some  practical  college  plan.  The 
result  was  that  some  wealthy  men  were  asked 
to  make  donations.  Among  others,  Dr. 
James  Stokes  was  applied  to.  The  Doctor 
thought  the  matter  over,  and  then  said  :  "Go 
and  see  Dimmick  ;  Kimball  H.  Dimmick 
and  I  own  land  together,  bordering  on  the 
Guadaloupe  River  in  San  Jose.  Tell  him 
I'll  give  as  much  as  he  will." 

Mr.  Dimmick  was  forthwith  seen,  and  the 
result  was  a  written  agreement,  binding  the 
parties,  Stokes  and  Dimrnick,  to  make  a  deed 
of  gift,  conveying  the  land  for  the  purposes 
of  a  college,  as  soon  as  a  board  of  trustees 
could  be  legally  incorporated  to  receive  it. 
Some  other  pledges  of  a  similar  character 
were  made  by  other  parties. 

But  all  further  progress  had  to  await  the 
organization  of  the  State  itself,  and  the  en- 
actment of  the  necessary  incorporation  laws 
by  the  Legislature.  The  Constitutional  Con- 


vention met  at  Monterey,  and  did  its  work 
in  September,  1849.  Education  found  plenty 
of  friends  in  that  body,  and  the  provision 
they  made  for  common  schools  in  the  con- 
stituti  on  was  ample.  The  college  plan  also 
found  friends  among  the  members  and  some 
substantial  encouragement.  The  Constitu- 
tion was  adopted,  and  the  Legislature  chosen 
in  November,  1849.  It  convened  for  busi- 
ness in  December  following. 

In  due  time  a  law  providing  for  the  incor- 
poration of  colleges  was  passed.  It  very 
properly  required,  as  one  of  the  conditions  of 
a  college  charter,  the  possession  by  the  appli- 
cants of  property  to  the  value  of  at  least 
twenty  thousand  dollars,  and  it  empowered 
the  Supreme  Court  to  grant  college  charters. 
Under  this  law  our  application  was  made. 
All  the  conditions  were  fulfilled  that  could 
be,  but  it  failed,  because 'titles  to  the  lands 
proposed  to  be  given  had  not  then  been  ad- 
judicated and  settled,  so  as  to  make  the 
property  sure,  as  required  by  law.  This  was 
in  1850,  as  seen  in  First  Cal.  Reports,  p. 
330.  It  was  years  before  they  were  so  set- 
tled. Changes  were  swift  and  many  in  that 
length  of  time,  and  finally  nothing  came  of 
the  proposed  donations. 

*But  that  did  not  hinder  work  looking  to- 
ward the  college.  The  friends  of  the  move- 
ment held  meetings;  preliminary  measures 
were  discussed.  All  of  us  were  busy  about 
our  own  affairs,  pushed  to  the  last  degree. 
None  could  at  that  time  stop  to  look  up  a 
teacher,  or  do  other  needed  things  to  get 
together  a  school  preparatory  to  a  college. 
But  yet  information  was  sought  from  every 
quarter  bearing  on  the  plan ;  extended  cor- 
respondence was  had  with  members  of  the 
faculty  of  Yale  College  and  the  government  of 
Harvard  College,  touching  the  best  methods 
of  procedure  in  circumstances  like  ours. 
Letters  full  of  encouragement  and  counsels 
drawn  from  experience  came  back,  aiding  us 
greatly  in  our  plans. 

THE  COLLEGE  SCHOOL. 

At  this  juncture  an  unexpected  light  broke 
upon  us.  The  very  help  we  needed  came  to 


28 


The  College  of  California. 


us.  One  day  in  the  early  spring  of  1853, 
just  after  the  arrival  of  the  steamship  from 
Panama,  a  stranger  came  to  my  house  in 
San  Francisco.  He  was  a  man  in  the  prime 
of  life,  gentlemanly  in  his  bearing,  and  in  ap- 
pearance the  very  embodiment  of  the  ideal 
college  professor.  It  was  Henry  Durant.1 

His  appearance  was  enough  of  itself  to 
assure  an  immediate  welcome,  but  letters 
which  he  brought  from  well  known  friends  at 
the  East  made  it  doubly  warm.  Mr.  Durant 
came  to  do  the  very  work  so  much  needing 
to  be  done.  He  came,  as  he  said  himself, 
"  with  college  on  the  brain,"  and  he  was 
ready  to  begin  at  once  at  the  very  beginning. 
It  seemed  wonderful!  Just  the  man  we 
needed;  a  cultivated  scholar,  a  successful 
teacher;  on  the  ground  at  just  the  right  mo- 
ment, ready  to  begin  at  once.  Of  course, 
Mr.  Durant  was  quickly  introduced  to  all  the 
circle  of  college  friends,  and,  of  course,  de- 
lighted them  by  his  evident  adaptedness  to 
the  work.  "  Let  him  begin  right  off,"  was 
the  common  voice. 

But  where?  Not  at  San  Josd,  now,  for 
it  was  no  longer  the  capital  of  the  State,  and 
access  by  stage  or  steamboat  was  slow  and 
tiresome.  Where  then  ? 

"Try  Oakland,"  some  said.  Well,  over 
to  Oakland  we  went  to  see.  A  wheezy  little 
steamer  had  got  into  the  habit  of  crossing 
the  bay  two  or  three  times  a  day  to  carry 
passengers.  It  was  pretty  regular,  except 
that  it  was  liable  to  get  stuck  on  the  bar  now 
and  then.  In  this  case  it  took  us  safely 
over.  Oakland  we  found  to  be  indeed  a 
land  of  oaks,  having  one  street,  Broadway, 
extending  from  the  landing  toward  the  hills, 
with  a  few  buildings  here  and  there  on  either 
side,  and  a  few  houses  scattered  about  among 
the  trees. 

Upon  inquiry,  one  single  house  was  found 
vacant.  It  was  situated  on  Broadway,  where 
now  is  the  corner  of  Fifth  Street,  and  it 
could  be  had  at  a  monthly  rent  of  $150  gold 
coin  paid  in  advance. 

We  reported  progress.  Upon  due  consid- 
eration it  was  determined  to  accept  the 

i  See  OVERLAND  MONTHLY,  August,  1884,  pp.  167- 
172. 


terms,  and  let  Mr.  Durant  begin  the  school 
forthwith. 

He  did  so,  opening  about  the  first  of  June, 
1853,  with  three  pupils.  It  should  be  re- 
membered that  boys  were  few,  as  yet,  in 
California. 

This  arrangement,  however,  was  tempo- 
rary. Land  was  soon  secured  between  Twelfth 
and  Fourteenth  Streets,  and  between  Frank- 
lin and  Harrison  Streets,  four  blocks  and 
the  included  streets,  some  six  or  seven  acres 
in  all,  and  a  house  for  the  school,  residence 
of  the  Principal,  and  boarding  the  pupils 
was  erected  thereon.2  From  that  time  the 
school  grew  steadily,  though  not  rapidly. 

But,  through  trying  years,  Mr.  Durant 
proved  himself  to  have  not  only  the  courage 
to  begin  a  great  enterprise,  but  the  pluck 
and  perseverance  to  stick  to  it.  The  outside 
friends  stood  by  him,  and  never  failed  to 
help  him  over  hard  places. 

INCORPORATION  OF  THE  COLLEGE. 

After  two  years'  work,  the  school  had  come 
to  number  fifty  pupils.  The  prospect  of  per- 
manence became  tolerably  sure.  The  num- 
ber who  joined  in  the  support  of  the  insti- 
tution increased.  Opportunities  to  acquire 
property  seemed  to  be  in  prospect.  The  need 
of  a  board  of  college  trustees,  incorporated 
according  to  law,  became  apparent. 

The  law  of  the  State  relative  to  chartering 
colleges  had  been  changed,  so  that  now  the 
application  had  to  be  made,  not  to  the  Su- 
preme Court,  but  to  the  State  Board  of  Edu- 
cation, which  consisted  of  the  Governor,  the 
Surveyor  General,  and  the  Superintendent  of 
Public  Instruction.  A  petition  for  incorpora- 
tion was  presented  to  this  Board,  and  was 
signed  by  the  following  gentlemen,  viz  :  John 
Caperton,  John  C.  Hayes,  J.  A.  Freaner, 
H.  S.  Foote,  Joseph  C.  Palmer,  F.  W.  Page, 
Henry  Haight,  Robert  Simson,  N.  W.  Chit- 
tenden,  Theodore  Payne,  J.  A.  Benton,  Sher- 
man Day,  G.  A.  Swezey,  Samuel  B.  Bell,  and 
John  Bigler. 

The  official  declaration  of  incorporation  is 
dated  Sacramento,  April  i3th,  1855,  and  is 

2  OVERLAND  MONTHLY,  August,  1884,  pp.  168,  169. 


1885.] 


The   College  of  California, 


29 


signed  by  John  Bigler,  Governor,  S.  H.  Mar- 
lette,  Surveyor  General,  and  Paul  K.  Hubbs, 
Superintendent  of  Public  Instruction.  It 
made  the  Board  of  Trustees  of  the  College 
of  California  to  consist  of  Frederick  Billings, 
Sherman  Day,  Samuel  H.  Willey,  T.  Dwight 
Hunt,  Mark  Brummagim,  Edward  B.  Wals- 
worth,  Joseph  A.  Benton,  Edward  McLean, 
Henry  Durant,  Francis  W.  Page,  Robert 
Simson,  A.  H.  Wilder,  and  Samuel  B.  Bell. 

All  the  property  of  the  College  School 
now  came  into  the  possession  of  the  Trustees 
of  the  College,  and  the  school  itself  went  on 
under  their  supervision.  It  gave  thorough  in- 
struction in  the  various  branches  of  an  Eng- 
lish education,  and  also  provided  a  careful 
training  for  the  few  who  wished  to  fit  for 
college.  From  this  time  the  College  School 
increased  in  numbers  rapidly.  Soon  additions 
to  the  first  building  had  to  be  made.  Then 
new  buildings  were  erected,  till  the  institu- 
tion seemed  like  a  veritable  hive  of  industry 
all  by  itself  among  the  oaks. 

Meanwhile,  regular  classes  began  to  form 
in  the  three  years'  course  to  fit  for  college. 
Mr.  Durant's  enthusiasm  for  college  culture 
was  a  constant  stimulus  to  the  boys,  and  held 
them  well  to  their  purpose,  even  in  those 
wild  and  exciting  times. 

THE  BERKELEY  SITE. 

In  the  year  1856,  attention  began  to  be 
directed  to  the  selection  of  a  site  for  the  final 
location  of  the  College. 

It  was  desired  to  make  an  early  choice  of 
some  spot  ample  in  size,  situated  in  a  healthy 
region,  with  fine  outlook,  having  a  copious 
stream  of  running  water,  and,  withal,  access- 
ible. 

To  aid  us  in  making  the  necessary  exami- 
nations for  the  purpose  of  finding  the  best 
site,  an  unexpected  and  most  competent 
helper  appeared.  It  was  the  Rev.  Dr.  Horace 
Bushnell.  He  arrived  in  California  early  in 
the  year  1856,  in  pursuit  of  health.  He  was 
suffering  from  bronchitis,  and  wanted  to  try 
the  efficacy  of  our  warm,  dry  climate.  But 
he  was  otherwise  strong,  and  wished  to  live 
here  an  out-door  life. 


We  at  once  told  him  of  our  college  plans, 
showing  him  what  we  had  done,  and  explain- 
ing to  him  what  we  now  wanted  to  do  in  the 
matter  of  finding  the  very  best  location  for 
the  permanent  home  of  the  College.  It  in- 
terested him  at  once.  Indeed,  he  became 
hardly  less  enthusiastic  than  his  friend  Mr. 
Durant,  whom  he  had  known  years  before  at 
Yale  College. 

As  a  result  of  many  interviews  and  much 
consultation  between  him  and  the  Trustees, 
it  was  determined  to  offer  him  the  Presiden- 
cy of  the  College,  that  he  might  be  in  the' 
best  possible  position  to  speak  and  act  in  its 
behalf  before  the  public.  He  was  chosen 
President,  accordingly.  In  response  to  this 
action,  Dr.  Bushnell  promised  to  take  the 
matter  of  acceptance  into  consideration.  If 
he  should  find  himself  strengthened  and  re- 
stored by  the  climate  here,  so  as  to  be  able 
to  return  to  his  pulpit  in  Hartford,  he  would 
return  there.  If  he  seemed  to  be  able  to  live 
and  be  useful  only  here,  he  might  accept  the 
office  and  undertake  its  duties. 

Meanwhile,  the  traveling  to  search  for  the 
best  site  was  just  in  the  line  of  his  wish  to 
live  out  of  doors,  and  would  furnish  him  an 
engaging  motive  for  so  doing.  And  so  he 
started,  traveling  sometimes  in  stages,  and 
sometimes  on  horseback,  with  many  tramps 
on  foot  between.  He  began  on  the  western 
side  of  the  bay  of  San  Francisco,  looking 
along  through  San  Mateo  County,  then 
through  Santa  Clara  County,  and  around  on 
the  eastern  side  of  the  bay  in  Alameda  Coun- 
ty. He  made  his  home  a  good  while  at  Mr. 
Beard's,  in  the  Mission  San  Jose,  examining 
with  great  care  the  possible  locations  in  that 
vicinity,  more  particularly  a  choice  one  in 
Sufiol  Valley.  Sometimes  he  traveled  alone, 
and  sometimes  some  one  of  us  Trustees  went 
with  him. 

He  came  up  to  what  is  now  East  Oakland, 
noticing  a  splendid  site  on  high  ground  ly- 
.  ing  easterly,  but  the  defect  was,  it  could  not 
have  running  water.     He  visited  the  Berke- 
ley locality,1  and  found  it  admirable  in  all 

1  I  use  the  name  "  Berkeley  "  to  designate  this  local- 
ity at  this  time,  although  it  was  not  known  by  that  name 
till  May,  1866.  Then,  when  a  name  had  to  be  chosen, 
and  all  the  Trustees  were  making  suggestions  as  to 


30 


The   College  of  California. 


[July, 


respects,  except  that  there  was  not  water 
enough. 

In  the  early  autumn  he  went  to  Martinez, 
Benicia,  and  through  Napa,  Sonoma,  and 
Petaluma  Valleys,  spending  week  after  week 
in  his  tours.  In  these  journeys  he  met  a 
great  many  people,  and  interested  them  in 
our  college  plans.  At  the  same  time  he  en- 
joyed the  best  possible  advantages  for  his 
own  recovery.  And  these  proved  to  be  so 
effectual,  that  he  thought  himself  able  to  re- 
turn home  and  resume  his  pastoral  work. 
Before  doing  so,  however,  in  the  late  autumn 
of  1856,  he  made  a  written  report  in  detail 
to  the  Trustees,  concerning  several  sites, 
specifying  their  peculiarities  and  excellences. 
He  also  delivered  some  addresses  setting 
forth  the  claims  of  the  College,  and  wrote 
an  appeal  to  the  public  in  its  behalf.  To 
our  great  regret,  he  thought  best  to  leave  us, 
but  he  promised  to  do  his  best  to  interest 
people  in  the  Eastern  States  in  our  under- 
taking, and  try  to  get  them  to  help  us,  as 
people  in  the  older  States  have  always  been 
in  the  habit  of  helping  colleges  in  new  States. 

Possessed  now  of  the  information  gathered 
during  the  summer  with  Dr.  Bushnell,  the 
Trustees  prosecuted  further  inquiries  at  their 
leisure,  inasmuch  as  there  was  no  haste  as  to 
the  final  conclusion. 

Meantime  the  College  School  grew,  filling 
new  buildings  and  employing  a  large  corps 
of  select  teachers.  The  boys  in  the  classi- 
cal department  made  good  progress,  and  the 
more  advanced  were  approaching  near  to 
readiness  to  enter  college. 

As  to  the  permanent  college  site,  the  opin- 
ion carne  to  be  unanimous  in  favor  of  the 
Berkeley  location,  if  an  adequate  water  sup- 
ply could  be  provided  there.  Thorough 
examinations  were  made  to  determine  this 
point.  An  engineer  was  employed.  The 

what  it  should  be,  Mr.  Billings  remembered  the  familiar 
stanza : 

"  Westward  the  course  of  Empire,"  etc. 

"Berkeley!"  said  he,  "Berkeley — why  wouldn't 
Berkeley  be  a  good  name  for  a  college  town  in  the  far- 
thest west?" 

On  the  whole,  it  was  so  agreed,  and  by  vote  of  the 
Trustees  on  the  24th  of  May,  1866,  the  name  "  Berke- 
ley "  was  given  to  this  locality,  which  had  been  before 
known  as  ''The  College  Site." 


flow  of  the  springs  was  measured.  The  fa- 
cilities for  impounding  water  were  ascer- 
tained. The  extent  of  the  water-shed  was 
estimated;  and,  what  was  more,  the  possibil- 
ity of  bringing  in  Wild  Cat  Creek  was  deter- 
mined. It  was  never  contemplated,  when 
the  whole  country  was  before  us,  to  put  a 
college  where  there  was  not  an  abundance 
of  flowing  water.  We  conceived  that  it  would 
be  an  unpardonable  blunder  to  plant  such 
an  institution — in  a  country  of  long  dry  sea- 
sons like  this — where  there  could  not  be  an 
unfailing  and  copious  water-supply  for  all 
purposes  of  use  and  ornamentation.  When 
it  was  found  that  this  could  be  provided  on 
the  site  in  question,  the  only  objection  to 
choosing  it  seemed  to  be  removed. 

And  so,  at  a  meeting  of  the  Board  of 
Trustees,  held  March  ist,  1858,  the  Berkeley 
site  was,  by  formal  vote,  adopted  as  the  lo- 
cation of  the  College  of  California. 

THE  ORGANIC  BASIS  OF  THE  COLLEGE. 

As  the  work  toward  the  full  organization 
of  the  college  went  on,  the  question  was 
raised  in  a  certain  quarter,  What  were  its 
principles  ?  To  make  plain  in  words  what 
had,  from  the  beginning,  been  well  under- 
stood in  fact  by  all  concerned,  the  Trustees 
adopted  and  published  their  "  Organic  Ba- 
sis," declaring  that  "  The  College  of  Califor- 
nia is  an  institution  designed  by  its  found- 
ers to  furnish  the  means  of  a  thorough  and 
comprehensive  education,  under  the  pervad- 
ing influence  and  spirit  of  the  Christian  re- 
ligion. That  Trustees  shall  be  elected  from 
time  to  time,  such  as  shall  fairly  and  equally 
represent  the  patrons  and  contributors  to 
the  funds  of  the  institution,  provided  that  a 
majority  be  always  members  of  evangelical 
Christian  churches,  but  that  not  more  than 
one-fourth  of  the  actual  members  be  of  one 
and  the  same  Christian  denomination."  In 
the  election  of  professors,  men  of  Christian 
character  were  to  be  preferred,  and  "the 
President  and  a  majority  of  the  Faculty  must 
be  members  of  evangelical  Christian  church- 
es." The  idea  was  this :  It  seemed  possi- 
ble to  have  a  college  grow  up  in  California 


1885.] 


The   College  of  California. 


31 


in  our  own  life-time  if  we  joined  in  building 
one  only.  In  a  State  so  remote,  and  likely 
to  be  settled  so  slowly,  it  seemed  plain  that 
if  more  than  one  college  should  be  attempted, 
there  could  be  none,  in  the  proper  sense  of 
the  word  "  college,"  for  a  long  time  to  come. 
At  the  same  time,  there  appeared  to  be  no 
good  reason  why  one  and  the  same  literary 
institution,  such  as  a  college  is,  should  not 
serve  all  the  evangelical  denominations 
equally  well:  hence  the  plan,  as  expressed  in 
the  Organic  Basis. 

THE  ORGANIZATION  OF  THE  COLLEGE 
FACULTY. 

As  the  first  class  preparing  for  college  was 
nearly  ready  to  be  admitted,  it  became  nec- 
essary to  appoint  enough  professors  to  receive 
and  instruct  them  in  the  beginning  of  their 
college  studies.  It  was  a  matter  quite  of 
course  that  Henry  Durant  should  be  first 
chosen.  His  chair  was  designated  as  that 
of  "  the  Greek  Language  and  Literature." 
Martin  Kellogg  was  next  appointed  "Pro- 
fessor of  the  Latin  Language  and  Literature," 
and  Isaac  H.  Brayton  "  Professor  of  Rhet- 
oric, Belles-Lettres,  and  the  English  Lan- 
guage." 

A  separate  building  was  erected,  contain- 
ing recitation  rooms,  etc.,  for  the  accommo- 
dation of  the  College. 

All  things  beingthus  in  readiness,  the  senior 
preparatory  class  in  the  College  School,  hav- 
ing passed  an  excellent  examination,  was  ad- 
mitted to  college,  and  the  fall  term  of  the  year 
1860  began  with  a  Freshman  class  number- 
ing eight  students.  Professors  Durant  and 
Kellogg  gave  their  whole  time  to  the  instruc- 
tion of  this  class,  and  Professor  Brayton 
only  a  part  of  his,  as  he  became  at  this  time 
the  Principal  of  the  College  School. 

After  a  successful  year's  work  the  class 
was  advanced  to  Sophomore  standing,  and 
a  new  Freshman  class  was  admitted  in  June, 
1861,  numbering  ten  members. 

When  the  spring  term  of  this  college  year, 
i86i-'62,  opened,  it  was  remembered  that 
at  its  end  a  third  class  would  be  ready  for  ad-  • 
mission.    Then  more  room  would  be  wanted, 


and  more  teachers,  and  more  means.  The 
care  of  the  college  property  also  required 
attention.  It  was  evident  that  the  College 
must  soon  have  a  President  as  its  execu- 
tive head.  And  it  was  the  opinion  of  all 
that  more  depended  upon  a  wise  selection 
for  this  office  than  any  other  thing.  It  was 
determined  to  proceed  with  carefulness  and 
deliberation  in  this  matter. 

But,  meantime,  something  must  be  done 
to  supply  the  immediate  want  in  this  depart- 
ment. Anxious  consultations  were  had  by 
the  Trustees  as  to  the  best  method  of  pro- 
cedure. 

While  these  were  going  on,  it  became 
known  that  I  was  about  to  resign  the  pastor- 
ate of  the  Howard  Presbyterian  Church,  San 
Francisco  (which  I  had  held  for  twelve  years, 
from  the  church's  commencement),  with  the 
intention  of  going  East  for  relief  and  restor- 
ation to  health.  Indeed,  my  steamer  pas- 
sage was  engaged.  No  sooner  was  this  un- 
derstood than  the  request  came  to  me  from 
professors,  Trustees,  and  friends  of  the  Col- 
lege that  I  would  reconsider  the  matter  of 
going  East,  and  seek  the  needed  recovery  of 
strength  in  a  change  of  occupation  here,  be- 
coming the  executive  head  of  the  College  for 
the  time  being.  Such  was  my  interest  in  the 
institution,  such  was  the  urgency  used  with 
me,  and  so  good  was  the  prospect  of  the 
recovery  of  my  health  in  the  work,  that  I 
accepted  the  appointment,  becoming  Vice- 
President  of  the  College,  with  the  intention 
of  remaining  in  office  not  over  two  years. 
My  hope  and  expectation  were  to  see  the 
College  in  a  new  building  by  that  timfe,  and 
presided  over  by  a  thoroughly  trained  and 
qualified  President. 

All  went  reasonably  well  during  my  first 
year,  while  I  was  getting  "  broken  in  "  to  my 
new  service.  The  new  building  was  erected 
and  paid  for.  It  was  a  handsome  structure, 
two  stories  in  height,  surmounted  by  a  tower 
from  which  there  was  an  extended  view,  em- 
bracing the  forest  of  oaks  that  covered  the 
encinal,  and  the  bay  and  the  mountains  be- 
yond. It  contained  a  chapel,  lecture  room, 
recitation  rooms,  and  library  room.  In  due 
time,  the  third  class  was  admitted,  and  the 


32 


The   College  of  California. 


[July, 


regular  routine  of  college  life  seemed  to  be 
well  under  way. 

When  things  seemed  to  be  ready  in  April, 
1863,  for  the  election  of  President,  Rev.  Dr. 
W.  G.  T.  Shedd,  of  New  York,  was  chosen. 
The  appointment  was  forwarded  to  him,  to- 
gether with  such  information  as  would  give 
him  as  correct  a  view  as  possible  of  the  im- 
portance of  the  Institution,  and  the  opportu- 
nity for  usefulness  open  before  it  on  this 
coast.  At  the  same  time  it  was  said  to  him 
that  he  might  take  time  to  become  acquaint- 
ed with  all  the  facts,  as  we  were  in  no  press- 
ing haste  for  his  decision. 

At  the  anniversary  examination  in  June, 
1863,  the  three  classes  were  advanced,  and 
a  new  Freshman  class  was  admitted  from  the 
College  School.  William  H.  Brewer  was 
elected  Professor  of  Natural  Science,  and 
the  college  year  i863-'64  opened  in  the  new 
building  with  the  four  classes,  and  the  Fac- 
ulty consisting  of  the  Vice-President,  and 
Professors  Durant,  Kellogg,  Brayton,  and 
Brewer,  together  with  F.  D.  Hodgson,  In- 
structor in  Mathematics  and  Natural  Philos- 
ophy, C.  L.  Des  Rochers,  Teacher  in  French, 
T.  C  Barker,  Teacher  in  German,  and  W. 
H.  Cleveland,  Teacher  in  Spanish.  The 
curriculum  of  study  was  very  nearly  that  of 
the  older  Eastern  colleges,  including,  per- 
haps, something  more  of  modern  language. 

The  college  bell  used  to  ring  strictly  "on 
time,"  and  all  the  college  exercises  were 
punctually  attended.  There  was  the  genu- 
ine spirit  of  college  life,  both  thorough  and 
manly; 

THE  FIRST  COMMENCEMENT. 

As  soon  as  we  had  entered  upon  the 
second  term  of  the  college  year,  i863~'64,  we 
began  to  prepare  for  Commencement  and  the 
graduation  of  our  first  class.  We  determined 
to  make  this  occasion  as  distinct  a  way-mark 
as  possible  in  the  progress  of  the  College. 

Of  course,  there  would  be  the  usual  com- 
mencement exercises,  but  these  would  not  be 
entirely  new,  because  exercises  similar  to 
them  had  occurred  at  our  anniversaries  for 
years.  The  object  was,  to  plan  something 
that  would  call  together  educated  men,  and 


induce  them  to  give  a  day  to  learning  and 
the  revival  of  college  associations,  and  at  the 
same  time  interest  them  in  this  college  and 
give  emphasis  to  our  first  Commencement. 

We  remembered  the  alumni  gatherings  at 
the  Eastern  college  commencements,  and  how 
much  they  do  to  add  interest  to  those  occa- 
sions. We  had  no  alumni.  But  it  occured 
to  us  to  invite  all  college  graduates  to 
our  first  commencement,  providing  them 
a  supper  and  an  oration,  poem,  and  so  forth, 
for  themselves.  So,  first  we  consulted  the 
ladies,  and  they  promised  to  provide  the 
collation  and  serve  it  in  the  College  Chapel. 
A  note  of  invitation  was  then  prepared  in 
the  name  of  the  Faculty  of  the  College,  in- 
viting college  graduates  to  a  general  alumni 
meeting  with  us  on  the  afternoon  and  even- 
ing of  May  3ist,  1864,  Commencement  being 
on  the  day  following,  June  ist,  promising  at 
the  same  time  an  oration  by  John  B.  Felton, 
and  a  poem  by  C.  T.  H.  Palmer. 

This  note  was  sent  to  all  known  gradu- 
ates. It  awakened  an  unexpected  interest. 
The  idea  was  new.  It  touched  the  college 
nerve.  It  soon  became  evident  that  there 
would  be  a  full  attendance.  Preparations 
were  made  accordingly.  When  the  appoint- 
ed day  came,  all  things  were  ready.  The 
assembly  convened  for  the  oration  and  poem 
in  the  Presbyterian  church,  which  was  then 
situated  in  the  grove  near  the  present  corner 
of  Harrison  and  Sixth  Streets. 

The  house  had  been  made  ready  for  all 
the  exercises  of  this  commencement  occa- 
sion. Of  course,  it  was  crowded  with  people. 
Those  who  could  not  get  in  found  standing 
room  where  they  could  hear,  under  the  trees 
near  by  the  open  windows.  At  the  close  of 
these  exercises  the  invited  alumni  present 
went  in  procession,  escorted  by  the  members 
of  the  college  and  the  college  school,  through 
the  grove  to  the  college  chapel.  There  the 
guests  filed  in  and  took  their  places  at  the 
tables,  and,  at  the  signal  from  the  President 
of  the  occasion,  Edward  Tompkins,  took  their 
seats.  There  were  one  hundred  and  twenty- 
five  of  them,  representing  some  thirty-five 
institutions  of  learning.  Letters  were  re- 
ceived from  twenty-five  more,  expressing  re- 


1885.] 


The  College  of  California. 


33 


gret  that  they  could  not  be  present.  First 
came  the  repast — and  a  cheery  time  they 
had  of  it.  Many  of  the  guests  had  never 
met  before.  And  now  they  were  here,  as- 
sembled in  the  interest  of  the  higher  educa- 
tion in  California,  and  at  the  same  time  re- 
newing the  associations  of  youth  and  of  the 
various  colleges  from  which  they  came. 

The  scene  was  indescribable.  All  were 
young  men,  measuring  lances  together  for  the 
first  time.  Everything  was  refined  and  be- 
coming to  cultivated  people.  But  the  air 
of  that  room  was  electric  with  wit  and  humor, 
poetry  and  wisdom,  till  eleven  o'clock,  when 
the  assembly  reluctantly  broke  up.  The 
short-hand  reporter  did  his  best  to  get  some- 
thing of  it  down  on  paper,  but  the  finest 
things  eluded  the  quickness  of  his  pencil. 
It  was  the  saying  of  all,  that  they  had  nev- 
er seen  the  like  of  it.  There  was  no  effort 
about  it.  Much  of  the  sparkle  of  the  occa- 
sion was  due  to  its  novelty,  and  to  the  Pres- 
ident, Mr.  Tompkins,  whose  ability  in  guid- 
ing such  a  meeting  was  something  marvel- 
ous. There  were  toasts  and  responses,  and 
interjected  speeches,  and  quick  repartees, 
and  all  in  such  fine  taste  that  every  last  thing 
seemed  to  be  the  best  thing.  The  hours 
just  flew,  and  it  was  an  unwelcome  surprise 
when  the  train-whistle  gave  the  signal  to  break 
up.  Before  adjourning,  however,  it  was  de- 
termined to  organize  the  alumni  into  an  as- 
sociation, to  meet  annually  in  this  way  with 
the  College  of  California  at  its  commence- 
ments. 

The  next  day  was  Commencement  Day, 
when  our  first  graduates  were  to  receive  their 
degrees.  At  eleven  o'clock  in  the  forenoon 
the  church  was  full  and  overflowing  again. 
First  came  the  exercises  of  the  graduating 
class ;  after  them  a  poem  by  Bret  Harte,  fol- 
lowed by  an  oration  by  Newton  Booth. 
The  degrees  were  then  conferred  in  due 
form,  and  so  the  college  rounded  out  the  full 
outline  of  its  work,  thereafter  to  go  on  from 
year  to  year.  Commencent  exercises  are  so 
much  alike  that  no  detailed  description  needs 
to  be  given  of  this  occasion.  Its  peculiar 
interest  to  us  consisted  in  the  fact  that  it 
was  our  first,  and  that  it  represented  the  full 
VOL.  VI.— 3. 


four  years'  course  of  study  usually  pursued 
in  the  best  Eastern  colleges. 

From  this  time,  the  College  went  on  from 
term  to  term,  and  from  year  to  year,  with  a 
growing  spirit  of  true  college  life.  Com- 
mencements succeeded  each  other  with  only 
the  usual  variations  incident  to  such  occa- 
sions, and  the  "Associated  Alumni"  assem- 
bled with  us  in  still  larger  numbers  every 
year. 

Meantime,  the  attendance  at  the  College 
School  went  up  to  two  hundred  and  fifty 
boys,  taught  by  twelve  instructors,  giving  the 
whole  or  a  part  of  their  time  to  the  work. 

At  this  time  we  received  Dr.  Shedd's  let- 
ter, declining  to  accept  the  presidency.  Very 
soon  thereafter  the  Board  of  Trustees  elected 
Rev.  Dr.  R.  D.  Hitchcock,  and  asked  Dr. 
Bushnell,  Mr.  Billings  and  others,  to  see  him, 
explain  our  situation,  and  if  possible  secure 
his  acceptance  of  the  appointment.  All 
these  delays  in  getting  a  President  seemed 
to  oblige  me  to  remain  in  the  office  of  Vice- 
President  much  longer  than  I  had  planned 
or  desired.  Though  much  against  my  in- 
clination, I  continued  in  the  work,  a  great 
deal  of  which  was  irksome  and  disagreeable 
to  me,  in  the  hope  of  soon  transferring  it  to 
other  hands. 

PLANS  PROJECTED  FOR  THE  IMPROVEMENT 
OF  THE  BERKELEY  PROPERTY. 

In  the  summer  of  the  year  1865,  it  was 
thought  that  the  time  had  come  to  begin  to 
make  plans  for  the  improvement  of  the  Berk- 
eley property,  with  reference  to  the  removal 
of  the  College  to  it  at  no  very  distant  day. 

These  plans  contemplated  the  proper  lo- 
cation of  the  college  buildings,  and  the  im- 
provement of  the  grounds  between  the  two 
ravines,  and  the  laying  out  of  the  lands  out- 
side in  a  proper  way,  to  attract  the  right  kind 
of  population  to  be  near  a  college.  It  was 
the  purpose  of  the  Trustees  to  give  such  a 
study  to  this  problem  as  to  make  no  mistake 
for  those  coming  after  to  regret,  when  it 
should  be  too  late  to  remedy  it. 

Fortunately,  at  that  time,  Fred.  Law  Olm- 
sted,  of  the  firm  of  Olmsted,  Vaugh  &  Co., 


34 


The   College  of  California. 


[July, 


Landscape  Architects  of  New  York,  was  in 
California  on  professional  business.  We 
were  sure  of  his  superior  qualifications, 
from  the  fact  that  his  firm  had  been  the 
architects  of  Central  Park,  New  York.  He 
was  asked  to  go  upon  our  grounds,  and  give 
his  ideas  as  to  the  best  way  of  using  them 
for  a  college  and  a  college  town. 

He  went,  and  made  a  series  of  careful  ob- 
servations. He  then  outlined  the  method  of 
improvement  he  would  suggest,  in  conversa- 
tion to  the  Trustees.  They  were  so  con- 
vinced of  its  wisdom,  that  they  voted  to  em- 
ploy him,  at  large  expense,  to  make  a  topo- 
graphical survey,  and  lay  out  the  entire 
grounds  for  the  purposes  contemplated.  The 
thoroughness  with  which  he  studied  the  con- 
ditions of  his  problem  is  indicated,  when  he 
says  in  his  final  report :  "  I  visited  the  grounds 
under  a  variety  of  circumstances,  in  summer 
and  winter,  by  night  and  by  day.  I  visited 
the  other  suburbs  of  San  Francisco,  and  stud- 
ied them  with  some  care;  and,  without  being 
able  to  express  a  definite  estimate  of  the  de- 
gree of  difference  between  their  climate  and 
that  of  Berkeley,  I  think  I  am  warranted 
in  endorsing  the  opinion  that  the  climate  of 
Berkeley  is  distinguished  for  a  peculiar  seren- 
ity, cheerfulness,  and  healthfulness." 

After  making  a  complete  topographical 
survey  of  the  entire  grounds,  Mr.  Olmsted 
returned  to  New  York  in  the  fall  of  1865, 
taking  his  notes  and  outline  maps  with  him, 
in  order  there  to  complete  the  work  for  us. 
In  July,  1866,  he  sent  us  his  plan,  in  detail. 
It  was  shown  upon  a  very  large  topographical 
map  of  the  property,  together  with  smaller 
drawings  laying  down  road-lines,  giving 
methods  of  construction,  etc.,  to  be  used  in 
the  field.  This  plan  was  accompanied  by  a 
printed  pamphlet  of  twenty-six  pages,  going 
into  a  thorough  discussion  of  the  theory  and 
method  of  town  and  college  improvement  in 
circumstances  like  ours. 

It  contemplated  expenditure  no  faster  than 
there  was  means  to  meet  it,  but  it  proposed 
a  plan  of  improvement  comprehending  the 
entire  property,  and  consistent  in  all  its  parts, 
according  to  which  whatever  was  done  should 
be  guided.  It  located  the  principal  college 


buildings.  It  grouped  them  with  reference 
to  convenience  of  access,  and  to  the  best 
architectural  effect  as  seen  from  each  other. 
It  appropriated  the  grounds,  and  laid  down 
the  avenues  and  paths.  It  described  the 
method  of  constructing  the  road-bed,  gutters, 
drains,  bridges,  and  cross-walks.  It  sug- 
gested plantings  and  shrubbery  on  either  side 
that  would  remain  green,  to  shut  off  the 
brown  and  sterile  aspect  beyond,  in  the  dry 
season.  This  whole  improvement  plan  was 
made  to  conform  as  closely  as  possible  to  the 
natural  features  of  the  ground.  The  prin- 
cipal road  followed  the  stream  in  its  wind- 
ings, even  up  the  ravine  to  the  garden  cot- 
tage, and  turned  where  there  is  a  beautiful 
view  westward  through  the  gorge  and  out 
upon  the  bay.  "  The  extent  of  the  sylvan 
lanes  which  I  have  described,"  says  the  re- 
port, "would  be  about  five  miles.  At  several 
points  upon  them  there  would  be  very  fine 
distant  views,  each  having  some  distinctive 
advantage.  The  local  scenery  would  also  at 
many  points  be  not  only  quite  interesting, 
even  without  any  effort  to  produce  special 
effect  by  planting,  but  the  roads  are  laid  in 
such  a  way  as  to  make  the  most  of  the  natural 
features,  while  preserving  their  completely 
sylvan  and  rustic  character,  being  carried  in 
frequent  curves  in  such  a  way  as  to  make  the 
best  use  of  the  picturesque  banks  of  the  ar- 
royos  and  the  existing  trees  upon  them. 
These  are  sometimes  allowed  to  divide  into 
two  parts.  Notwithstanding  the  varied  curves 
which  the  arrangement  involves,  the  general 
course  of  the  lanes  will  be  found  simple,  and 
the  connection  between  the  more  important 
points  sufficiently  direct.  A  tract  of  low  flat 
ground,  twenty-seven  acres  in  extent,  sur- 
rounded on  three  sides  by  moderate  eleva- 
tions, two  of  which  retire  so  as  to  form  a  long 
bay  or  dell,  is  proposed  to  be  formed  into  a 
small  park  or  pleasure  ground.  The  site  is 
naturally  more  moist,  fertile,  and  meadow- 
like  than  any  other  in  the  vicinity,  and  a  con- 
siderable number  of  old  and  somewhat  quaint 
and  picturesque  oaks  are  growing  in  a  portion 
of  it.  This  occurrence,  with  a  thick  growth 
of  underwood,  and  of  rank  herbaceous  plants, 
leads  me  to  think  that  if  it  were  thoroughly 


1885.] 


The   College  of  California. 


35 


drained,  cleaned,  and  tilled,  trees  would  nat- 
urally grow  upon  it  in  more  umbrageous  and 
elegant  forms  than  elsewhere,  and  that  turf 
would  be  more  easily  formed  and  maintained 
upon  its  surface.  The  lanes  are  arranged 
with  reference  to  continuations  to  the  north- 
ward and  southward,  if  hereafter  found  de- 
sirable. The  area  of  ground  contained  in 
these  divisions  is  one  hundred  and  ninety- 
five  acres,  and  what  may  belong  to  private 
ownership  might  with  advantage  be  occupied 
by  from  fifty  to  one  hundred  families.  If 
what  is  proposed  to  be  accomplished  is  mod- 
estly conceived,  and  with  requisite  effort  is 
carried  out,  it  may  be  confidently  anticipated 
that  the  result  will  be  a  neighborhood  pecu- 
liarly home-like  and  grateful,  in  contrast  to 
the  ordinary  aspect  of  the  open  country  of 
California." 

In  order  to  be  in  readiness  to  superintend 
the  beginning  of  these  improvements,  I  re- 
moved from  Oakland  to  Berkeley  in  Decem- 
ber, 1865.  I  built  my  cottage  on  a  choice 
spot,  in  an  open  field.  There  were  only 
two  or  three  farm-houses  within  a  mile  or 
more.  The  cottage  is  standing  now,  and  is 
on  the  northeast  corner  of  Dwight  Way  and 
Audubon  Street.  I  was  getting  settled,  while 
Mr.  Olmsted  was  making  out  his  maps, 
drawings,  and  report  in  New  York.  By 
July,  1866,  when  those  maps,  etc.,  reached 
us,  my  grounds  were  well  laid  out,  and  a 
good  home-beginning  made. 

The  entire  tract  of  land  owned  by  the 
College  was  then  surrounded  by  a  good 
fence,  the  level  part  being  cultivated  and  the 
hill  land  pastured.  In  order  to  begin  the 
college  improvement,  and  also  to  enable 
those  who  had  bought  building  lots  to  use 
them,  or  to  induce  others  to  buy,  a  begin- 
ning must  be  made  in  introducing  the  water. 
A  study  of  the  best  method  of  procedure 
led  to  the  plan  of  first  bringing  down  the 
water  of  Strawberry  Creek  and  its  tributary 
springs,  and  pouring  it  into  a  small  perma- 
nent reservoir  situated  high  up  on  the  hill- 
side, thence  to  take  it  in  iron  pipe  and  dis- 
tribute it  below,  as  might  be  wanted.  This 
would  supply  all  for  a  while,  and  would  al- 
ways be  sufficient  for  the  wants  of  those  who 


might  build  on  the  .higher  levels.  Then, 
when  the  demand  should  be  greater  below, 
the  main  supply  might  be  made  ready  in 
what  seemed  to  be  almost  a  perfect  natural 
reservoir  lower  down.  This  reservoir  could 
be  made  complete  by  building  a  dam,  only 
some  sixty  feet  long,  between  the  two  solid 
banks  of  Strawberry  Creek  at  a  certain  point, 
thus  holding  the  water  and  overflowing  some 
acres,  making  a  small  lake.  At  the  same  time, 
the  elevation  of  this  water  would  be  such  as 
would  give  it  a  good  head  for  use  on  the 
college  site,  and  on  all  the  plain  below. 

First  came  the  working  out  of  the  first 
part  of  this  plan,  the  construction  of  the  small 
reservoir,  and  the  bringing  down  of  the  water 
for  immediate  use.  This  was  accomplished 
gradually,  in  the  midst  of  the  pressure  of 
other  college  work,  and  was  completed  in 
the  summer  of  1867. 

The  friends  of  the  College  were  invited  to 
a  picnic  party  on  the  college  grounds  on  the 
24th  day  of  August,  1867,  to  celebrate  the 
introduction  of  the  water  and  examine  the 
works.  It  was  a  beautiful  day.  Many  peo- 
ple came.  The  newspapers  had  their  re- 
porters there;  speeches  were  made,  and  songs 
were  sung.  The  fountains  did  their  part 
well,  playing  their  jets  and  throwing  their 
spray  high  in  the  air,  in  places  where  there 
was  nothing  around  at  that  time  to  lead  one 
to  expect  to  see  a  fountain.  It  was,  however, 
a  satisfactory  demonstration  of  what  could 
be  done  with  water  on  our  grounds  and  in 
all  that  vicinity.  It  was  plain  that  the  first 
condition  of  our  improvement-plan,  which 
was  water,  could  be  satisfactorily  supplied. 

At  once  the  surveys  were  begun  to  prepare 
the  way  for  bringing  in  Wild  Cat  Creek  at 
some  future  time,  to  the  proposed  great 
reservoir.  Negotiations  were  opened,  and 
the  necessary  legal  steps  were  taken  to  ac- 
quire the  full  right  to  this  water,  and  the 
right  of  way  for  the  aqueduct  in  which  to 
•bring  it.  All  this  proceeded  successfully, 
no  hindrance  of  any  kind  being  met  with, 
till  the  way  was  fully  open  for  the  construc- 
tion of  the  works  whenever  the  necessities 
of  the  College  should  require  that  large  water 
supply.  Although  this  might  not  be  for  a 


36 


The   College  of  California. 


[July, 


considerable  time,  an  engineer  was  employed 
to  make  the  measurements  for  the  building 
of  the  dam  across  Strawberry  Creek,  at  the 
point  before  alluded  to,  in  order  that  they 
might  be  in  readiness  when  wanted.  In 
view  of  the  improvement-plan,  tree  seeds 
had  been  obtained  from  the  East  and  else- 
where one  and  two  years  before,  and  the 
growth  of  young  trees  now  filled  quite  a  large 
nursery.  Some  houses  were  built  on  home- 
stead lots  sold  by  the  College,  and  fine  im- 
provements were  begun  on  the  grounds 
around  them.  Other  lots  were  planted  and 
cultivated,  in  anticipation  of  use  for  resi- 
dences. 


ThS  business  men  of  San  Francisco  gave  the 
funds  with  which  to  start  the  College  School 
in  1853,  and  the  active  business  men  of  San 
Francisco  and  the  other  cities  of  the  State 
gave  nearly  all  the  money  to  the  College 
that  it  ever  received  by  donations.  The 
wealthiest  men  did  not  incline  to  give.  They 
were  applied  to,  many  times  over,  not  only 
by  officers  of  the  College,  but  by  business 
friends  who  had  special  influence  with  them, 
but  they  were  not  men  who  appreciated  the 
College  as  much  as  some  other  things. 

The  College  School,  soon  after  its  begin- 
ning, became  self-supporting,  and  continued 
to  be  so,  erecting  its  own  buildings,  and  pay- 
ing its  own  expenses.  But  the  College,  of 
course,  when  it  was  organized,  did  not.  Col- 
leges never  do.  Their  tuition-income  is  very 
little,  compared  with  their  expenses. 

To  provide  the  means  for  starting  the  Col- 
lege, and  carrying  it  on  for  the  first  few  years, 
a  time-subscription  was  made  by  business 
men,  as  before  stated,  to  come  in  in  annual 
payments.  While  these  subscriptions  should 
continue,  it  was  expected  that  we  could  get 
a  President,  the  endowment  for  that  office 
having  been  already  subscribed.  In  respect 
to  Professor  Hitchcock,  however,  we  were 
disappointed,  for  his  letter  declining  to  come 
reached  us  in  May,  1866. 

We  knew  well  how  the  older  States  had 
always  helped  the  newer  States  in  founding 
their  colleges,  and,  although  the  era  of  large 


gifts  to  colleges  had  not  then  begun,  we  still 
felt  sure  that  we  should  receive  something 
that  would  amount  to  a  substantial  assistance. 

In  order  to  do  this,  we  first  secured  the 
adoption  of  the  College  by  the  "Western 
College  Society,"  as  one  of  the  institutions 
recommended  by  them  to  the  public  as  de- 
serving support  and  endowment. 

Then  remembering  that  we  were  young, 
and  quite  unknown  to  the  Eastern  public, 
and  that  our  College  was  also  as  yet  un- 
known, and  far  away,  a  brief  statement  of 
its  origin,  history,  constitution,  and  progress 
was  submitted  to  a  large  number  of  the 
most  prominent  friends  of  education  in  the 
East — presidents  and  professors  of  colleges 
and  universities,  and  ministers  of  various  de- 
nominations— and  they  were  requested  to 
give  us  in  writing  such  an  endorsement  of 
it  to  the  public  as  they  thought  it  deserved. 
The  letters  written  in  response  to  this  request 
were  unexpectedly  full  and  cordial,  unreserv- 
edly approving  our  plan,  and  earnestly  com- 
mending our  institution  to  the  generosity  of 
all  friends  of  education.  Then  the  state- 
ments that  had  been  thus  submitted  to  these 
gentlemen,  together  with  their  replies,  were 
printed  in  a  neat  pamphlet,  and  sent  widely 
through  the  Eastern  States,  to  those  who 
were  known  to  be  supporters  of  educational 
institutions.  The  cause  seemed  to  us  to 
be  of  such  magnitude,  and  the  necessity  for 
help  so  great,  that,  armed  with  such  endorse- 
ments, we  felt  sure  of  obtaining  at  least  the 
usual  help  given  to  new  colleges  in  the  West. 

But  in  this,  also,  we  were  sadly  disappoint- 
ed. It  seems  strange,  even  now,  that  it 
should  have  been  so.  The  principal  reason 
seems  to  have  been  indicated  in  the  report 
of  one  of  our  professors,  who  made  a  thor- 
ough canvass  at  the  East  for  subscriptions  : 
"Nine  out  of  ten  to  whom  I  applied,  said  : 
'  You  are  rich  enough  to  endow  your  own 
college.  Why  come  here  for  money,  when 
there  is  so  much  in  California?"3 

But  whatever  was  the  reason,  or  the  com- 
bination of  reasons,  the  fact  is,  that  after  all 
our  efforts,  continued  through  several  years, 
not  nearly  ten  thousand  dollars  ever  came  to 
our  College  from  the  East. 


1885.] 


The   College  of  California. 


37 


It  was  the  plan  that  the  Berkeley  improve- 
ment should  be  carried  on  as  means  might  be 
obtained  from  the  sale  of  homestead-lots,  and 
that  the  balance  still  due  of  the  purchase- 
money  for  a  portion  of  the  land  should  be  paid 
from  the  same  fund.  The  sale  of  these  lots  was 
reasonably  successful,  and  the  income  would 
have  met  all  demands  on  this  department  of 
our  enterprise,  had  it  not  been  necessary  to 
divert  so  much  of  it  to  meet  deficiencies  in 
the  college  current-expense  income.  For  in 
1857  our  time-subscriptions  for  that  purpose 
had  expired.  Having  received  little  help, 
and  no  endowments  from  the  East  or  else- 
where, we  were  obliged  to  try  to  raise  another 
time-subscription  for  current  expenses. 

This  effort  proceeded  slowly,  and  met  with 
many  difficulties.  Business  was  depressed. 
The  war  had  but  recently  closed,  and  war- 
taxes  were  yet  high.  The  currency  of  the 
country  was  unsettled  and  fluctuating.  Our 
business  men  had  subscribed  generously  to 
the  College  several  times,  but  now,  in  the 
uncertainties  as  to  the  future,  they  hesitated. 
Moreover,  within  a  few  years  we  had  lost  six 
of  our  earliest,  most  zealous,  efficient,  and 
generous  Trustees — three  of  them  by  death, 
and  three  by  removal  from  the  State.  The 
places  of  such  men  could  not  be  at  once 
fully  supplied  by  new  elections.  The  situa- 
tion became  perplexing.  If  current  college 
expenses,  which  were  all  the  time  increasing, 
must  be  met  by  the  sale  of  the  homestead- 
lots,  that  sale  would  have  to  be  forced,  and, 
of  course,  at  low  prices,  and  soon  all  would 
be  gone. 

Additional  to  all  this  was  the  fact  that  new 
pastors  had  come  to  the  churches  of  several 
of  the  denominations.  They  saw  clearly  the 
need  of  denominational  work,  and,  perhaps, 
as  strangers,  did  not  see  so  clearly  that  con- 
centration of  effort  was  vital  to  the  existence 
of  the  College.  It  may  possibly  have  been 
thought  that  a  college  which  had  grown  up 
through  so  many  years  would,  of  course,  go 
on,  and  that  other  needed  things  could  now 
be  undertaken. 

It  was  in  this  juncture  of  affairs  that  we 
held  our  Commencement,  in  June,  1867. 
Governor  Low  was  present.  In  view  of  what 
he  saw,  he  was  led  to  say : 


"  You  have  here  organization,  scholarship, 
patronage,  success,  reputation,  but  you  lack 
money  ;  the  State  has  money,  but  has  none 
of  these  things  :  what  a  pity  they  could  not 
be  brought  together  ! " 

He  probably  was  led  more  particularly  to 
say  this  because,  as  chairman  of  a  Legisla- 
tive Committee,  he  was  then  in  search  of  a 
location  for  a  State  "  Agricultural,  Mining, 
and  Mechanical  Arts  College." 

About  that  time,  Dr.  John  Todd  visited 
us.  He  had  been  at  Ann  Arbor,  and  had 
seen  the  distinguished  success  of  Michigan 
University,  and  described  it  in  a  very  attract- 
ive way.  Besides,  just  then  the  State  Uni- 
versity "idea"  was  very  popular  before  the 
public  throughout  the  country,  especially  as 
represented  by  Michigan  and  Cornell  Uni- 
versities. 

All  these  things  led  naturally  to  the  ques- 
tion whether  a  State  University  here  could 
not  be  made  to  solve  the  problem,  both  of 
the  proposed  Agricultural  Institution  and 
our  college,  and  by  one  endowed  and  well 
supported  institution  fill  the  place  of  both. 

This  idea  struck  some  of  us  with  regret 
and  apprehension.  But  as  it  was  discussed 
confidentially  among  the  Trustees  and  con- 
tributors to  our  college,  it  seemed  to  gain 
general  assent,  as  possibly,  under  the  circum- 
stances, a  wise  measure.  If  only  we  could 
have  been  sure  of  realizing  as  good  a  univer- 
sity as  that  of  Michigan,  it  would  have  been 
easier  than  it  was  to  surrender  the  College  for 
the  sake  of  it.  But  we  were  not  sure.  Never- 
theless the  decided  opinion  among  the  Trus- 
tees and  donors  came  to  be,  at  last,  that  it 
was  best  to  take  the  risk,  and  transfer  the 
College  to  a  University,  if  the  State  would 
undertake  to  establish  and  maintain  one. 

TRANSFER  TO  THE  STATE  FOR  A  UNIVERSITY. 

Governor  Low  was  consulted.  The  Gov- 
ernor had  been  a  warm  friend  of  the  College 
from  the  beginning,  and  a  liberal  contributor 
to  its  funds.  He  decidedly  approved  of  the 
university  plan,  and  expressed  his  high  ap- 
preciation of  the  contemplated  offer  on  the 
part  of  the  College.  He  thought  it  would 
unite  all  interests,  whereas  they  had  hereto- 


38 


The   College  of  California. 


[July, 


fore  been  hopelessly  divided,  and  every  effort 
to  found  an  institution  by  the  State  had  been 
thwarted.  He  said  that  he  regarded  this 
proposition  as  likely  to  open  the  way  to  suc- 
cess. He  still  further  said,  that  if  the  Col- 
lege would  agree  to  propose  this  transfer, 
nothing  further  should  be  done  in  the  matter 
of  the  Agricultural  College;  and  he  would 
recommend  in  his  message  to  the  next  Legis- 
lature, which  was  to  convene  in  December, 
about  two  months  from  that  time,  the  estab- 
lishment of  a  State  University  on  our  college 
grounds.  But,  he  added  that  the  matter 
must  be  decided  now,  inasmuch  as  the  time 
of  the  meeting  of  the  Legislature  was  so  near. 

The  decision  of  this  question  was  a  severe 
trial,  especially  to  the  early  friends  of  the 
college  plan.  But  it  was  urged  that  if  such 
an  offer  as  this  of  the  transfer  of  the  results 
of  sixteen  years'  work- should  be  accepted  by 
the  State  to  found  a  University,  the  views 
and  feelings  of  those  who  made  the  offer 
would  certainly  not  be  disregarded,  and  the 
real  work  of  the  College  would  be  perpetuat- 
ed and  enlarged  in  the  University,  and  at 
the  same  time  its  plans  for  improvement 
could  proceed  more  rapidly,  and  with  a  more 
generous  outlay.  As  a  matter  of  course,  no 
terms  or  conditions  could  be  made  with  the 
State.  The  offer  must  be  made  out-and-out, 
if  at  all,  and  the  result  trusted  to  the  people. 

After  the  maturest  consideration  that  it 
was  possible  to  give  to  the  question  in  all  its 
bearings,  it  was,  with  high  hopes,  but  with 
many  fears,  determined  to  propose  to  donate 
to  the  State  our  college  site  at  Berkeley,  com- 
prising one  hundred  and  sixty  acres  of  land  ; 
and  that  whenever  a  University  of  California 
should  be  established  on  it,  the  College 
would  disincorporate,  and  pay  over  its  re- 
maining assets  to  the  University. 

When  the  Legislature  met,  both  Governor 
Low  and  the  incoming  Governor  Haight,  in 
their  messages,  recommended  the  establish- 
ment of  a  University,  in  accordance  with 
this  proposition. 

As  was  anticipated,  the  offer  of  the  College 
reconciled  the  interests  that  had  heretofore 
been  at  odds,  such  as  the  agricultural,  the 
mining,  and  some  others ;  and  the  Legisla- 


ture, with  great  unanimity,  enacted  the  nec- 
essary law  establishing  the  University,  and 
the  Governor  approved  it  on  March  23d, 
1868.  No  question  of  means  stood  in  the 
way  in  this  case.  Ample  funds  at  the  dispos- 
al of  the  State  were  at  once  appropriated  to 
the  endowment  and  support  of  the  new  in- 
stitution. 

For  something  over  a  year  from  that  time, 
the  College  continued  its  work,  while  the  or- 
ganization of  the  University  was  going  on,  and 
then  it  was  turned  over  to  the  University. 

The  funds  obtained  by  subscription  for 
carrying  on  this  entire  college  work  had  been 
received  in  comparatively  small  sums.  From 
the  books  it  appears  that  the  whole  number 
of  subscriptions  collected  was  four  hundred 
and  thirty-one.  The  largest  sum  received 
from  any  one  source  was  that  of  $5,000, 
given  by  the  Pacific  Mail  Steamship  Compa- 
ny, through  Allan  Me  Lane,  Esq.,  the  Presi- 
dent. 

The  current  expenses  of  the  College 
amounted  to  very  much  more  than  its  sub- 
scription-income during  the  nine  years  of  its 
existence,  but  the  balance  was  paid  from  the 
land  department  fund.  After  making  the 
donation  of  the  one  hundred  and  sixty  acres 
to  the  State  for  the  site  of  the  University,  and 
the  organization  of  that  institution,  the  re- 
mainder of  the  property  went  to  it,  accord- 
ing to  the  resolution  to  that  effect. 

The  College  of  California  graduated  six 
classes.  None  of  them  were  large,  as  it  was 
the  beginning  of  thorough  college  work  in.the 
State.  The  members  of  these  classes  have 
done,  and  are  doing,  as  much  credit  to  their 
training  as  the  average  of  college  graduates 
from  the  oldest  institutions.  One  has  al- 
ready done  good  service  as  a  member  of 
Congress.  At  the  same  time  with  him,  a 
graduate  of  the  College  School  served  his 
term  in  the  same  office,  with  credit  to  him- 
self and  his  constituents. 

Those  who  entered  the  ministry  are  faith- 
ful and  successful  men,  and  of  those  who 
chose  other  callings  and  pursuits,  several 
have  distinguished  themselves.  The  same 
may  also  be  said  of  the  graduates  of  the  Col- 


1885.] 


The  Kan  Francisco  Iron  Strike. 


39 


lege  School.  The  number  of  these  I  do  not 
know,  but  it  must  have  been  several  hun- 
dred. 

Among  the  gentlemen  who  delivered  com- 
mencement orations  or  alumni  addresses 
were  Professor  J.  D.  Whitney,  Bishop  Kip, 
Rev.  T.  Starr  King,  Judg  e  O.  L.  Shafter, 
Rev.  Dr.  A.  L.  Stone,  Professor  Benjamin 
Silliman,  Professor  Henry  Durant,  Rev.  Dr. 
J.  A.  Benton,  Rev.  Dr.  Horatio  Stebbins, 
Rev.  Dr.  I.  E.  -Dwinell,  and  Rev.  Dr.  Eli 
Corwin.  Nearly  all  these  addresses  and  ora- 
tions, together  with  the  poems  that  accom- 
panied them,  were  published  from  time  to 
time  by  the  College  in  large  editions;  as  also 
the  short-hand  reports  of  the  proceedings, 
speeches,  etc.,  at  the  meetings  of  the  alumni. 
Thes'e,  together  with  other  published  reports 
and  papers,  constitute  a  not  inconsiderable 
contribution  to  the  home  literature  of  Cal- 
ifornia. 

The  work  of  the  Board  of  Trustees  was 
no  small  tax  on  the  time  and  attention  of 
the  members.  This  work  grew  with  the 
growth  of  the  institution.  Meetings  had 
to  be  held  always  as  often  as  once  a  month, 
and  much  of  the  time  oftener.  The  mem- 
bers were  gentlemen  of  the  very  busiest  class, 
but  yet  they  were  generally  prompt  in  their 


attendance,  and  were  cheerful  and  patient  in 
the  midst  of  the  details  of  a  business  needing 
large  means,  but  having  only  a  small  income. 
There  was  a  general  concurrence  of  judg- 
ment, and  seldom  a  divided  vote. 

It  is  sixteen  years  since  the  College  of 
California  transferred  its  work  to  the  Univer- 
sity of  California,  but  until  now  there  has 
been  no  sketch  of  its  history  written.  But  its 
books,  records,  and  original  papers,  together 
with  most  of  its  correspondence,  are  pre- 
served. So,  also,  are  its  annual  catalogues 
and  its  numerous  publications,  consisting  of 
reports;  appeals,  circulars,  programmes,  ad- 
dresses, orations,  and  poems.  A  full  and 
detailed  history  of  the  College  has  been  writ- 
ten, narrating  its  progress  from  year  to  year. 
In  this  volume  is  incorporated  a  selection  of 
its  choicest  addresses,  orations,  and  poems. 
It  will  be  preserved  for  reference  or  for  pub- 
lication, as  may  seem  required  in  future 
time. 

So  concludes  a  chapter  in  the  history  of 
early  educational  work  in  this  State,  cover- 
ing in  all  nearly  twenty  years ;  and  it  is  es- 
pecially inscribed  to  the  former  patrons  and 
students  of  the  departments  of  the  College 
of  California. 

S.  H.  Willey. 


THE  SAN   FRANCISCO   IRON   STRIKE. 


FIRST  PAPER. 


I  AM  asked  to  explain  in  behalf  of  the  iron- 
workers who  a  few  months  since  resisted  the 
proposed  reduction  of  wages  by  the  iron 
manufacturers  of  this  city,  the  reasons  why 
the  workmen  did  not  accept  the  representa- 
tions of  the  employers  that  the  reduction 
was  absolutely  necessary,  and  consequently 
resisted  it.  I  desire  to  state  as  well  as  I  am 
able  the  side  of  the  iron-workers  of  this  city  in 
their  differences  with  the  manufacturers. 
Perhaps  it  would  not  be  out  of  place  to  give 
here  a  short  history  of  the  strike. 

The  first  intimation  the  workmen  had  that 


there  was  to  be  a  reduction  of  their  wages, 
was  contained  in  the  following  notice,  which 
was  posted  in  the  Union,  Pacific,  Risdon, 
Fulton,  Empire,  and  National  workshops,  on 
Saturday,  February  yth,  1885: 

Notice. 

In  consequence  of  the  depressed  condition  of 
business  and  the  recent  universal  reduction  of  wages 
in  the  East,  which  has  decreased  the  prices  of  ma- 
chinery more  than  twenty-five  per  cent,  below  those 
of  any  previous  time,  and  the  importations  having  re- 
sulted in  a  general  decrease  of  work  produced  here, 
and  in  order  to  avoid  a  general  discharge  of  employ- 
ees, and  perhaps  an  entire  suspension  of  work,  we 


40 


The  San  Francisco  Iron  Strike. 


[July, 


feel  reluctantly  compelled  to  make  a  reduction  of 
.  fifteen  per  cent,  on  all  wages  on  and  after  February 
9,  1885. 

As  this  reduction  was  to  take  effect  the 
next  day  but  one  after  its  date,  evidently 
there  was  no  intention  to  consult  with  the 
workmen,  nor  to  leave  any  great  opportunity 
for  them  to  consult  each  other. 

Special  meetings  of  the  iron-workers  were 
called  for  Sunday  afternoon,  and  those  attend- 
ing resolved  not  to  accept  the  reduction; 
but  owing  to  the  fact  that  there  had  been  no 
organization  in  any  branch  except  the  mould- 
ers, in  that  branch  alone  was  there  unani- 
mity of  action.  They  resolved  not  to  accept 
the  reduction,  and  appointed  a  committee  to 
inform  the  proprietors  of  that  fact.  The 
meeting  then  adjourned  till  Monday  evening, 
when  the  committee  were  to  report  the  re- 
sult of  their  work,  and  any  impressions  they 
might  have  formed  during  the  day. 

In  every  other  branch  there  were  a  few  men 
at  work  on  Monday,  but  not  a  single  iron- 
moulder  went  near  the  shops.  Their  com- 
mittee visited  each  of  the  firms  above  named, 
and  having  delivered  their  message,  heard 
what  the  proprietors  had  to  say,  which  in 
suSstance  amounted  to  what  is  contained  in 
the  notice  of  reduction  above  referred  to. 
The  committee  replied  as  best  they  could, 
giving  their  reasons  for  opposing  the  reduc- 
tion, which  were  in  effect  as  given  below. 
The  committee  reported  in  the  evening  that 
they  had  been  kindly  received  by  all  the 
firms,  and  some  of  them  thought  it  was  pos- 
sible to  have  a  compromise  if  the  society 
would  advance  the  proposition ;  but  the 
Union  instructed  the  committee  not  to  go 
near  the  employers  unless  sent  for. 

Nothing  new  occurred  until  Wednesday, 
the  1 2th,  when  by  request  the  iron-moulders' 
committee  met  the  proprietors  at  three 
o'clock,  in  Mr.  Rankin's  office.  The  inter- 
view was  very  friendly,  and  both  sides  ad- 
mitted the  senselessness  of  keeping  up  the 
strife.  When  the  meeting  adjourned,  the 
moulders'  committee  felt  that  if  the  Union 
would  appoint  a  committee  with  full  power 
to  act,  a  compromise  could  be  effected  by 
a  seven  and  a  half  per  cent,  reduction  ;  but 


the  Union  that  evening  reaffirmed  its  for- 
mer decision,  and  the  following  communica- 
tion was  sent  to  the  proprietors  on  Thursday 
morning: 

SAN  FRANCISCO,  Feb.  12,  1885. 

Mr. ,  DEAR   SIR:     We  informed    the 

Union  last  evening  of  the  result  of  our  conference, 
and  that  we  believed  it  possible  to  have  a  settle- 
ment if  the  Union  would  appoint  a  committee  with 
power  to  act.  The  discussion  which  followed  lasted 
till  nearly  midnight.  The  Union  then  decided  not 
to  compromise  or  permit  the  committee  to  make  any 
compromise,  and  that  the  men  will  not  return  to 
work  except  at  the  old  rates. 

Very  respectfully, 

COMMITTEE. 

With  this  all  hope  of  a  compromise  ended. 

The  decision  of  the  majority  was  strictly 
adhered  to.  Strong  committees  watched 
each  shop  from  the  dawn  till  midnight,  to 
prevent  the  transfer  of  work  or  patterns 
owned  by  firms  on  strike  to  those  that  were 
paying  the  old  rates,  it  having  been  agreed 
by  the  men  that  they  would  not  cast  from 
patterns  owned  by  the  firms  in  question. 
This,  however,  did  not  prevent  machine 
shops  that  were  paying  the  old  wages  from 
removing  their  own  patterns  from  firms  that 
had  given  notice  of  reduction  to  those  that 
were  not  on  strike.  During  all  this  time  the 
other  branches  were  perfecting  their  organ- 
izations, and  the  men  were  gradually  coming 
out  and  joining  those  on  strike  ;  so  that  at 
the  end  of  the  first  week,  with  few  excep- 
tions, all  had  joined  their  respective  Unions. 
Committees  wereappointed  from  each  branch 
to  confer  with  the  others  as  to  the  best 
methods  of  conducting  the  strike  to  a  suc- 
cessful end. 

Sunday,  the  i5th,  was  a  very  busy  day 
among  the  workmen.  There  was  a  joint 
meeting  of  each  branch  in  the  morning  at 
ten  A.  M.,  and  in  the  afternoon  all  the  Unions 
met  and  arranged  matters  for  the  following 
morning.  The  apprentices  agreed  to  turn 
out  and  cast  their  lot  with  the  men,  who  in 
return  pledged  themselves  not  to  return  to 
work  without  the  apprentices.  This  com- 
pletely paralyzed  work  in  the  foundries,  for 
the  boys  could  not  be  bribed  to  go  to  work 
under  any  circumstances. 


1885.] 


The  San  Francisco  Iron  Strike. 


41 


On  Monday,  the  i6th,  the  committees 
were  very  strict  in  the  performance  of  their 
duties.  Every  movement  of  the  bosses  was 
watched.  In  the  afternoon  the  Globe  Foun- 
dry was  closed  on  account  of  having  agreed 
to  work  on  a  pattern  owned  by  the  Fulton. 
The  shops  on  strike  could  not  get  a  pound 
of  melted  iron  from  those  that  were  running. 
In  fact,  the  men  were  masters  of  the  situation. 
The  Legislature  adopted  resolutions  of  sym- 
pathy for  the  workmen  on  strike.  Commu- 
nications were  sent  to  all  parts  of  the  United 
States,  cautioning  workmen  to  keep  away 
from  this  point  until  the  strike  was  ended  ; 
and  everything  was  done  that  had  a  tendency 
to  strengthen  the  Unions. 

On  Tuesday  evening,  the  i7th,  the  iron- 
moulders'  committee  was  requested  to  meet  a 
representative  of  the  manufacturers  for  the 
purpose  of  arranging  a  settlement.  The 
meeting  was  held,  and  it  was  suggested  that 
the  proposition  to  compromise  at  seven  and 
a  half  per  cent,  reduction  be  laid  before  the 
Union,  with  the  understanding  that  all  hands 
would  be  reemployed  at  that  figure.  A 
meeting  was  called  for  the  following  evening, 
but  the  men  would  not  listen  to  the  propo- 
sition. When  the  result  was  announced  to 
a  representative  of  the  Empire  workshops, 
he,  on  behalf  of  the  firm,  requested  their 
men  and  boys  to  return  to  work  in  the 
morning  at  the  old  rates.  The  Union  de- 
clared the  strike  ended  in  that  shop,  and  the 
men  and  apprentices  were  authorized  to  re- 
sume work  on  Thursday  morning,  the  igth. 

About  ten  o'clock  on  Thursday,  the  com- 
mittee was  requested  to  meet  the  proprietors 
of  the  other  shops,  and  after  a  short  discus- 
sion, it  was  agreed  that  the  workmen  in  all 
branches  should  return  to  work  on  Friday 
morning,  the  2oth,  after  a  suspension  of  ten 
days.  The  news  spread  very  rapidly,  and  in 
the  evening,  when  each  branch  met,  the 
strike  was  officially  'declared  at  an  end,  and 
advertisements  announcing  the  fact  and  di- 
recting the  men  to  resume  work,  appeared  in 
each  of  the  morning  papers. 

The  laborers  and  moulders  and  helpers 
have  had  some  trouble  in  one  of  the  shops, 
but  the  firms  generally  have  kept  their  prom- 


ises to  the  old  hands.  Those  who  have  been 
employed  since  are  working  at  lower  rates. 
The  strike  was  well  conducted.  Not  a  sin- 
gle breach  of  the  peace  or  arrest  was  made 
during  the  whole  affair.  The  proprietors  de- 
clared they  could  not  afford  to  pay  old  rates, 
and  the  men  withheld  their  labor,  declaring 
they  could  not  afford  to  work  for  less. 

So  much  for  the  actual  history  of  the 
strike  of  the  iron-workers  last  February.  I 
will  now  try  to  give  reasons  to  justify  the 
workmen's  action.  During  the  past  twenty- 
five  years  the  workmen  of  America  have  been 
given  abundant  proof  that  manufacturers,  as 
a  class,  never  wait  for  the  necessity  of  a  re- 
duction of  wages,  but  are  ever  looking  for 
an  opportunity  for  it,  which,  when  offered, 
they  never  fail  to  embrace  ;  and  further,  they 
have  used  unjust  methods  to  create  opportu- 
nities. This  is  a  sweeping  assertion,  but  it 
is  clearly  proven  by  the  way  in  which  immi- 
gration has  been  encouraged  by  them  ;  by 
their  opposition  in  the  East  to  the  Chinese 
Restriction  Act ;  and  by  their  extensive  im- 
portation of  contract  laborers,  through  which 
they  have  forced  American  laborers  in  the 
East  down  to  a  condition  little  better  than 
slavery.  And  this,  notwithstanding  the  fact 
that  they  (the  manufacturers)  have  been  pro- 
tected by  a  high  tariff,  the  benefits  of  which, 
by  the  use  of  the  means  above  mentioned, 
have  gone  into  their  pockets  exclusively,  en- 
abling them  to  build  lordly  mansions  and 
live  in  luxury  •  while  the  hearts  of  the  toiling 
masses  are  made  desperate  through  want  of 
the  means  to  obtain  the  bare  necessaries  of 
life,  and  while  warehouses  and  stores  are 
crowded  to  overflowing  with  the  comforts 
and  luxuries  of  life,  which  their  labor  has 
created.  Is  it  any  wonder,  then,  that  there 
should  be  an  irrepressible  conflict  between 
labor  and  capital,  and  that  the  assertions  of 
manufacturers  concerning  the  necessity  for 
reductions  in  wages,  or  anything  else  for  that 
matter,  are  taken  with  a  great  deal  of  doubt 
and  suspicion  by  their  employes  ? 

The  standard  of  wages  contended  for  by 
the  iron-workers  of  this  city  is  that  portion 
which  will  bring  within  their  reach  the  com- 
forts and  necessaries  of  life ;  which  enables 


42 


The  San  Francisco  Iron  Strike. 


[July, 


a  man  to  live  in  a  comfortable  dwelling,  and 
to  obtain  enough  of  good,  wholesome  food 
and  warm  clothing  for  himself  and  family  ; 
and  to  educate  his  children  that  they  may  be 
qualified  to  take  their  proper  place  as  good, 
intelligent  citizens  in  the  world's  affairs. 
This  comfort  and  education  are  impossible 
at  the  Chinese  or  European  rates  of  wages 
towards  which  the  importation  of  Chinese 
and  Europeans  is  forcing  American  working- 
men.  Surely,  considering  the  immense  re- 
sources of  life  supplied  by  the  Creator,  and 
the  facilities  which  man's  ingenuity  has  pro- 
vided for  turning  this  natural  abundance 
into  the  forms  necessary  for  man's  use  and 
comfort,  this  is  not  an  unreasonable  claim, 
and  it  is  one  that  all  citizens  should  be  in 
favor  of.  Submitting  this  as  a  standard,  we 
will  see  how  our  present  wages  supply  the 
need. 

At  least  two-thirds  of  the  men  are  married, 
and  this  being  the  proper  state  of  mankind, 
we  will  estimate  the  cost  of  living  as  follows  : 
We  will  take  a  family  consisting  of  five  per- 
sons. That  a  family  of  this  size  may  live 
comfortably  without  crowding,  it  is  necessary 
that  they  should  have  at  least  four  rooms  in 
their  dwelling,  and  a  comfortable  house  of 
this  size  cannot  be  had  for  less  than  $3.75 
per  week.  Meat  and  vegetables  cost  $2.50 
per  week.  Bread  and  milk  will  average  $1.50 
per  week.  Groceries  $2.75,  including  cof- 
fee, tea,  sugar,  butter,  lamp-oil,  etc.  Fuel 
will  cost  $1.25  per  week.  This  is  not  too 
high,  when  three  meals  a  day  have  to  be 
cooked,  and  the  wife  does  the  washing  for 
the  family.  Clothing,  including  foot-wear, 
will  average  $2'.5o  per  week.  Wear  and  tear 
of -furniture,  including  cooking  utensils  and 
dishes,  we  will  set  down  at  60  cents  per 
week.  Books  and  other  articles  necessary 
for  school  children  must  be  had,  and  will 
cost  40  cents  per  week.  Every  workingman 
should  belong  to  the  Union  of  his  trade,  or 
some  other  mutual  aid  society,  which  will  in 
times  of  sickness  or  disability  help  his  fam- 
ily during  such  disability.  This,  including 
funeral  tax,  will  amount  to  about  35  cents 
per  week.  In  many  instances  the  men  live 
a  considerable  distance  from  the  workshops. 


If  they  walk  to  work  in  the  morning,  they 
find  it  necessary  to  ride  home  in  the  evening, 
owing  to  the  cold  winds  and  the  fact  that 
many  of  them  leave  the  workshops  with  their 
clothing  wet  by  perspiration.  We  will  set 
the  car-fare  of  the  family  down  at  60  cents 
per  week,  and  if  they  desire  to  ride  on  the 
street  cars  to  the  park  or  beach  (on  Sundays) 
it  is  not  enough.  A  man  should  have  some 
enjoyment,  and  the  laboring  classes  take 
most  enjoyment  in  an  occasional  glass  of 
beer  and  a  smoke.  Allow  20  cents  per  day 
for  beer  and  tobacco,  which  amounts  to 
$1.40  per  week.  If  any  one  thinks  these  are 
wrong,  let  any  other  recreation  be  substitut- 
ed' to  the  same  amount.  Newspapers  and 
writing  materials,  25  cents  per  week.  There 
is  more  or  less  sickness  in  a  family,  and  he 
is  a  lucky  man  who  gets  off  with  less  than 
$30  per  year,  or  about  60  cents  per  week 
for  doctor's  bills  and  medicine.  There  are 
other  expenses,  such  as  hair-cutting,  shaving, 
holiday  expenses,  church  expenses,  personal 
property  tax  and  poll  tax,  with  many  others 
too  numerous  to  mention.  We  will  class 
these  as  sundries  at  50  cents  per  week.  I 
recapitulate  : 

Rent $3-75  per  week. 

Meat  and  vegetables 2.50 

Bread  and  milk i .  50 

Groceries 2.75 

Fuel 1.25 

Clothing 2 . 50 

Medicine  and  doctor's  bills 60 

Wear  and  tear  of  furniture 60 

School  books 40 

Society  dues 35 

Car  fare 60 

Beer  and  tobacco,  or  other  recreation i .  40 

Newspaper  and  stationery 25 

Sundries 50 


The  average  mechanic  in  this  city  is  not 
employed  more  than  ten  months  in  a  year. 
Including  holidays,  we  will  say  that  he  is 
out  of  employment  nine  weeks  out  of  the 
fifty- two ;  this  leaves  forty-three  weeks  in 
which  he  must  earn  enough  money  to  support 
his  family  fifty-two  weeks.  Wages  of  mechan- 
ics in  the  iron  trade  average  $3.25  per  day 
here.  When  the  strike  occurred  in  this  city 
there  were  only  a  few  of  the  best  workmen 
employed,  and  the  wages  paid  them  was 
slightly  above  this  average.  At  $3.25  per 


1885.] 


The  San  Francisco  Iron  Strike. 


43 


day  a  mechanic  earns  $19.50  per  week,  and 
in  forty-three  weeks  he  will  earn  $838. 50,  an 
average  of  $16.12^  per  week  for  the  fifty- 
two  weeks  in  the  year.  A  family  will  have 
to  be  very  economical  to  live  within  the 
amount  above  named,  and  live  comfortably, 
yet  the  cost  of  living  exceeds  the  income 
$2.82^  per  week,  or  $146.90  per  year.  If 
this  is  the  condition  of  the  mechanic  who 
earns  $3.25  per  day,  what  must  be  the  con- 
dition of  the  poor  laborers  who  earn  but 
$2.00  per  day  ?  Is  it  any  wonder,  then,  that 
the  average  mechanic  and  day  laborer  finds 
himself  at  the  end  of  the  year  heavily  in  debt 
to  his  grocer,  butcher,  and  baker?  And  in- 
stead of  New  Year's  Day  bringing  joy  and 
gladness,  it  is  a  day  of  sadness  bordering  on 
despair. 

Fully  two-thirds  of  all  the  employes  are 
married.  About  fifteen  per  cent,  of  them 
own  their  own  homes,  or  are  paying  for  them 
on  the  installment  plan ;  and  about  five  per 
cent,  have  small  sums  of  money  in  bank. 
The  foremen  of  the  shops  receive  from  $5.00 
to  $7.00  per  day.  The  highest  wages  paid 
to  mechanics  in  any  of  the  five  branches  of 
the  iron  trade  is  $4.00  per  day,  which  is  very 
rare.  The  lowest  that  is  paid  is  $2.50  per 
day,  which  is  the  wages  paid  to  those  who 
have  finished  their  apprenticeship.  This 
number  is  always  in  excess  of  the  number 
that  receive  $4.00  per  day.  Laboring  men, 
who  number  about  twenty  per  cent,  of  the 
working  force,  receive  $2.00  per  day. 
Apprentices  receive  $4.00  per  week  for  the 
first  year,  $6.00  the  second,  $8.00  the  third, 
and  $10.00  for  the  fourth  year.  They  work 
very  hard,  particularly  in  the  foundries, 
where  in  the  fourth  year  they  perform  as 
much  of  the  work  they  are  given  as  journey- 
men can  do.  In  many  shops  fully  one-third 
of  those  who  work  at  the  trades  are  appren- 
tices. This  is  particularly  the  case  with  ma- 
chinists and  machine  blacksmiths,  where  in 
the  latter  case  at  present  there  are  thirty-one- 
men  employed  and  nineteen  apprentices ; 
eleven  of  the  nineteen  being  in  charge  of 
fires.  In  the  iron  moulding  branch  the  ap- 
prentices are  not  so  numerous,  on  account 
of  the  Society  having  established  the  pro 


rata  of  i  to  8 ;  and  they  are  gradually  ap- 
proaching this  limit. 

It  should  be  added  that  the  foregoing  com- 
putation of  wages  makes  no  allowance  for  lay- 
ing up  even  half  a  dollar  a  week,  and  there- 
fore leaves  no  prospect  for  the  superannuat- 
ed workman  except  charity  or  the  almshouse. 
It  should  also  be  observed  that  the  employ- 
ers regularly  hold  back  one  week's  or  two 
weeks'  wages,  and  that  some  of  them  only 
pay  monthly.  Both  these  arrangements  are 
hardships  upon  the  workmen,  and  the  for- 
mer is  a  fraud,  and  is  particularly  cursed  as 
such  in  the  Bible.  Why,  on  earth,  should  a 
powerful  firm  practically  embezzle  ten  thous- 
and dollars  of  its  workmen's  money  ?  They 
would  not  let  the  workmen  do  the  like. 

Among  the  reasons  given  by  the  manufac- 
turers for  the  proposed  reduction  of  15  per 
cent,  is,  first,  competition  with  Eastern  man- 
ufacturers. Manufacturers  here  have  always 
had  to  compete  with  Eastern  firms,  and  at 
times  when  they  were  not  as  able  as  at  pres- 
ent. Eastern  firms  have  always  had  their 
agencies  here,  and  the  competition  from  that 
point  is  no  more  keen  now  than  it  was  ten 
or  fifteen  years  ago.  If  you  interview  these 
agents,  they  will  tell  you  that  they  are  not 
doing  the  amount  of  business  they  did  in 
former  years,  any  more  than  our  own  manu- 
facturers are  ;  and  it  is  rumored  that  several 
large  firms  in  the  East  are  compelled  to 
force  goods  on  the  market  at  whatever  price 
they  will  bring,  owing  to  financial  embarras- 
ments. 

The  second  reason  given  is,  that  railroad 
rates  are  much  lower  now  than  formerly.  It 
is  true  that  there  have  been  some  slight  re- 
ductions, but  even  now  the  ruling  rates  af- 
ford considerable  protection  to  manufactur- 
ers on  this  coast,  as  the  following  figures  will 
show.  They  claim  that  the  most  keen  com- 
petition they  have  to  contend  with  is  from 
Chicago  and  Milwaukee.  The  rates  on  ag- 
ricultural machinery  from  New  York,  Bos- 
ton, Philadelphia,  and  Baltimore,  to  this 
point  run  from  $35  up  to  $80  per  ton  ;  and 
from  Chicago  and  Milwaukee  from  $30  up 
to  $65  per  ton.  On  castings  for  repair  pur- 
poses, the  rates  are  very  nearly  the  same ; 


44 


The  San  Francisco  Iron  Strike. 


[July, 


on  castings,  nails,  hinges,  kettles,  rivets  and 
such  like,  the  rates  are  $43  per  ton  from 
Chicago  and  Milwaukee,  and  $50  per  ton 
from  New  York.  On  grates,  fenders,  and 
fire-sets,  the  rate  is  $60  per  ton  from  New 
York,  and  $52  per  ton  from  Chicago  and 
Milwaukee.  On  boilers  not  over  28  feet 
long  the  rate  is  $80  per  ton  from  New  York, 
and  $69  per  ton  from  Chicago.  On  the 
best  finished  machinery  for  all  other  pur- 
poses the  rate  runs  from  $40  per  ton  up  to 
$100  per  ton  from  New  York,  and  from  $34 
to  $69  per  ton  from  Chicago  and  Milwau- 
kee. These  figures  are  taken  from  the  new 
schedule  of  freight  rates,  which  went  into  ef- 
fect on  January  ist,  1885,  and  on  which 
there  is  no  rebate. 

The  third  reason  given  is,  that  wages  are 
25  per  cent,  higher  here  than  in  the  East. 
It  is  true  that  there  has  been  a  great  amount 
of  distress  among  the  laboring  classes  in  the 
East,  of  late,  brought  about  principally  by 
miners,  manufacturers  and  other  employers, 
who  have  brought  hordes  of  contract  labor- 
ers from  countries  where  labor  is  most  poor- 
ly paid,  and  compelled  American  workmen 
to  accept  the  same  rates  as  this  servile  class, 
or  starve.  But  the  effect  of  this  system  is 
felt  even  on  this  coast,  and  the  difference 
between  the  wages  here  and  there  is  not  so 
great  as  the  manufacturers  would  make  it 
appear.  Wages  are  not  more  than  15  per 
cent,  higher  here  for  mechanics  than  in  the 
East,  and  the  wages  of  laboring  men  em- 
ployed in  foundries,  machine  shops,  boiler 
yards,  and  all  other  branches  of  the  iron 
trade,  are  much  higher  there  than  manufac- 
turers here  are  willing  to  admit.  The  reas- 
on is,  that  they  must  possess  more  intelli- 
gence than  the  men  who  labor  at  less  skilled 
work,  such  as  grading  in  the  open  air  and 
shoveling  earth  into  carts.  So  that  I  am 
sure  15  per  cent,  will  coverall  the  difference 
in  wages  of  both  mechanics  and  laboring 
men.  But  all  men  who  work  by  the  day 
here  perform  fully  15  per  cent,  more  labor 
than  the  same  class  do  in  the  East.  There 
are  reasons  for  this.  In  the  first  place,  in 
the  hot  summer  months  men  can  not  per- 
form the  same  amount  of  work  in  the  East 


as  we  can  in  the  coast  climate  here,  and 
there  are  often  periods  in  the  dead  of  winter 
in  many  places  at  the  East,  when  men  can 
not  work  at  all ;  while  here,  the  same  quan- 
tity of  work  can  be  performed  all  the  year 
round  :  moreover  the  custom  of  mechanics 
here  is  to  work  faster  than  at  the  East. 
Many  of  them  are  Eastern  men,  who  sur- 
passed their  fellow  workers  in  Eastern  work- 
shops ;  and  having  confidence  in  themselves, 
and  a  knowledge  of  their  superior  mechani- 
cal abilities,  were  not  afraid  to  venture  into 
strange  cities  and  distant  States.  This  is 
true  in  every  trade,  as  well  as  in  the  work- 
shops where  machinery  is  produced. 

Now,  as  to  the  cost  of  material.  It  is 
said  that  the  coal  used  for  smelting  costs  in 
this  city  $14  per  ton,  while  in  the  East  it 
costs  but  $4  per  ton.  This  is  about  correct 
as  far  as  this  city  is  concerned,  but  it  is  not 
strictly  true  for  the  East,  because  the  same 
class  of  coal  which  costs  $14  here  is  $7.50 
per  ton  in  New  York,  and  about  the  same  in 
Chicago  and  Milwaukee.  It  cannot  be  had 
at  any  place  for  $4  per  ton,  except,  perhaps, 
at  the  mouth  of  the  pits  where  it  is  dug. 
They  have  likewise  set  the  average  cost  of 
pig  iron  in  the  East  too  low,  and  here  en- 
tirely too  high.  It  has  not  cost  on  an  aver- 
age any  where  near  $27.50  per  ton  in  this 
city  within  the  past  year,  nor  has  it  been  ob- 
tained in  the  East  for  as  low  an  average  as  $18 
per  ton,  which  facts  the  following  figures  will 
prove.  (The  "foundry"  and  "car-wheel" 
iron  is  the  best  grade  of  iron  used  inthiscity.) 

IRON   MARKET  REPORT. 

Furnished  by  E.  L.  HARPER  &  Co.,  Dealers  in  Pig  Iron,  &c., 
Cincinnati,  O. 

CINCINNATI,  January  20,  1885. 

FOUNDRY. 

Hanging  Rock  Charcoal No.  i,  $20  5o@2i  50 — cash. 

"        No.  2,    19  50(9)2050        " 

Strong  Neutral  Coke No.  i,    16  7S@i7  50        " 

"  "          "    No.  2,    15  so@i6  25       " 

American  Scotch 16  50:3)17  oo       " 

GRAY    FORGE. 

Neutral  Coke 14  oo@i4  50       " 

Cold  short 14  oo@i4  50       " 

CAR-WHEEL   AND    MALLEABLE. 

Hanging  Rock,  cold  blast 25  00(3)25  50  " 

"      \yarm  "    22  oo@22  50  " 

Southern,  cold  blast 2200^)2300  .    " 

Virginia,  warm  blast 21  oo@2i  50  " 

Lake  Superior,  Charcoal,  all  grades....  ..  21  50^22  oo  " 


1885.] 


The  San  Francisco  Iron  Strike. 


45 


J.  W.  HARRISON,  Metal  Roofer,  No.  204  California 
Street. 

ANNUAL  REPORT  FOR  1884. 
Pig    Iron. 

To  the  Iron  Importers  and  Foundrymen  of  San  Francisco: 


Lowest  and 

Stock, 

Consump- 

Impor- 

Highest 

December 

tion. 

tations. 

Prices. 

y.st. 

#22.00@$26  00 

TONS. 
White,       359 
boft  ...16,505 

TONS. 

White,    1,506 

Solt....IO,203 

TONS. 

White,       465 

Soft   .  ..12,220 

16,864 

".859 

12,685 

The  present  stock  on  hand  consists  of  16,864  tons,  of  which 
9,096  tons  are  Scotch  and  English,  and  7,768  tons  are  Eastern 
and  Home  manufacture.  There  are  5, 164  tons  in  first  hands, 
and  11,700  tons  among  consumers. 

Most  of  the  firms  here  are  importers  and 
dealers,  as  well  as  consumers,  thereby  saving 
the  expense  of  broker's  fees.  This  is  partic- 
ularly the  case  with  Prescott,  Scott  &  Co., 
who,  it  is  said,  control  and  fix  the  price  of 
Clipper  Gap  metal,  which  is  produced  in  this 
State,  and  is  of  excellent  quality.  It  will 
also  be  seen  by  this  card  that  all,  both  East- 
ern and  foreign  metals,  come  by  water,  and 
most  of  it  comes  from  English  ports.  Any 
way,  there  has  always  been  the  same  differ- 
ence in  the  cost  of  material  between  the 
East  and  this  point.  As  high  as  $25  and 
$28  per  ton  has  been  paid  for  the  same  coal 
within  the  past  fifteen  years  that  is  obtained 
now  for  $14  per  ton.  This  will  not  be  de- 
nied, and  the  rates  of  freight  on  raw  material 
have  been  reduced  in  the  same  ratio  as  on 
manufactured  articles.  It  should  also  be 
remembered  that  a  considerable  expense  is 
necessary  in  the  East  for  warming  the  shops, 
all  of  which  is  saved  here. 

Provisions  here  cost  about  the  same  as  in 
Chicago,  while  it  is  well  known  that  house- 
rent,  clothing,  and  fuel  are  much  higher 
here  than  there;  so  that,  everything  consid- 
ered, the  condition  of  California  workmen  is. 
very  little,  if  at  all,  better  than  that  of  the 
same  class  in  Eastern  cities,  and  there  is 
almost  as  great  a  difference  in  the  prices  paid 
to  workmen  in  Chicago  and  Massachusetts 
as  there  is  between  San  Francisco  and  Chi- 


cago, As  Henry  George  has  said,  "  Progress 
and  Poverty  go  hand  in  hand ;  they  follow 
each  other  just  as  surely  as  the  night  follows 
the  day." 

After  all,  however,  the  best  proof  in  the 
world  against  the  necessity  for  the  reduction 
which  I  am  discussing,  is  found  in  the  fact 
that  a  large  proportion  of  the  iron  manufac- 
turers did  not  ask  their  men  to  accept  it, 
but  declared  that  they  could  and  would  pay 
the  old  rates,  and  that  the  competition  which 
was  most  injurious  was  not  with  the  East, 
but  right  here  among  home  manufacturers'; 
and  it  would  be  just  as  keen  after  a  reduction 
of  15  per  cent,  as  it  is  at  present,  the  only 
difference  being  that  the  workmen  would 
have  15  per  cent,  less  money  to  live  on, 
which  fact  would  add  to  the  present  stagna- 
tion in  business  rather  than  relieve  it.  And 
another  proof,  perhaps  equally  strong,  of  the 
justice  of  the  workmen's  refusal  to  accept 
the  reduction,  is  the  plain  fact  that  not  a  sin- 
gle iron-working  concern  has  found  itself 
driven  either  to  the  "  general  discharge  of 
workmen"  or  the  "entire  suspension  of 
work "  anticipated  in  the  employers'  notice 
of  reduction. 

The  Eastern  firms  that  trouble  us  most 
are  those  that  have  made  a  specialty  of  some 
particular  branch  of  the  iron  business,  such 
as  mining  machinery,  agricultural  work  of 
every  description,  ranges  and  stove  work, 
grates,  fenders,  fire-sets,  and  hollow  ware, 
pipe  and  pipe-fittings.  By  selecting  one  of 
these  lines  of  work,  and  procuring  the  most 
perfect  plant  at  an  enormous  expense,  they 
have,  after  years  of  experience,  become  very 
proficient  in  the  manufacture  of  those  arti- 
cles. Their  workmen,  also,  by  working  on 
one  pattern  for  years,  become  experts.  Man- 
ufacturers here  take  quite  a  different  course. 
Each  shop  takes  every  job  that  comes  along, 
and  does  not  make  a  specialty  of  anything. 
Very  frequently  you  will  find  three  or  four 
grades  of  iron  melted  in  the  same  furnace, 
and  on  the  same  day,  the  lightest  cast  iron 
ornament  being  produced  alongside  of  the 
heaviest  mining  machinery  castings  in  the 
world.  In  this  respect,  our  manufacturers  are 
at  a  disadvantage;  and  if  it  were  not  for  the 


46 


The  iSan  Francisco  Iron  Strike. 


[July, 


fact  that  the  best  mechanics  in  the  world  are 
and  have  been  in  the  workshops  of  this  city 
for  years,  the  history  of  manufacturing  on 
this  coast  would  not  have  been  what  it  is 
today,  nor  would  its  progress  have  been 
nearly  so  rapid.  Again,  manufacturers  here 
are  no  doubt  at  a  great  disadvantage  on  ac- 
count of  the  high  rents,  rates  of  insurance, 
and  interest  on  money  which  they  have  to 
pay.  Neither  of  these  disadvantages,  how- 
ever, are  imposed  by  the  workmen,  nor 
should  they  suffer  on  account  of  them.  The 
condition  of  these  firms  at  present,  as  com- 
pared with  the  past,  is  the  best  proof  of 
their  prosperity,  and  is  also  a  guarantee  for 
the  future.  Their  workmen  are  not  unrea- 
sonable. In  good  times  no  organized  effort 
was  made  by  them  to  raise  wages,  as  they 
knew  that  a  dull  time  would  be  sure  to  fol- 
low, in  which,  however,  they  expected  to  be 
treated  in  the  same  reasonable  way;  but 
they  were  mistaken.  Surely  the  workmen 
suffer  enough  in  dull  times,  on  account  of 
being  out  of  work  part  of  the  time,  and  em- 
ployers should  not  try  to  make  their  con- 
dition at  such  times  more  desperate  than  it 
is.  Manufacturers  and  workmen  should  each 
bear  their  own  share  of  the  burden.  If  this 
were  done,  hard  times  would  be  of  shorter 
duration. 

Now,  concerning  the  apprentice  question, 
for  I  am  afraid  my  paper  will  be  too  long. 
The  Iron-Moulders'  Union  has  not  until  very 
recently  interfered  with  employers  concern- 
ing the  number  of  apprentices  employed; 
and  if  it  had  not  been  that  about  two  years 
ago  many  of  the  foundries  had  more  boys 
than  journeyman  moulders  employed,  in  all 
probability  the  Union  would  not  have  en- 
forced the  rule.  At  that  time,  however,  the 
number  was  so  greatly  in  excess  of  a  reason- 
able proportion,  that  it  was  impossible  for 
the  moulders  to  maintain  their  position  as  a 
Society,  or  for  their  members  to  find  remu- 
nerative employment,  if  some  check  had  not 
been  put  upon  the  increase  of  apprentices. 
About  that  time  the  following  circular  was 
adopted  by  the  Society,  and  thus  a  strike 
averted: 


To  THE  PROPRIETORS  AND  FOREMAN  OF  THE 

Gentlemen : 

The  increase  of  Apprentices  has  been  so  great  dur- 
ing the  past  three  years,  that  at  the  present  time  con- 
siderable uneasiness  is  felt  by  the  Journeymen  Iron- 
Moulders  of  this  city,  who  see  no  brighter  prospects 
ahead  than  hard  labor  through  life  for  such  wages 
as  conditions  compel  employers  to  give.  The  man- 
ner in  which  these  Apprentices  are  being  used  in 
many  shops  has  a  tendency  to  keep  down  the  price 
of  labor,  and  in  dull  times  they  are  always  retained, 
while  journeymen  moulders,  with  families  to  support, 
are  compelled  to  walk  the  streets  in  idleness.,  or  if 
employed,  forced  to  work  for  such  wages  as  bring 
degradation  and  poverty  to  themselves  and  families. 

In  view  of  these  facts,  the  Iron-Moulders'  Union 
of  North  America,  as  a  means  of  self-preservation, 
has  wisely  made  a  pro  rata  limit  of  one  apprentice  to 
every  eight  journeymen  moulders  to  be  employed  in 
any  shop.  For  years  we  have  seen  this  mischief 
afoot,  and  permitted  it  to  take  what  course  it  might, 
until  now  we  are  compelled  to  act  in  the  matter,  or 
suffer  the  disastrous  results  that  are  sure  to  follow  a 
continuation  of  this  evil. 

From  carefully  gathered  facts,  we  find  that  in  your 
foundry  there  are  at  the  core-bench  and  on  the  floors 

apprentices  and journeymen  employed, 

making  one  apprentice  to  every journeymen. 

Knowing  how  inconvenient  and  unpleasant  it  would 
be  for  your  firm  to  make  the  change  immediately, 
and  adopt  the  pro  rata  limit  established  by  our  Soci- 
ety ;  and  owing  to  the  fact  that  we  desire,  if  possi- 
ble, to  live  at  peace  and  on  good  terms  with  our  em- 
ployers, we  have  decided  not  to  demand  the  imme- 
diate dismissal  of  any  apprentices  from  your  foundry, 
but  hope  and  expect  that  no  more  will  be  employed 
until  time  has  made  the  desired  change.  We  will 
feel  in  duty  bound  by  our  obligation  to  resist  any  fur- 
ther increase  of  apprentices  by  your  firm.  This  in- 
junction being  complied  with,  the  Iron-Moulders' 
Union  will  do  its  utmost  to  make  good  mechanics  of 
those  now  employed,  and  also  assist  you  to  obtain 
the  full  benefit  of  their  apprenticeship. 

With  a  sincere  desire  that  in  the  future,  as  for' 
years  past,  mutual  good  will  and  harmony  may  exist 
between  us,  and  earnestly  desiring  to  know  your  dis- 
position in  this  matter,  we  request  that  a  reply  be 
given  our  Committee,  through  your  foreman,  at  an 
early  date.  By  order  of 

Iron- Moulders'  Union,  No.  164,  of  San  Francisco. 

A  copy  of  this  circular  was  sent  to  each 
firm,  and  most  of  them  admitted  that  they 
did  not  consider  it  a  hardship  to  comply 
with  its  provisions:  nor  can  they  prove  it 
to  be  so  now,  for  in  many  instances  their 


1885.] 


The  San  Francisco  Iron  Strike. 


47 


numbers  are  far  in  excess  of  the  proposed  rate, 
and  will  remain  so  until  times  improve.  As 
it  is  now,  there  will  be  a  better  class  of  work- 
men, and  the  trade  will  be  worth  learning. 

"  Labor  has  no  protection — the  weak  are 
devoured  by  the  strong.  All  wealth  and  all 
power  center  in  the  hands  of  the  few,  and 
the  many  are  their  victims  and  their  bonds- 
men." So  says  an  able  writer  in  a  treatise 
on  Association.  Without  organization,  the 
laboring  classes  are  at  the  mercy  of  their 
employers,  and  are  compelled  to  accept  what 
is  given  them  for  their  labor,  just  as  the 
clerks  did,  who,  the  writer  of  an  article  pub- 
lished in  the  "Journal  of  Commerce"  March 
1 2th  says,  "  accepted  the  reduction  of  wages 
without  murmur  or  sign  of  dissatisfaction." 
What  else  could  they  do?  Self-preservation 
is  the  first  law  of  nature,  and  trades  unions 
have  proved  to  be  the  best  means  through 
which  the  workmen  can  obtain  a  fair  reward 
for  their  toil.  By  insisting  upon  a  fair  rate 
of  wages,  they  are  enabled  out  of  their  sur- 
plus earnings  to  take  care  of  their  sick  and 
disabled  members,  and  give  their  deceased 
comrades  a  respectable  burial.  The  writer 
of  the  article  above  referred  to  says,  that 
trades  unions  are  useful  so  long  as  they  con- 
fine their  operations  to  benevolent  purposes 
among  their  members.  He  is  very  kind,  in- 
deed. So  long  as  they  relieve  the  tax-pay- 
ers of  heavy  burdens  which  they  would  oth- 
erwise have  to  bear,  they  are  of  use  ;  but 
when  they  dare  to  ask  sufficient  reward  for 
their  toil  to  enable  them  to  do  that  good 
work,  they  ought,  in  the  opinion  of  this 
gracious  person,  to  be  prohibited  by  law  ! 
"What  position  are  we,  the  mechanics  of 
America,  to  hold  in  society  ?  "  is  a  question 
which  concerns  workmen  all  over  this  great 
land  at  the  present  time.  Mr.  Ricardo,  a 
leading  English  political  economist,  lays  it 


down  that  the  natural  price  of  labor  is  that 
price  which  is  necessary  to  enable  the  labor- 
ers, one  with  another,  to  subsist  and  to  per- 
petuate their  race  without  either  increase  or 
diminution.  (Works,  1871,  p.  50.)  It  is  dif- 
ficult to  see  that  this  rule  allows  to  a  man 
more  than  to  a  beast,  even  in' the  point  of 
perpetuating  his  race,  which,  as  in  the  beast's 
case,  is  subjected  to  an  arbitrary  limit.  The 
opinion  of  the  working  classes  is,  that  wheth- 
er the  employers  are  conscious  of  it  or  not, 
their  doctrine  is  pretty  much  that  of  Ricardo. 
When  one  considers  the  condition  of  the 
toiling  masses  in  the  Eastern  States,  and  un- 
derstands that  it  is  the  greed  of  manufactur- 
ers that  has  brought  this  state  of  things 
about;  when  one  hears  the  wail  .of  distress 
that  has  been  raised  in  Hocking  Valley,  the 
mills  of  Lawrence  and  Fall  River,  Mass- 
achusetts, and  the  manufacturing  districts  of 
Pennsylvania,  one  can  not  help  thinking  of 
Southey's  noble  appeal  to  the  influential 
classes  of  England,  counseling  them  to  take 
some  heed  for  the  poor,  who,  though  trouble- 
some at  times,  were  not  altogether  useless ; 
and  feeling  that  they  are  as  applicable  in 
America  today,  as  they  were  in  Great  Britain 
at  the  time  they  were  uttered. 

"Train  up  thy  children,  England, 

In  the  ways  of  righteousness;  and  feed  them 

With  the  bread  of  wholesome  doctrine. 

Where  hast  thou  mines  but  in  their  industry  ? 

Thy  bulwarks  where,  but  in  their  breasts  ?  Thy  might 

But  in  their  arms  ? 

Shall  not  their  numbers  therefore  be  thy  wealth, 
Thy  strength,  thy  power,-thy  safety,  and  thy  pride? 

O  grief,  then — grief  and  shame— 
If  in  this  flourishing  land  there  should  be  dwellings 
Where  the  new-born  babe  doth  bring  unto  its  parents' 

soul 
No  joy  !  where   squalid  poverty  receives  it    at  the 

birth, 

And  on  her  wither'd  knees 
Gives  it  the  scanty  bread  of  discontent." 

Iron-  Worker. 


48 


Debris  from  Latin  Mines. 


DEBRIS    FROM   LATIN    MINES. 


Two  interesting  remnants  of  the  ancient 
Roman  tongue  are  the  Ladin  and  Rumanian 
dialects,  spoken  respectively  in  Switzerland 
(principally)  and  in  Rumania,  both,  in  all 
probability,  about  the  least  known  idioms  of 
Europe. 

The  Ladin  is  also  known  as  the  language 
of  the  Grisons,  the  Rheto  Romance,  Ru- 
monsh,  and  Rumansh,  but  it  is  ^best  to  call 
it  simply  Ladin.  On  the  east  it  is  spoken 
by  about  450,000  people  in  Italy,  on  the 
banks  of  the  Tagliamento,  and  in  Austria 
as  far  as  Goritz ;  in  the  center,  in  two  tracts 
in  Austrian  Tyrol,  by  about  90,000  persons; 
on  the  west,  where  it  is  called  Rumansh,  it 
is  spoken  in  the  greater  portion  of  the 
Swiss  canton  of  the  Grisons  by  a  population 
of  about  40,000 — making  altogether  about 
530,000. 

This  is  a  relic,  not  of  the  classic  speech 
of  Cicero  and  Quintilian,  but  of  that  of  the 
marts  of  trade,  the  provinces,  the  legionaries, 
termed  the  "  Lingua  Romana  rustica,"  which 
was  diffused  by  Roman  soldiers  and  colon- 
ists throughout  Iberia,  Gaul,  and  Dacia, 
giving  rise  to  the  seven  neo-Latin  tongues — 
the  Portuguese,  Spanish,  French,  Proven£al, 
Italian,  Ladin,  and  Rumanian. 

There  are  two  distinguishing  characteris- 
tics of  these  idioms  known  to  philologists  ; 
one  is  the  persistence  of  the  tonic  accent, 
the  other  the  transition  from  declension  to 
the  analytic  state.  The  accented  syllable  of 
the  parent  speech  is  still  that  of  the  modern 
dialects.  For  example,  in  Latin  the  accent 
is  on  the  a  in  bonitdtem  (the  accusative  case 
forming  the  basis  of  derivation) ;  so  in  French 
it  is  bonte — the  e  representing  the  a  of  the 
Latin — better  retained  in  Ladin  bonitad,  the 
accent  infallibly  being  on  the  «,  Rumanian 
bunetdte  ;  so  in  Latin,  liberdre,  to  liberate; 
French,  livrer  (accent  on  the  final  syllable) ; 
Ladin,  liberdr;  Rumanian,  liberd. 

The  second  peculiarity  signifies  the  loss 
of  declension,  of  which  not  a  trace  has  been 


left;  /.  <?.,  in  nouns  and  adjectives.  The 
Langue  d'O'il  (Proven9al),  which  gives  us 
the  oldest  Romance  relics,  we  find  had  a 
period  of  true  declension ;  but  there  is  not 
a  trace  of  it  in  her  sisters.  The  analytic 
stage  indicates  the  modern  form — -declension 
accomplished  by  means  of  prepositions,  no 
inflection  appearing  in  the  body  of  the  word. 
Thus  in  Ladin  : 


Nominative. 

ilg  frar, 

the  brother. 

Genitive. 

dilg  frar, 

of  the  brother. 

Dative. 

a  Igi  frar, 

to  the  brother. 

Accusative. 

ilg  frar, 

the  brother. 

Vocative. 

o  frar, 

O  brother. 

Ablative. 

davart  ilg  frar, 

from  the  brother. 

The  oldest  document  of  the  Ladin  is  a 
version  of  the  New  Testament,  dating  from 
the  sixteenth  century,  although  there  are 
some  short  inscriptions  in  the  Friuli  dialect 
which  are  referred  to  the  twelfth  century ; 
but  the  Testament  is  all  that  is  available  for 
our  purposes.  There  is  but  little  literature, 
and  that  is  almost  exclusively  theological. 

Observe  the  following  selections  from  the 
language,  as  illustrations  of  its  peculiarities : 

Ilg  vaun  carstioun  praepona ; 
Ilg  sabi  Deus  dispona. 

The  idle  man  proposes  ; 
The  wise  God  disposes. 

Senza  spinas  ei  rosas  naginas, 
Without  thorns  there  are  no  roses. 

The  first  five  verses  of  the  first  chapter  of 
St.  John's  Gospel  read  as  follows  : 

Lower  Engadine. 

1.  Nel  principi  eira  il  pled,  e'l  pled  eira  pro  Deis, 
e'l  pled  eira  Dieu. 

2.  Quel  eira  nel  principi  pro  Deis. 

3.  Ogni  chosa  ais  fatta  tras  quel,  e  sainza  quel  ne 
Una  chosa  fatta,  non  ais  statta  fatta. 

4.  In  el  eira   vita,  e  la  vita  eira  la  gliim  della 
glieud. 

5.  E   la   gliim   gliischa   nellas   schiirezzas,  e   las 
schiirezzas  non  Than  compraisa. 

Upper  Engadine. 

I.     Enten  1'antschetta  fova  il  plaid,  ad  il  plaid  fova 
tier  Deus,  ad  il  plaid  era  Deus. 


1885.] 


Debris  from  Latin  Mines. 


49 


2.  Quel  fova  enten  1'antschetta  tier  Deus. 

3.  Tuttas  caussas  ein  fatgas  tras  el,  e  senza  el  ei 
fatg  nagutta  da  quei  ca  ei  fatg. 

4.  Enten  el  fova  la  vita,  a  la  vita  eira  la  glisch 
dils  carstiauns. 

5.  A  quella  glisch  dat  clarezia  enten  la  schiradeg- 
na,  mo  las  schiradegnas  il  ban  buca  cumprin. 

It  may  not  be  taken  as  an  impertinence  to 
append  the  English  version,  to  save  the 
trouble  of  reference  to  any  who  may  have 
forgotten  some  of  the  words. 

1.  In  the  beginning  was  the  Word,  and  the  Word 
was  with  God,  and  the  Word  was  God. 

2.  The  same  was  in  the  beginning  with  God. 

3.  All  things   were  made  by  him,   and  without 
him  was  not  anything  made  that  was  made. 

4.  In  Him  was  life  ;  and  the  life  was  the  light  of 
men. 

5.  And  the  light  shineth  in  darkness ;  and  the 
darkness  comprehended  it  not. 

It  should  be  observed  that  the  two  ver- 
sions above  given  are  translated  by  different 
hands,  or  there  would  be  less  dissimilarity. 

We  give  one  more  illustrative  text. 

Niebla  Gagliardiensche. 

Un  schuldau  Romaun,  cavet  tin  process,  roga 
August  d'ilg  defender.  Ilg  Imperaclur  Igi  dev'  Un 
hum  da  sia  C'uort  par  ilg  mariar  tiers  ils  derschaders. 
Ilg  schuldau  fova  gagliards  aviinda  da  gir  tiers  Aug- 
ust :  "  Signur,  en  risguard  dad  els  hai  jou  bucca  faig 
aschia,  cur  els  eran  en  prieguel  en  la  battaglia  sper 
Actium  ;  Jou  mez  hai  cambattieu  par  els."  En  quei, 
c'el  schet  quels  plaids,  scha  scuvri  el  si  sias  plagas, 
c'el  veva  survangieu.  Questarepresentatiun  commo- 
venta  ilg  August  da  tal  guisa,  ca  el  ma  sez  enten  la 
casa  da  la  darchira,  par  defender  ilg  schuldau. 

Noble  Boldness. 

A  Roman  soldier  who  had  a  lawsuit,  asked  Augustus 
to  defend  him.  The  Emperor  gave  him  one  of  his 
courtiers  to  take  him  to  the  judge.  The  soldier  was 
bold  enough  to  say  to  Augustus  :  "Sire,  I  did  not 
so  fail  you  when  you  were  in  peril  in  the  battle  of 
Actium  ;  I  fought  for  you  myself."  While  he  said 
these  words  he  uncovered  the  wounds  which  he  had 
received.  This  sight  so  moved  Augustus  that  he 
himself  went  to  the  Court  to  plead  the  cause  of  the 
soldier. 

The  orthography  of  the  Ladin  is  in  a  some- 
what fantastic  state  ;  it  is  very  much  con- 
fused, especially  because  of  dialectical  varia- 
tions. 

We  now  turn  to  the  land  which  was  for- 
merly called  Dacia,  settled  by  the  legionaries 
VOL.  VI.— 4. 


of  Trajan  in  the  early  part  of  the  second  cen- 
tury of  our  era.  There  we  find  a  form  of 
speech  termed  Rumanian  or  Wallachian, 
which  was  long  supposed  to  be  a  Slavonic 
dialect,  until  the  electric  light  of  comparative 
philology  was  turned  full  upon  it.  The  mis- 
apprehension was  owing  to  the  fact  that  it 
was  written  in  Cyrillic  letters,  the  same  as 
are  employed  by  the  Russian,  Servian,  and 
Bulgarian.  This  alphabet  has  been  discard- 
ed for  the  Roman.  There  are  some  respects 
in  which  the  Cyrillic  is  preferable  to  the 
other  for  the  transcription  of  this  idiom,  but 
on  the  whole  the  preference  is  with  the 
Roman,  though  it  has  been  considered  nec- 
essary to  supplement  it  by  certain  diacritical 
signs. 

The  name  Wallachian  is  one  which  they 
repudiate,  for  it  is  merely  a  descriptive  Teu- 
tonic term  signifying  "  foreign  " — Walsch — 
Welsh — an  appellation  applied  by  our  own 
forefathers  to  the  Celts  whom  they  drove 
into  the  fastnesses  of  the  West.  They  very 
naturally  prefer  to  be  called  Rumanians,  a 
term  which  is  reminiscent  of  their  origin. 
The  Roman  soldiers  who  had  been  stationed 
for  twenty-five  years  in  the  same  outposts, 
settled  down  upon  the  banks  of  the  Danube, 
married,  and  formed  the  basis  of  a  Roman 
population,  and  laid  the  foundations  of  a 
Romance  dialect. 

It  is  the  most  remarkable  of  all  the  neo- 
Latin  stock;  it  is  not  so  rich  as  the  other 
dialects,  from  which  it  is  so  completely  sepa- 
rated in  geographical  position,  being  on  the 
eastern  frontiers  of  Europe  ;  but  it  neverthe- 
less retains  more  classic  words  of  the  age  of 
Augustus  than  the  others,  and  many  of  them 
have  retained  their  original  value,  so  often 
entirely  lost  elsewhere. 

Rumanian  is  spoken  by  between  8,000,- 
ooo  and  9,000,000  people.  Its  locus  in  quo 
is  described  as  "singularly  uniform  and  com- 
pact" (with  the  exception  of  one  small  de- 
tached subdivision),  "  forming  a  sort  of  ir- 
regular circle  of  over  one  hundred  leagues 
in  length,  from  the  Dniester  to  the  Danube, 
and  about  the  same  in  width  from  Arad  to 
the  mouth  of  the  Danube.  Besides  Wal- 
lachia  and  Moldavia  —  that  is,  Rumania 


50 


Debris  from  Latin  Mines. 


[July, 


proper — it  comprises  the  northeast  of  the 
principality  of  Servia,  the  Banat  of  Temes- 
var,  a  great  part  of  eastern  Hungary,  the 
greater  portion  of  Transylvania,  South  Bu- 
koonia,  Bessarabia,  and  the  Danubian  del- 
ta." 

What  remains  there  may  be  of  the  old 
Dacian  tongue  in  Rumanian  is  uncertain, 
but  they  are  apparently  but  small.  The  Da- 
cian has  been  engulfed  in  the  vortex  of  time, 
but  the  Slavonic  infusion  is  very  strong,  con- 
stituting two-fifths  of  the  vocabulary.  The 
Magyar,  Turkish,  Modern  Greek,  and  Alba- 
nian languages  supply  almost  all  the  remain- 
ing words  not  Latin  in  origin.  All  these 
have  been  gathered  up,  and  put  into  the 
shape  of  an  etymological  vocabulary  by  M. 
de  Cihac,  in  his  "  Dictionnaire  d'Etymolo- 
gie  Daco-Romane,"  Frankfort  on  the  Main, 
iSyo-'yg.  Although  these  regions  were  in- 
undated by  barbaric  hordes — Goths  and 
Huns,  Slavs  and  Bulgarians — from  the  fourth 
to  the  thirteenth  century,  yet  this  has  re- 
mained essentially  a  Romance  dialect.  The 
Latin  element,  however,  only  constitutes 
one-fifth  of  its  vocabulary. 

The  vowels  of  the  Latin  language  have 
undergone  in  the  Rumanian  two  principal 
modifications  :  e  and  o  in  certain  cases  have 
become  ea  and  oa — in  other  words,  have  de- 
veloped into  diphthongs,  strongly  recalling 
what  is  denominated  "  brechung,"  that  is,  the 
breaking  or  shivering  of  one  vowel  into  two 
under  a  consonantal  influence,  in  the  Ger- 
manic family— notably  in  Anglo-Saxon  ;  fur- 
ther, many  vowels  have  acquired  a  deep  and 
almost  nasal  sound.  But  the  most  remark- 
able peculiarity  is  the  suffix  article,  as  in  Bul- 
garian and  Albanian — all  perfectly  distinct 
idioms.  This  is  a  peculiarity  also  exhibit- 
ed by  the  far-away  Scandinavian  family  of 
speech.  In  Rumanian,  om  signifies  man; 
om-ul,  (man  the,)  the  man.  This  may  be  a 
relic  of  the  old  Dacian  custom,  but  we  have 
no  means  of  verifying  it.  The  feminine  ar- 
ticle is  a  ;  thus,  curte,  court ;  curte-a,  the 
court.  The  article,  however,  assumes  other 
forms  in  connection  with  the  inflections, 
vowel-endings,  etc. 

It  now  only  remains  to  give  some  illustra- 


tions of   Rumanian,   which  shall  be   brief. 
The  first  is  the  fable  of  the  mouse  and  the 

frog. 

Soacerele  si  broasca.1 

Un  soarece  voia  sS,  treacS,  preste  o  ap&  si  nu  putea. 

El  se  rugS  de  o  broascS,  ca  s£ — I  ajute.  Broasca 
era  o  inselfttoare,  si  disc  catrS,  soarece  :  Leaga-  picio  - 
rul  teu  de  piciorul  meti,  si  asa  inotand  te  voiii  trece 
dincolo.  Cand  ansS,  amendoi  furS,  pe  apS,,  broasca  se 
dete  afund,  si  voia  s&  inece  pre  soarece.  Pre  cand 
soarecele  se  batea  si  se  c&snea,  iata  c&  sboara-  pre 
acolo  un  cocor,  care  it  m&ncS,  pre  amendoi. 

Translation. 

A  mouse  wished  to  cross  some  water,  and  could 
not.  He  asked  a  frog  to  help  him.  The  frog  was 
a  deceiver  and  said  to  the  mouse  :  "  Tie  your  leg  to 
my  leg,  and,  swimming  thus,  I  will  take  you  over." 
So,  when  both  were  on  the  water,  the  frog  dove 
down  and  wished  to  drown  the  mouse.  But  when 
the  mouse  struggled  and  fought,  behold  !  there  flew 
over  them  a  kite,  which  ate  them  both  up. 

Limba  romaneasca.      The  Rumanian  Language. 
Mult  e  dulce  si  framoasa 
Limba  ce  vorbim  ! 
Alta  limba  armonioasa 
Ca  ea  nu  gasim  ! 
Salta  inima'n  placere 
Cand  o  ascultam, 
Si  pe  bude  aduce  miere 
Cand  o  cuventam, 
Romanasul  o  inbeste 
Ca  sufletal  seu, 
O  !  vorbiti,  scriti  romaneste, 
Pentru  Dumnedett  ! 

Very  soft  and  beautiful, 

Is  the  language  which  we  speak. 

No  other  tongue  so  harmonious 

Do  we  find. 

Leaps  the  heart  with  pleasure 

When  we  hear  it. 

On  the  lips  it  is  like  honey 

When  we  speak  it. 

The  Rumanian  loves  it 

As  his  soul. 

Oh  !  speak,  write  Rumanian 

For  the  sake  of  all  that's  good  ! 

[Literally,  for  God's  sake.] 

The  Latin  is  dead,  we  say ;  and  that  the 
new  idioms  are  the  debris  from  its  rich 
mines.  It  is  true.  But  perhaps  we  should 
do  better  to  liken  it  to  the  aloe  plant,  which 
in  blooming  dies  ;  when  it  blooms,  a  won- 
drous bud  at  its  crown  breaks  into  a  thousand 
flowers.  Each  one  of  these  flowers  as  it 

1  This  word,  meaning  frog,  is  Albanian. 


1885.]  Two  Sonnets.  51 

drops  to  the  ground  takes  root  and  becomes  ile  crags  of  Switzerland,  in  La  Belle  France, 
an  infant  plant ;  and  thus  the  parent  stem,  in  the  sunny  meads  of  the  Tagus,  among  the 
though  to  the  flower  a  sacrifice,  lives  again  castled  hills  of  Spain,  as  well  as  in  its  orig- 
in the  young  that  spring  up  at  its  feet.  So  inal  home,  Italy,  land  of  the  olive  and  the 
this  wondrous  Latin  plant  has  bourgeoned  vine,  the  peerless  daughters  of  the  Latin — 
and  blossomed,  the  little  flowers  have  fallen,  radiant  flowers  of  speech — have  taken  firm 
and  upon  Danubian  banks,  among  the  ster-  root  and  grow  luxuriantly. 

Adley  H.  Cummins. 


TWO   SONNETS. 
Summer  Night. 

FROM  the  warm  garden  in  the  summer  night 

All  faintest  odors  came :  the  tuberose  white 

Glimmered  in  its  dark  bed,  and  many  a  bloom 

Invisibly  breathed  spices  on  the  gloom. 

It  stirred  a  trouble  in  the  man's  dull  heart, 

A  vexing,  mute  unrest :  "  Now  what  thou  art, 

Tell  me  ! "  he  said  in  anger.     Something  sighed, 

"  I  am  the  poor  ghost  of  a  ghost  that  died 

In  years  gone  by."     And  he  recalled  of  old 

A  passion  dead — long  dead,  even  then — that  came 

And  haunted  many  a  night  like  this,  the  same 

In  their  dim  hush  above  the  fragrant  mold 

And  glimmering  flowers,  and  troubled  all  his  breast. 

"  Rest  ! "  then  he  cried ;  "  perturbed  spirit,  rest !  " 

Warning. 

Be  true  to  me!     For  there  will  dawn  a  day 
When  thou  wilt  find  the  faith  that  now  I  see, 
Bow  at  the  shrines  where  I  must  bend  the  knee, 
Knowing  the  great  from  small.     Then  lest  thou  say, 
"  Ah  me,  that  I  had  never  flung  away 
His  love  who  would  have  stood  so  close  to  me 
Where  now  I  walk  alone  " — -lest  there  should  be 
Such  vains  regret,  Love,  oh  be  true!     But  nay, 
Not  true  to  me:  true  to  thine  own  high  quest 
Of  truth  ;  the  aspiration  in  thy  breast, 
Noble  and  blind,  that  pushes  by  my  hand, 
And  will  not  lean,  yet  cannot  surely  stand ; 
True  to  thine  own  pure  heart,  as  mine  to  thee 
Beats  true.     So  shalt  thou  best  be  true  to  me. 


52 


Fine  Art  in   Romantic  Literature. 


[July, 


FINE  ART  IN  ROMANTIC  LITERATURE. 


I. 


THE  literature  usually  known  as  Classical 
is  the  creation  of  a  remote  past ;  the  Roman- 
tic is  the  comparatively  recent  and  familiar. 
Popular  opinion  does,  indeed,  often  couple 
the  Romantic  with  the  ancient  and  unfamil- 
iar, but  it  must  be  observed  that  this  ancient 
is  rather  mediaeval  than  antique,  and  where 
antique  materials  are  employed  they  are  re- 
moulded in  conformity  with  the  sentiments 
of  a  later  age,  so  that  the  Theseus  of  the 
"  Knight's  Tale  "  and  of  the  "  Midsummer 
Night's  Dream  "  is  no  longer  the  Theseus  of 
Sophocles  and  of  Plutarch.  To  borrow  the 
technical  language  of  geology,  the  early  clas- 
sical art  of  Europe  belongs  to  the  palaeozoic 
period,  while  Romantic  art  represents  the 
mesozoic  and  casnozoic  epochs.  Fully  to 
comprehend  either,  it  is  necessary  to  take 
into  account  its  opposite,  or  rather  its  com- 
plement. The  art  of  antiquity  illustrates 
that  of  the  present;  in  Romantic  art  we 
witness  the  consummation  of  a  development 
which  is  for  a  moment  arrested  in  the  mar- 
ble of  Praxiteles  and  the  hexameters  of  Ho- 
mer. Antiquity  forms  the  background  upon 
which  the  modern  world  is  projected  ;  into 
the  foreground  are  crowded  our  engrossing 
interests,  the  permanent  charm  of  existence 
—  nay,  our  very  life  itself.  A  flood  of  lim- 
pid waters  rolls  past  our  doors,  charged, 
it  may  be,  with  a  pungency  and  vivific 
quality  which  it  has  gathered  from  the 
air,  the  herbage,  and  the  chalybeate  or  cal-. 
careous  soil  of  its  banks,  but  we  seldom 
allow  our  imagination  to  wander  to  the 
sweet  springs  far  above.  The  plow  turns 
over  the  rich,  black  mould,  full  of  the  genial 
elements  which  shall  nourish  the  coming 
harvest,  but  we  are  unmindful  that  it  rests 
on  the  detritus  of  the  crumbling  crag,  and  on 
fragments  torn  from  the  shoulders  of  the  dis- 
tant hill.  But  comparison  is  always  interest- 
ing, and,  in  the  discussion  of  our  subject, 


almost  indispensable.  As  the  majestic 
presence  of  such  an  Alpine  peak  as  the 
Jungfrau,  the  unsullied  whiteness  of  its 
snows,  and  its  regal  indifference  to  the  con- 
cerns of  ordinary  humanity,  are  more  keenly 
realized  by  him  who,  after  arduous  journey- 
ings,  gazes  upward  from  the  valley  of  Lau- 
terbrunnen,  or  the  lovely  surroundings  of  In- 
terlaken  ;  and  as  the  fitness  of  the  smiling 
vale  for  the  abode  of  man,  the  deep  green- 
ness of  its  vegetation,  the  windings  of  its 
streams,  and  the  glancing  silver  of  its  lakes, 
are  best  appreciated  by  the  traveler  who 
looks  down  from  the  scanty  pastures  which 
encroach  upon  the  eternal  snows ;  so,  if  it 
were  possible  to  comprehend  the  two  in  a 
single  panorama,  the  splendors  of  classical 
antiquity  might  be  flashed  upon  the  behold- 
er from  its  own  serene  heights,  while  the 
chequered,  romantic  scenery  of  the  lowlands 
should  at  the  same  time  refresh  his  aching 
vision,  and  inspire  in  him  a  blissful  content- 
ment with  the  lowlier  lot.  To  furnish  such 
a  panoramic  view  would  be  beyond  the  limits 
of  the  task  assigned,  but  a  preliminary 
glimpse  at  a  few  examples  of  the  art  of  each 
period  may  assist  us  in  conceiving  the  true 
nature  of  Romantic  literature. 


II. 


NOT  far  from  a  sluggish  river,  which  pours 
its  reluctant  waters  through  a  tract  of  marshy 
ground  in  Southern  Italy,  rise  the  ruined  col- 
umns of  the  temple  of  Neptune  at  Paestum. 
Venerable  with  the  touch  of  time,  which  has 
worn  the  travertine  into  hollows,  while  appa- 
rently gilding  the  surface  of  the  stone,  it  is 
still  more  imposing  because  of  the  massive 
and  solid  character  of  these  low,  fluted  pil- 
lars. Each  is  a  short,  thick-shouldered  giant, 
placed  to  support  a  heavy  entablature.  This 
architecture  is  simple,  rugged,  and  bold  ;  a 
severe  taste  has  dictated  its  proportions ;  it 
was  consecrated  to  the  worship  of  the  earth- 


1885.] 


Fine  Art  in  Romantic  Literature. 


53 


shaking  god,  the  deity  of  the  ocean-depths, 
who  occasionally  emerges  into  the  sunlight, 
and  glides  smoothly  in  his  chariot  over  the 
watery  plain,  but  oftener  contents  himself 
with  lunging  terrifically  at  the  solid  land, 
smiting  it  amain  with  his  huge  billows,  and 
sinking  back,  amid  the  deep  reverberations 
of  the  blows,  to  the  cavernous  recesses  of 
the  sea.  The  temple  is  worthy  of  the  divin- 
ity ;  sturdy  and  thickset,  defiant  and  frown- 
ing ;  such  is  the  aspect  of  the  edifice,  and 
such  we  imagine  the  god.  This  building 
alone  might,  without  great  injustice,  be  taken 
as  a  type  of  the  architecture  of  both  Greece 
and  Rome;  but,  lest  the  selection  should 
seem  partial,  let  us  turn  to  distant  Athens, 
"  the  eye  of  Greece,"  and  seat  ourselves  be- 
fore the  Parthenon.  Here  the  columns  are 
more  slender,  as  befits  the  gracefulness  of 
the  virgin  goddess  ;  the  entablature  is  light- 
er ;-  sculptures  fill  the  pediment,  and,  in  the 
form  of  high  reliefs,  extend  along  the  frieze, 
belting  the  entire  temple  with  a  procession 
of  lifelike  and  highly-animated  figures ;  ev- 
erything is  wrought  of  white  marble,  virgin 
as  Athena  herself,  and  polished  to  suit  the 
taste  of  a  fastidious  people ;  the  whole  har- 
monious in  design,  faultless  in  execution, 
and  triumphal  in  situation.  But  certain  fea- 
tures still  remain  common  to  the  two  struc- 
tures. As  Neptune,  upon  the  western  pedi- 
ment of  the  Parthenon,  contests  with  Athe- 
na the  soil  of  Attica,  the  ruder  natural  forces 
which  minister  to  man's  welfare  being  thus 
brought  into  rivalry  with  the  arts  which  re- 
fine and  humanize,  so  the  whole  temple 
bears  testimony  on  the  one  hand  to  mighty, 
but  beneficent  agencies,  tending  to  material 
comfort  and  luxury,  and,  on  the  other,  to  a 
calmness  akin  to  self-complacency,  a  satis- 
faction with  the  life  that  now  is. 

The  architecture  of  the  North  and  of  the 
Middle  Ages  is  of  a  quite  different  order. 
The  Rhine  at  Cologne  flows  past  the  foun- 
dations of  another  temple;  dedicated  to  the 
service  of  another  deity.  That  of  Neptune 
was  solid  and  self-subsistent ;  this  needs  but- 
tressing from  without  to  enable  it  to  sustain 
itself  at  the  altitude  it  has  reached,  for, 
whereas-the  columns  at  Psestum  are  scarcely 


thirty  feet  in  height,  these  are  five  times  as 
long ;  from  the  roof  to  the  ground  is  over 
two  hundred  feet ;  while  the  spires  are  lifted 
into  air  to  a  distance  of  more  than  three 
hundred  additional  feet.  And  not  only  have 
the  columns  grown  to  these  astounding  di- 
mensions, but  the  architrave  which  they  sup- 
port seems  also  to  have  felt  the  impulse  up- 
ward. No  longer  resting  in  a  horizontal 
position,  it  has  parted  in  two  between  each 
pair  of  columns,  and  springs  in  buoyant 
curves  Jo  the  crown  of  a  pointed  arch.  Sim- 
plicity has  given  place  to  complexity.  The 
forms  of  leaves  and  flowers  are  everywhere 
imitated  in  a  manner  which  indicates  a  love 
for  natural  beauty,  and  a  perception  of  its 
relation  to  worship.  The  sculpture  of  the 
exterior  is  not  confined  to  a  single  level,  but 
climbs  from  base  to  summit,  ensconcing  itself 
in  niches  up  the  buttresses,  following  the 
lines  of  the  arches,  occupying  the  tympanum 
of  the  fagade,  and  crowning  the  pinnacles 
above  the  roof.  Nor  are  these  sculptures 
confined  to  the  representation  of  tutelary  di- 
vinities, or  the  demigods  and  heroes  of  the 
land.  Uncouth  animal  forms  mingle  with 
those  of  bishop  and  king  ;  monsters  with 
demoniac  visages  grin  at  the  eaves.  Life, 
life  everywhere,  but  not  always  joyous  or 
beautiful  life.  No  law  of  self-restraint  ap- 
pears to  be  observed.  Profusion  reigns  and 
has  made  its  masterpiece.  The  solid  rock 
has  blossomed  into  flamboyant  tracery;  stone 
has  become  etherealized  and  wayward  ;  the 
ribs  of  the  ancient  earth  have  grown  mobile, 
and  mount  as  a  wavering  flame  toward  the 
heavens. 

But  Sculpture  has  also  its  lesson  to  teach. 
Among  the  Parthenon  statues  of  the  eastern 
pediment,  there  is  one  of  a  reclining  male 
figure.  It  is  immaterial  whether  we  call  it 
Theseus  or  Olympus.  What  it  imports  us 
to  know  is  that  the  frame  is  strongly  knit, 
the  arms  and  chest  those  of  an  athlete,  the 
head  finely  poised,  the  countenance  express- 
ive of  vigor  and  determination.  Though  the 
attitude  is  one  of  repose,  the  muscles  are 
not  relaxed,  but  every  limb  seems  aglow  with 
the  ruddy  tide  of  health,  and  ready,  at  a 
moment's  warning,  to  start  into  activity. 


54 


Fine  Art  in  Romantic  Literature. 


[July, 


Contrast  this  with  the  Pieta  of  St.  Peter's  at 
Rome,  executed  in  the  same  material  by 
Michael  Angelo.  What  woman  is  this  who 
looks  down  so  mournfully  at  the  body  lying 
across  her  knees?  And  whose  is  the  body, 
thus  prone  and  rigid?  Surely  this  can  be  no 
Spartan  mother,  mourning  for  the  son  who 
has  returned  upon  his  shield.  The  muscles 
of  the  dead  man  are  not  those  of  a  warrior; 
the  features  of  the  mother  are  not  those  of 
a  Spartan.  His  face  is  emaciated  and  care- 
worn; her  features  are  dissolved  in  grief  and 
tenderness.  The  Niobe  group  may  furnish 
a  parallel;  in  both  cases  the  heart  of  a 
mother  is  pierced  through  the  bosom  of  the 
child.  But  Niobe  seeks  to  ward  off  the 
blow;  terror  has  vanquished  pride,  and  so- 
licitude for  her  loved  ones  is  the  reigning 
emotion.  The  mother  of  the  Crucified, 
on  the  contrary,  has  put  forth  no  effort  to 
save  her  son;  resignation  has  forestalled  de- 
fiance, and  even  protest ;  there  is  no  mur- 
muring, only  an  inexpressible  agony  of 
love  and  sorrow.  Humanity  is  no  long- 
er self-poised.  Yielding  to  the  will  of  a  su- 
perior Being  before  whom  it  bows,  it  con- 
sumes resolve  in  emotion,  and  for  the  lux- 
ury of  conquest  substitutes  the  luxury  of 
sentiment. 

The  Painting  of  antiquity  exists  for  us 
but  in  two  forms :  the  decoration  of  Greek 
vases,  and  the  mural  pictures  of  Pompeii. 
Of  these  the  Pompeian  frescoes,  though  be- 
longing to  a  comparatively  late  period,  rep- 
resent nearly  everything  that  has  survived  of 
the  art  of  Zeuxis  and  Apelles.  Serving  ad- 
mirably the  purpose  of  mere  decoration, 
they  are  strikingly  deficient  in  most  of  the 
great  qualities  of  modern  painting.  Of  bold- 
ness or  subtlety  in  conception  there  is  almost 
nothing.  Only  two  principal  styles  are  at- 
tempted, the  one  including  a  rather  limited 
range  of  mythological  compositions,  and  the 
other  treating  genre  subjects  in  a  pleasing 
but  almost  infantile  manner.  Portraiture 
was  not  unknown  among  the  Greeks,  and 
the  best  of  their  artists  are  said  to  have  at-x 
tained  great  proficiency  in  this  branch,  but 
we  have  no  means  of  gauging  their  preten- 
sions. The  Pompeian  wall  paintings  furnish 


no  examples  of  portraiture,  nor  is  it  easy  to 
understand  how  a  deceptive  resemblance  to 
any  particular  human  countenance  could  be 
secured  by  artists  whose  drawing  is  often 
conspicuously  bad.  Landscape,  as  in  early 
Christian  painting,  serves  but  as  a  back- 
ground or  framework  for  scenes  of  more 
immediate  human  interest.  There  is  no 
attempt  to  depict  familiar  localities ;  such 
landscape  as  there  is  appears  conventionalized 
and  unreal,  and  may  be  compared,  though  re- 
motely, to  the  scenery  which  adorns  a  Chinese 
fan.  Of  perspective  in  the  modern  sense  there 
is  scarcely  an  indication.  There  is  no  grada- 
tion of  tone,  no  aerial  perspective,  and  none 
of  the  magic  of  chiaroscuro.  On  the  other 
hand,  the  figures  are  frequently  light  and 
graceful,  the  transparency  of  thin  and  flut- 
tering drapery  is  successfully  imitated,  and 
the  coloring,  though  simple,  is  pure  and 
agreeable.  Judged  by  present  standards, 
these  frescoes  fall  into  a  very  subordinate 
category.  The  gulf  which  separates  them 
from  the  gorgeous  creations  of  Veronese  and 
Tintoretto,  in  the  halls  of  the  Ducal  Palace 
at  Venice,  is  far  too  wide  to  be  spanned  by 
a  sentence  or  a  paragraph.  Between  the  ex- 
tremes indicated  lie  the  naive  spirituality  of 
Fra  Angelico,  the  "  rushing  sea  of  angels" 
which  Correggio  has  suspended  in  the  cathe- 
dral cupola  at  Parma,  the  patrician  features 
of  Titian's  prelates  and  statesmen,  and  the 
girlish,  motherly,  or  saintly  Madonnas  of 
Raphael.  If  the  period  which  has  elapsed 
since  the  i6th  century  be  included  in  the 
survey,  the  disparity  becomes  still  more 
remarkable.  Who  that  has  stood  before 
the  Building  of  Carthage,  or  the  Embark- 
ation of  the  Queen  of  Sheba,  in  the  Na- 
tional Gallery,  would  hesitate  if  asked  to 
choose  between  one  of  these  and  the  best 
landscape  of  the  Pompeian  collection  ?  Who 
would  exchange  a  fine  Reynolds  or  Land- 
seer,  a  Gerome  or  Meissonier,  for  any  paint- 
ing that  could  be  offered  him  from  the 
House  of  Lucretius  or  of  the  Tragic  Poet  ? 
The  rugged  lineaments  of  Rembrandt's  bur- 
gomasters and  the  tatters  of  Murillo's  street 
urchins  could  have  found  no  place  or  ac- 
ceptance in  the  abodes  of  Campanian  lux- 


1885.] 


Fine  Art  in  Romantic  Literature. 


55 


ury,  and  as  little  in  the  palaces  of  Roman 
pride.  A  Greek  of  the  age  of  Pericles  would 
have  turned  with  scorn  or  ridicule  from  Ti- 
tian's Assumption,  would  have  condemned  as 
barbarous  the  Ecce  Homo,  and  would  have 
censured  the  Santa  Notte  of  Correggio  for 
its  unaccountable  light  and  shade.  But 
Painting,  being  essentially  a  Romantic  Art, 
though  originating  in  antiquity,  must  obtain 
its  justification  and  its  praise  from  those 
among  whom  it  has  flourished,  and  whose 
life  it  has  faithfully  reflected. 

The  chief  distinction  between  Greek  and 
modern  Music  is,  that  the  former  was  pure- 
ly melodic,  while  the  latter,  without  exclud- 
ing melody,  is  also  harmonic.  At  all  events 
it  is  safe  to  affirm  that  the  harmonies  admit- 
ted by  the  Greeks  were  of  the  most  simple 
character,  such  as  occur,  for  example,  when 
the  same  part  is  sung  by  men  and  women 
at  the  interval  of  an  octave  from  each 
other.  The  hymn,  the  chorus,  and  the  ode 
were  chanted  in  a  solemn  and  stately  reci- 
tative, with  or  without  the  accompaniment 
of  instrumental  music.  The  lyre  and  the 
flute,  or  the  typical  forms  of  string  and  wind 
instruments,  were  employed,  but  their  use 
was  chiefly  restricted  to  the  accompaniment 
of  the  voice.  A  general  conception  of  the 
nature  of  ancient  music  is  no  doubt  afforded 
by  the  Gregorian  chant,  and  the  ecclesiasti- 
cal music  into  which  the  latter  enters  as  a 
constituent.  Confined  to  religious  ceremo- 
nial and  occasions  of  festal  pomp,  it  never 
laid  aside  its  dignity,  simplicity,  and  serious- 
ness, except  when  religion  became  revelry, 
and  festivity  degenerated  into  Bacchanalian 
license.  Glees  and  catches  would  have  been 
scouted  as  trivial  and  profane,  and  as  an 
undue  concession  to  private  conviviality. 
The  piercing,  agitated  cry  of  the  violin,  its 
wail,  mournful  and  sweet  as  of  an  imprisoned 
dryad,  its  maniac  ravings  and  shuddering 
laughter,  even  the  rapturous  joy  which  mur- 
murs through  its  strings  like  the  resonant, 
wind  of  evening  through  the  branches  of  a 
pine-wood — these  would  have  disturbed  the 
Grecian  placidity  and  equipoise,  and  hence 
would  have  been  deemed  intolerable.  The 
Greek  pantheon  enshrined  no  St.  Cecilia, 


for  the  Greek  spirit  had  never  been  pene- 
trated with  the  need  for  organ  music,  for 
those  buoyant  impulses  of  canorous  sound, 
which,  like  elastic  pinions,  are  capable  of 
wafting  the  listener  toward  celestial  spheres. 
Except  for  such  instances  as  the  trumpet- 
call  to  battle,  instrumental  music  was  not 
dissociated  in  antiquity  from  the  human 
voice.  The  sonata  and  the  symphony  had 
not  been  dreamed  of.  Since  polyphonic 
music  had  not  been  invented,  choruses  in 
the  modern  sense  were  impossible,  and  for 
the  same  reason  there  was  nothing  corres- 
pondent to  our  orchestral  playing  among 
the  Greeks  and  Romans.  These  considera- 
tions at  once  exclude  the  opera  and  the  ora- 
torio from  the  circle  of  ancient  musical  com- 
positions. Thus  it  will  be  perceived  that 
the  unity  in  variety  which  is  exemplified  in 
Gothic  architecture,  and  which  is  the  un- 
questioned norm  of  all  the  esemplastic  arts, 
must  not  be  looked  for  in  classical  music. 
And  it  must  further  be  evident  that  harmo- 
ny, the  reconciliation  of  disparates,  can.  nev- 
er be  possible  until  there  is  an  evolution  of 
individuality.  The  violin,  the  trombone, 
the  clarinet,  and  the  bassoon  must  each  have 
its  distinct  and  well-defined  timbre,  or  there 
can  be  no  orchestral  unison.  In  like  man- 
ner, choral  harmony  results  from  the  four- 
fold division  of  bass,  tenor,  alto,  and  treble, 
each  with  its  own  proper  function  and  sever- 
al office.  Concord,  in  other  words,  exists 
only  in  virtue  of  differentiation.  This  was 
clearly  seen  by  Milton,  who  was  no  less  mu- 
sician than  poet,  and  who  has  embodied 
his  Rarmonical  theory  in  the  poem,  "  At  a 
Solemn  Music": 

"  And  to  our  high-raised  phantasy  present 
That  undisturbed  song  of  pure  concent, 
Aye  sung  before  the  sapphire-colored  throne 
To  Him  that  sits  thereon, 
With  saintly  shout  and  solemn  jubilee  ; 
Where  the  bright  Seraphim  in  burning  row 
Their  loud  uplifted  angel-trumpets  blow, 
And  the  Cherubic  host  in  thousand  quires 
Touch  their  immortal  harps  of  golden  wires, 
With  those  just  Spirits  that  wear  victorious  palms, 
Hymns  devout  and  holy  psalms 
Singing  everlastingly  : 
That  we  on  Earth  with  undiscording  voice 
.  May  rightly  answer  that  melodious  noise." 


56 


Fine  Art  in  Romantic  Literature,. 


[July, 


The  basis  of  all  concord  must  indeed  be 
assumed;  the  harmonics  or  overtones  which 
are  the  very  condition  of  unison  can  not  be 
dispensed  with  ;  but  the  touchstone  of  Ro- 
manticism, in  music  as  in  literature,  is  the 
development  of  personality,  the  consumma- 
tion of  the  individual. 

III. 

DURING  the  early  Christian  centuries, 
when  the  world  was  filled  with  crime  and  vio- 
lence, men  sought  the  desert  in  order  to  live  a 
life  of  solitude.  The  measure  of  human 
wickedness  seemed  full,  and  in  escape  lay 
the  only  safety.  At  first  in  such  wilder- 
nesses as  the  Thebaid,  and  afterwards  in  the 
monasteries,  devout  souls  vowed  themselves 
to  eternal  communion  with  the  Father 
of  spirits.  In  this  communion  human  na- 
ture found  a  real  satisfaction.  The  struggle 
for  emancipation  from  the  bondage  of  the 
flesh  became  an  end  in  itself.  In  propor- 
tion, to  the  fierceness  of  the  conflict  with 
besetting  sin,  was  the  worth  of  the  victory 
enhanced.  Hours  and  days  were  passed  in 
silent  meditation  and  prayer.  At  times  the 
devotee  fell  into  a  trance,  in  which  the  very 
heavens  seemed  opened,  and  legions  of  ce- 
lestial visitants  descended  into  his  cell.  The 
revelation  of  glory  would  have  been  insup- 
portable, were  it  not  that  the  soul,  intoxi- 
icated  with  rapture,  nerved  itself  to  receive 
more  and  more  of  the  divine  energy.  To 
some  were  vouchsafed  glimpses  of  angels 
and  demons,  battling  for  the  future  posses- 
sion of  a  tried  and  fainting  soul.  But  the 
sight  of  these  combats  only  intensified  the 
desire  of  the  convert  to  make  his  own  peace 
with  God.  Here  the  Scriptures  came  to  his 
aid.  He  pondered  upon  the  New  Testa- 
ment, and  especially  upon  the  Gospel  nar- 
rative of  the  life  of  Christ,  until  the  ascended 
Lord  became  a  living  reality.  Mystics  like 
Tauler  and  Thomas  a  Kempis  burned  for 
union  with  this  transfigured  ideal,  who  was 
at  once  friend  and  Master,  the  embodiment 
of  all  life,  all  purity,  and  all  love.  Not 
only  was  He  the  Supreme  Judge  of  all  the 
earth,  rewarding  every  man  according  to  his 


deeds,  but  was  Himself,  here  and  hereafter, 
the  reward,  the  consolation,  and  the  joy. 
Images  borrowed  from  the  Song  of  Solomon 
were  profusely  employed  to  symbolize  the 
transport  of  this  ineffable  union.  The  flesh 
was  castigated,  the  body  emaciated,  in  order 
to  remove  the  last  obstacle  which  hindered 
the  free  effluence  and  upward  progress  of 
man's  immortal  part.  Tennyson's  descrip- 
tion of  Percivale's  sister,  the  holy  nun,  will 
apply  to  thousands  of  both  sexes  : 

"And  so  she  prayed  and  fasted,  till  the  sun 
Shone,  and  the  wind  blew,  thro'  her,  and  I  thought 
She  might  have  risen  and  floated  when  I  saw  her." 

Such  aspiration  is  begotten  of  faith,  and  in 
turn  begets  faith.  The  effects  were  marvel- 
lous. The  maiden  of  "The  Holy  Grail," 
speaking  with  her  knight, 

"Sent  the  deathless  passion  in  her  eyes 
Thro'  him,  and  made  him  hers,  and  laid  her  mind 
On  him,  and  he  believed  in  her  belief." 

The  rapt  contemplation  of  supernal  mys- 
teries is  the  favorite  occupation  of  the  me- 
diaeval saints,  such  as  Francis  of  Assisi  and 
Catharine  of  Siena.  Men  as  unlike  in  other 
respects  as  Pascal  and  Jeremy  Taylor  here 
meet  upon  common  ground.  The  spirit  as- 
serts its  lofty  destiny  and  privileges,  spurns 
its  limitations,  refines  away  the  grossness  of 
its  material  integument,  and  escapes  into  the 
pure  empyrean.  The  invisible  chords  of  the 
soul  tremble  into  music.  It  is  an  ^Eolian 
harp  for  the  winds  of  heaven  to  play  upon, 
and  the  response  from  other  spheres  is  blent 
with  its  melody. 

Nor  are  we  to  imagine  that  this  note 
is  peculiar  to  the  romantic  literature  of 
the  mediaeval  period.  Henry  vm.  despoiled 
the  abbeys  and  evicted  their  tenants ;  but 
neither  he  nor  the  philosophizing  eighteenth 
century  has  quenched  the  fine  ecstacy  of 
this  music.  It  thrills  again  in  the  consecra- 
tion song  of  Wagner's  "  Parsifal " ;  it  is  the 
"  slender  sound  as  from  a  distance  beyond 
distance  "  of  Tennyson's  Idyls.  Who,  if  he 
were  not  familiar  with  "The  Excursion," 
would  believe,  on  reading  the  following  lines, 
that  they  were  written  by  the  poetical  an- 
chorite of  Rydal  Mount,  and  not  by  a  con- 
temporary of  Abelard  ? 


1885.] 


Fine  Art  in  Romantic  Literature. 


57 


"Sound  needed  none, 
Nor  any  voice  of  joy  ;  his  spirit  drank 
The  spectacle ;  sensation,  soul,  and  form 
All  melted  into  him  ;  they  swallowed  up 
His  animal  being;  in  them  did  he  live, 
And  by  them  did  he  live;  they  were  his  life. 
In  such  access  of  mind,  in  such  high  hour 
Of  visitation  from  the  living  God, 
Thought  was  not ;  in  enjoyment  it  expired." 

It  is  not  Tennyson's  holy  nun,  but  a 
secular  counterpart  of  the  nineteenth  cen- 
tury, who,  in  the  words  of  her  poet,  the 
woman  beloved  alike  of  England  and  Italy, 
thus  ends  her  story  and  her  life  : 

"So, — no  more  vain  words  be  said! 
The  hosannas  nearer  roll — 
Mother,  smile  now  on  thy  Dead; 
I  am  death-strong  in  my  soul. 
Mystic  dove  alit  on  cross, 
Guide  the  poor  bird  of  the  snows 
Through  the  snow-wind  above  loss  ! 

Jesus,  Victim,  comprehending 
Love's  divine  self-abnegation, 
Cleanse  my  love  in  its  self-spending, 
And  absorb  the  poor  libation  ! 
Wind  my  thread  of  life  up  higher, 
Up,  through  angels'  hands  of  fire, 
I  aspire  while  I  expire  !  " 

To  persons  thus  constituted,  there  is  but  a 
single  step  from  admiration  of  superhuman 
excellence  to  admiration  of  physical  perfec- 
tions. Love  is  transferred,  by  an  easy  as- 
cent, from  the  knight  to  the  pattern  of  all 
knighthood,  from  the  earthly  to  the  heaven- 
ly bridegroom.  The  Beatrice  of  the  Vita 
Nuova  is  still  a  girl  when  Dante  first  sees 
her  ;  she  is  "at  the  beginning  of  her  ninth 
year  almost,"  and  "clothed  in  a  becoming. 
and  modest  crimson,"  yet  even  then  he  can 
not  refrain  from  calling  her  the  "  youngest 
of  the  angels  ";  in  the  Divina  Commedia  she 
has  become  pure  Intelligence,  and  stands  for 
nothing  less  than  the  Divine  Wisdom,  which 
meets  the  soul  at  the  confines  of  earth  and 
heaven,  and,  mounting  with  it  from  sphere 
to  sphere,  at  length  stands  in  the  unspeakable 
effulgence  of  the  Paradisal  Rose  and  the 
Splendor  of  God. 

Of  Tennyson's  nun  we  are  told — 

"  Never  maiden  glowed, 
But  that  was  in  her  earlier  maidenhood, 
With  such  a  fervent  flame  of  human  love, 
Which,  being  rudely  blunted,  glanced  and  shot 
Only  to  holy  things. " 


What  is  true  of  love  is  true  of  beauty. 
The  squire,  holding  solitary  watch  on  the 
eve  of  his  knighthood,  mingles  visions  of  the 
Madonna  with  reminiscences  of  the  lady 
whose  favor  he  is  to  wear  in  tourney  and 
tented  field.  The  poet,  nourished  by  Plato, 
and  catching  the  temper  of  his  own  surround- 
ings, writes  with  the  same  pen  "  An  Hymne 
in  Honour  of  Beautie"  and  "An  Hymne  of 
Heavenly  Beautie."  In  the  latter  he  sings  : 

"  Yet  is  that  Highest  farre  beyond  all  telling, 
Fairer  then  all  the  rest  which  there  appeare, 
Though  all  their  beauties  joynd  together  were  ; 
How  then  can  mortall  tongue  hope  to  expresse 
The  image  of  such  endlesse  perfectnesse?" 

In  the  former  he  reduces  this  ideal  beauty 
to  terms  of  the  visible  and  measurable  : 

"  So  every  spirit,  as  it  is  most  pure, 
And  hath  in  it  the  more  of  heavenly  li'ght, 
So  it  the  fairer  bodie  doth  procure 
To  habit  in,  and  it  more  fairely  dight 
With  chearefull  grace  and  amiable  sight; 
For  of  the  soule  the  bodie  forme  doth  take; 
For  soule  is  forme,  and  doth  the  bodie  make." 

The  pursuit  of  beauty  in  its  more  evanes- 
cent forms  becomes  with  later  poets  the.  pur- 
suit of  the  unattainable  ideal.  Byron,  Goethe 
and  De  Musset,  with  many  of  their  fel- 
low-poets, exhibit  in  their  lives  the  perver- 
sion of  this  noble  tendency.  The  alabaster 
vase,  glowing  with  its  prisoned  flame  and  ex- 
haling precious  incense,  is  seized  in  the  rude 
grasp  of  their  frenzied  hands,  and  crushed  to 
atoms.  They  chase  the  frail  and  richly-tint- 
ed Psyche  through  wood  and  plain,  and  at 
length  capture  the  volatile  prey,  but  the  bloom 
and  lightness  have  departed,  and  only  two 
folded  wings  and  a  mangled  body  remain. 
With  such  experience  comes  a  reaction,  part- 
ly of  remorse,  but  largely  of  disappointment. 
All  that's  bright  does  indeed  fade,  and  per- 
haps the  brightest  still  the  fleetest.  The 
vague  longing  in  the  heart  of  the  youth, 
when  the  untried  world  lies  stretched  out  be- 
neath his  feet,  becomes  the  regret  of  the  man 
•  of  riper  years,  who  has  tried  all  and  found 
all  wanting.  The  pensive  sweetness  of  the 
maiden,  as  her  petals  softly  unclose  to  the 
light,  passes  gradually  into  the  gentle  melan- 
choly of  the  days  when  the  winds  scatter  the 
same  petals  on  the  bosom  of  the  earth. 
"  Here  have  we  no  continuing  city"  is  the 


58 


Fine  Art  in  Romantic  Literature. 


burden  of  these  minor  chants.  Every  hym- 
nology  contains  a  version  of  that  antiphon  of 
longing  and  anticipative  fruition,  "  Jerusa- 
lem the  Golden,"  which  may  be  regarded  as 
the  classic  expression  of  this  mood  in  relig- 
ious verse. 

One  of  its  most  graceful  forms  in  secular 
poetry  is  Villon's  "  Ballad  of  Dead  Ladies," 
of  which  I  must  be  content  to  cfnote  a  frag- 
ment in  translation  : 

"Nay,  never  ask  this  week,  fair  lord, 
Where  they  are  gone,  nor  yet  this  year, 
Except  with  this  for  an  overword, — 
But  where  are  the  snows  of  yester-year?" 

"  The  snows  of  yester-year  ! "  They  are 
Burns's 

"  Snow-falls  in  the  river, 
A  moment  white — then  melts  for  ever." 

But  why  multiply  examples  of  a  species 
of  writing  from  whose  omnipresence  one  can 
hardly  escape?  It  is  the  poetry  of  Chateau- 
briand and  Lamartine,  and  of  the  German 
elegists  Salis  and  Matthisson.  Its  sullen 
monotony  is  borne  through  Young's  Night 
Thoughts;  its  theme  is  repeated  with  tragic 
accompaniments  in  The  Sorrows  ofWerther. 
In  Childe  Harold  the  music  is  sprightlier 
and  the  air  more  lively  and  stirring,  but 
there  is  a  haunting  sense  that  the  motif  is 
older  than  the  century.  The  plaint  of  the 
violins  maddens  us,  and  we  long  for  the 
mellow  cry  of  the  clarion,  the  cheerful  echoes 
of  the  flute,  or  even  the  doubling  discord  of 
the  drums.  Hence  it  came  that  the  France 
of  Rousseau  and  of  Chateaubriand  hailed 
Napoleon,  and  that  the  Germany  of  dream- 
ers started  into  a  Germany  of  warriors. 
Thought  needs  action  as  a  counterpoise, 
and  from  the  ashes  of  buried  hopes  may 
spring  the  blossoms  which  shall  feed  the 
bee,  and  scatter  the  germs  of  a  fairer  time. 

IF  the  melancholy  disposition  grow  ob- 
serving and  critical,  we  have  the  satirist. 
Shakespeare,  the  repertory  of  whose  types 
would  of  itself  supply  all  the  illustrations 
needed,  furnishes  us  for  the  present  purpose 
with  the  melancholy  Jaques.  Let  us  hear 
him  lay  down  his  conditions.  First,  he  must 
be  free  to  say  what  he  likes: 


"  I  must  have  liberty 
Withal,  as  large  a  charter  as  the  wind, 
To  blow  on  whom  I  please  ;  for  so  fools  have ; 
And  they  that  are  most  galled  with  my  folly, 
They  most  must  laugh." 

But  his  discourse  has  an  object : 

"  Give  me  leave 

To  speak  my  mind,  and  I  will  through  and  through 
Cleanse  the  foul  body  of  the  infected  world, 
If  they  will  patiently  receive  my  medicine." 

Here  is  your  true  satirist.  Juvenal  was  not 
more  rank  than  he  will  be,  but  he  will  not  be 
more  rank  than  the  offence  against  which  he 
declaims.  If  any  one  like  not  the  medicine, 
let  him  beware  of  the  infection.  Like  the 
tristful  and  meditative  Hamlet,  he  will  but 

"  Set  you  up  a  glass 
Where  you  may  see  the  inmost  part  of  you." 

It  is  your  fault  if  there  you 

"  See  such  black  and  grained  spots 
As  will  not  leave  their  tinct." 

The  cynicism  of  Jaques,  if  such  be  the 
name  for  it,  is  the  cynicism  of  Swift ;  but  in 
Swift  it  is  more  bitter  and  malignant.  Swift 
revels  in  moral  ugliness  for  its  own  sake, 
though  the  hypocrisy  of  the  age  in  which  he 
lived  excuses  the  atrocity  of  some  of  his 
pictures.  Swift  is  perhaps  not  more  coarse 
than  Juvenal,  but  he  does  not  confine  him- 
self to  externals.  As  his  own  life  is  more 
inward,  it  is  the  rottenness  of  the  bones  that 
he  portrays.  It  is  the  monstrous  vanity  and 
meanness  that  instigate  the  actor,  not  the 
vicious  deed  that  he  perpetrates,  which  at- 
tract the  modern  censor.  It  is  pruriency 
that  he  scourges,  rather  than  profligacy. 
He  demands  a  reformation  from  the  heart 
outwards  ;  the  ceremonial  washing  of  gar- 
ments will  not  suffice.  Swift  is  morose,  but 
he  is  capable  of  tenderness.  His  "little 
language  "  is  the  language  of  the  affections. 
His  falcon  eyed,  jealous,  yet  playful  love 
for  Stella  is  kindred  with  Hamlet's  fierce, 
unutterable,  but  mocking  love  for  Ophelia. 
Both  adored  pure  womanhood  in  the  be- 
loved object,  and,  nevertheless,  or  rather  for 
this  reason,  both  were  insane  enough  to 
wreck  the  happiness  and  life  of  those  they 
should  have  protected.  Neither  could  rec- 
oncile his  knowledge  of  human  nature  with 


1885.] 


Fine  Art  in  Romantic  Literature. 


59 


his  faith  in  feminine  innocence  and  candor, 
and  both,  as  being  the  greatest  sufferers  by 
their  own  mistakes,  are  rather  to  be  pitied 
than  condemned.  More  humane  and  char- 
itable than  Swift,  Thackeray  has  not  been 
able  to  divest  himself  of  a  belief  in  man's 
capabilities  of  goodness.  The  concentrated 
gall  and  venom  of  Swift's  later  years  is  di- 
luted and  sweetened  before  it  flows  from 
Thackeray's  pen.  He  perceives  the  foibles 
and  baseness  of  human  nature,  but  does  not 
gloat  over  the  weakness  he  discloses.  He  an- 
atomizes with  an  unsparing  hand,  but  is  de- 
void of  Swift's  morbid  pleasure  in  the  evi- 
dences of  disease.  When  he  laughs,  it  is 
like  a  man  of  the  world,  and  not  like  a  luna- 
tic or  a  fiend.  Becky  Sharp  serves  as  a  foil 
to  Amelia;  Colonel  Newcome  would  still 
ennoble  the  name  of  gentleman,  were  he 
surrounded  by  twice  as  many  knaves  and 
worldlings.  But  in  his  perception  of  evil, 
keen  in  proportion  to  his  admiration  for  vir- 
tue and  moral  beauty,  Thackeray  must  be 
ranked  with  Swift,  and,  if  our  deductions  are 
correct,  with  Hamlet.  Herein,  too,  he  must 
be  classed  with  Aristophanes,  a  genius  born 
out  of  due  time,  but  yet  sufficiently  accounted 
for  by  the  quickened  spiritual  sense  which 
Socrates  awoke  in  his  contemporaries,  as 
Juvenal  is  explained  by  the  leaven  of  Chris- 
tianity in  the  later  Roman  civilization ;  and 
with  Cervantes,  whose  Don  Quixote  is  not 
more  earnest  and  chivalrous  than  his  Sancho 
Panza  is  lumpish  and  uncouth.  Since  we 
are  endeavoring  to  discover  the  character- 
istics of  Romantic  literature,  it  may  repay 
us  to  seek  in  Greek  and  Roman  antiquity  for 
a  parallel  to  Sancho  Panza.  Turn  over  the 
pages  of  the  Iliad,  and  search  among  the 
multitude  of  its  personages  for  the  buffoon, 
the  low,  underbred  individual  who  shall 
bring  out  in  relief  the  heroism  and  magna- 
nimity of  the  leaders.  You  find  but  one, 
Thersites,  and  he  is  quickly  dismissed  with 
an  admonition  and  a  beating.  In  the  Odys- 
sey no  such  incarnation  of  ignoble  or  currish 
propensities  is  to  be  found.  But  in  Dante's 
great  poem,  the  epic  of  medisevalism,  one 
circle  after  another  of  the  Inferno  is  filled 
with  unheroic  creatures,  or  with  the  loath- 


some opposites  of  all  that  the  great  Italian 
most  admired.  Of  the  least  obnoxious  mem- 
bers of  the  former  class  Dante  is  evidently 
loath  to  speak,  but  passes  judgment  on  them 
in  this  wise: 

"This  miserable  mode 
Maintain  the  melancholy  souls  of  those 
Who  lived  withouten  infamy  or  praise. 
Commingled  are  they  with  that  caitiff  choir 
Of  Angels,  who  have  not  rebellious  been, 
Nor  faithful  were  to  God ;  but  were  for  self. 
The  heavens  expelled  them,  not  to  be  less  fair; 
Nor  them  the  nethermore  abyss  receives  ; 
For  glory   none   the    damned    would   have   from 
them." 

If  such  be  his  estimate  of  this  merely  in- 
glorious troop,  the  malefactors  are  likely  to  be 
sorely  troubled,  and  so,  indeed,  they  are.  The 
significant  fact  is,  that  Dante  admits  them  to 
his  Inferno,  thus  bestowing  impartial  justice 
on  all  classes ;  and  that  the  everlasting  bless- 
edness of  Paradise  is  enhanced  by  contrast 
with  the  torments  of  the  damned.  Long- 
fellow has  compared  the  Divina  Commedia 
to  a  Gothic  cathedral,  and  as  the  former 
has  its  depraved  and  fiendish  creatures,  so 
the  latter  has  its  gargoyles  subdued  to  me- 
nial use,  and  its  grotesque  carvings  of  ape 
and  contorted  human  countenance  on  the 
folding  seats  of  the  cathedral  choir.  The 
eye  of  the  beholder,  endeavoring  to  compass 
the  manifold  and  bewildering  beauty  of  some 
exquisite  fa£ade,  wandering  from  carven 
angel  to  carven  saint,  is  suddenly  arrested  by 
the  hideous  mouth  and  spiny  or  scraggy  neck 
of  some  monster  of  deformity.  Or,  while 
his  ear  is  drinking  in  the  rich  and  plaintive 
harmonies  which,  slowly  detached  from  the 
organ,  go  floating  through  the  interior,  and 
the  sunlight,  poured  in  rose  and  amethyst 
through  the  painted  window,  envelopes  him 
in  garments  of  transfiguring  radiance,  he  be- 
comes aware  of  a  demon  grinning  at  him 
from  the  opposite  stall,  and  turning  all  his 
imaginations  of  heaven  into  gloomy  sugges- 
tions of  unending  wickedness  and  woe. 

But  these  contrasts  are  of  the  very  essence 
of  Romantic  literature.  The  Greek  dramas 
knew  nothing  of  them,  for  the  abyss  of  evil 
had  not  yet  opened  before  the  feet  of  dram- 
atist and  audience.  But  when  Shakespeare 


Pine  Art  in  Romantic  Literature. 


depicts  a  trustful  Othello,  he  places  over 
against  him  a  crafty  and  villainous  lago; 
Imogen  is  set  off  by  Cloten  and  lachimo, 
Cordelia  by  Goneril  and  Regan,  Ariel  by 
Caliban,  and,  on  the  other  hand,  Macbeth 
by  Duncan  and  Banquo.  The  representa- 
tive drama  of  the  nineteenth  century  does 
the  same.  Who  poisons  the  cup  of  life  for 
Marguerite  but  Faust,  and  who  stalks  at  the 
side  of  both,  irremovable  as  a  shadow,  but 
the  spirit  of  eternal  negation,  forever  derid- 
ing all  generous  ardor  and  neutralizing  all 
unselfish  activity  ?  Here  belong,  also,  the 
fools  of  Shakespeare's  plays,  though  it  would 
not  be  just  to  identify  them  with  the  vil- 
lains. They  are  rather,  like  Sancho  Panza, 
the  embodiment  of  shrewd  common  sense, 
which  is  not  ready  to  let  the  main  chance 
slip  for  the  mere  gratification  of  a  chivalrous 
impulse.  Measured  by  the  altitude  of  true 
royalty,  they  are  plebeian  and  despicable. 
Pitiable  as  Lear  may  be,  his  fool  is  more  pit- 
iable still,  as  the  First  and  Second  Common- 
ers of  Julius  Caesar  are  paltry  when  compar- 
ed with  the  dead  and  discrowned  Imperator. 
Whatever  may  be  urged  against  them  as 
sentient  and  responsible  beings,  the  drama 
of  Shakespeare  would  be  singularly  complete 
if  the  villain  and  jester  were  omitted.  Both 
set  at  naught  the  sacredness  of  life;  the  one 
by  plotting  to  destroy  it,  the  other  by  making 
it  a  subject  of  ridicule.  Curiously  enough, 
however,  the  sense  of  sacredness  is  enhanced 
by  the  very  agencies  which  are  at  work  to 
nullify  it.  Duncan  appears  most  reverend 
and  amiable  at  the  moment  when  Macbeth 
is  clutching  at  the  airy  dagger,  and  the  sor- 
rows of  aged  Lear,  the  elemental  passion  of 
a  grand  but  shattered  nature,  appeal  most 
forcibly  to  the  imagination  when  the  fool  is 
taunting  him  with  odds  and  ends  of  ballads 
and  old  songs.  The  tragic  constituent  of 
the  drama  is  thus  heightened  by  the  comic, 
while  the  latter  is  left  partially  free  to  divert 
the  mind,  and  prevent  it  from  being  over- 
whelmed by  pity  and  terror.  Thus  the 
comic  element  comes  to  have  an  independent 
value,  though  a  value  which  depends  upon 
antithesis.  The  gambolings  of  a  knot  of 
harlequins  would  strike  the  mind  as  puerile 


after  listening  to  Touchstone  and  Launcelot, 
and  even  Touchstone  and  Launcelot,  if  as- 
sociated in  broad  farce  with  their  brethren  of 
the  bauble,  would  lose  half  their  piquancy. 
The  sense  of  incongruity,  which  it  is  the 
province  of  the  fool  to  excite,  is  at  the  foun- 
dation of  humor.  The  English  race,  pro- 
verbial for  its  seriousness,  almost  possesses  a 
monopoly  of  humor.  Foreigners  note  the 
intense  and  joyless  expression  of  the  Ameri- 
can countenance,  but  American  humor  is  the 
most  extravagant  of  all.  This  can  only  be 
accounted  for  on  the  principle  of  antithesis. 
Given  the  natural  and  straightforward  man- 
ner of  looking  at  a  thing,  humor  consists  in 
shifting  the  point  of  view,  so  that  the  object  is 
seen  at  an  unexpected  angle,  and  assumes  a 
ludicrous  aspect.  The  greater  the  surprise, 
the  more  humorous  is  the  effect,  and  the 
surprise  is  proportioned  to  the  tenacity  with 
which  the  ordinary  mind  clings  to  the  mat- 
ter-of-fact view.  The  sight  of  a  familiar  face 
in  a  convex  or  concave  mirror  is  apt  to  cause 
laughter,  and  the  power  of  humor  may  be  sim- 
ilarly accounted  for.  Humor  is  thus  associat- 
ed with  gravity,  and  often  with  pathos.  It  is 
a  gleam  of  light  over  the  surface  of  gloomy 
and  troubled  waters.  While  one  side  of  a 
billow  is  illuminated,  the  other  is  cast  into 
the  deeper  shade,  and,  no  longer  of  a  neu- 
tral tint,  the  whole  surging  mass  is  divided 
between  two  extremes.  It  depends  upon 
circumstances  which  is  to  gain  the  ascend- 
ency. If  the  humor  is  genuine,  the  smile 
may  at  any  moment  give  place  to  tears, 
and  the  gurgle  of  quiet  laughter  be  choked 
in  a  sob.  Dickens  alternates  between  the 
pathetic  and  the  humorous,  but  has  less 
skill  in  blending  the  two.  To  only  a  few 
writers  of  rare  delicacy  is  it  vouchsafed 
to  intermingle  the  facetious  and  the  touch- 
ing with  so  dexterous  a  hand  that  the  read- 
er is  impelled  to  continue  from  one  page 
to  the  next  for  the  -sake  of  the  amuse- 
ment afforded  him,  and  only  at  the  end  of 
certain  paragraphs  becomes  aware  that  his 
gayety  is  ending  in  a  sigh.  The  emotion  ex- 
cited by  such  productions  will  not  be  poig- 
nant. It  will  depart  as  lightly  as  it  came, 
but  not  without  communicating  the  sympa- 


1885.] 


Fine  Art  in  Romantic  Literature. 


61 


thetic  kindliness  of  the  author  to  the  reader 
whose  leisure  he  has  been  beguiling.  Where 
shall  one  seek  among  the  ancients  for  the 
humor  of  Holmes  and  Lamb?  Who  will 
bring  to  light  a  Greek  "  Autocrat  of  the 
Breakfast  Table,"  or  the  Latin  "  Essays  of 
Elia  "  ? 

Through  the  whole  mediaeval  period  there 
is,  as  we  have  seen,  a  continuous  growth  of 
personality.  Man  becomes  aware  of  himself, 
and  retreats  to  the  forest  and  sandy  plain  to 
feed  his  soul  with  contemplation.  He  closes 
his  eyes  upon  worldly  distractions,  and  purges 
himself  from  the  grossness  of  the  flesh.  Cleav- 
ing to  unseen  realities,  the  patterns  of  visi- 
ble objects,  he  discerns  the  archetype  of 
pure  beauty,  and  it  becomes  fateful  to  him. 
With  headlong  haste  he  pursues  the  fleeting 
shape,  and  when  he  is  just  upon  it,  perceives 
that  it  has  eluded  his  grasp.  Falling  into 
reverie  upon  the  vanity  of  all  his  endeavors, 
he  moralizes  over  human  destiny  and  his 
own  shortcomings,  until  he  is  plunged  into 
a  gulf  of  despair.  Thence  emerging,  he 
falls  to  criticizing  the  associates  among  whom 
his  lot  is  cast,  and  becomes  a  satirist  through 
his  perception  of  moral  ugliness.  Evil  in- 
corporates itself  in  grotesque  and  frightful 
forms,  crouches  by  his  pathway,  obtrudes  it- 
self in  the  very  temple  hallowed  to  pure  and 
lofty  meditations,  and  appears  engaged  in 
deadly  and  ever-renewed  combat  with  good. 
This  combat  becomes  the  only  serious  thing 
in  the  whole  circle  of  his  observation.  Up- 
on a  vast  theatre  these  antagonists,  in  Pro- 
tean disguises,  with  names  as  various  as 
their  masks,  play  in  succession  all  the  parts 
in  an  interminable  repertory.  But  evil  is 
active  or  passive ;  it  is  either  malevolent  or 
neutral;  it  is  Richard  the  Third  or  Panda- 
rus ;  in  Mephistopheles  it  is  both.  The  im- 
mense stage,  upon  which  all  men  and  women 
are  merely  players,  contracts  to  the  Globe 
Theatre  on  Thames-side,  but  still  the  drama 
is  unchanged.  The  woof  of  comedy  is  shot 
athwart  the  web  of  tragedy.  There  is  a 
strange  intertexture  of  golden  and  sable 
threads.  Every  one  runs  to  view  it,  because 
he  recognizes  in  it  precisely  what  exists  in 
himself.  Change  the  dramatic  form  to  that 


of  genial  commentary,  but  retain  the  comic 
and  tragic  elements,  and  you  have  the  most 
precious  form  of  humor,  namely,  that  which 
is  so  subtly  blended  with  the  substance  of  pa- 
thos as  to  be  inseparable  from  it. 

Thus  far  it  is  man  himself  who,  irresisti- 
bly attracted  toward  what  he  conceives  to 
be  the  highest  good,  but  incessantly  assailed 
by  temptation  and  discouragements,  looks 
vainly  about  him  for  a  perfect  deliverance. 
But  presently,  to  his  heated  imagination,  the 
whole  universe  is  filled  with  spiritual  intelli- 
gences, who  impress  into  their  service,  on 
one  side  or  the  other,  all  the  inferior  crea- 
tures and  all  the  phenomena  and  forces  of 
nature.  Thus  the  whole  series  of  created 
existences  becomes  a  group  of  symbols.  Ev- 
erything stands  for  something  else.  Every 
hard  fact  is  transformed  into  a  potent  alge- 
braic formula.  Gain  its  secret,  and  you  have 
conferred  upon  yourself  a  magical  power. 
As  in  the  German  fairy  tale,  if  you  have  eyes 
to  pierce  through  the  solid  crust  beneath 
your  feet,  the  interior  of  the  globe  will  grow 
transparent  as  crystal,  and  the  gnomes  will 
ascend  as  through  an  unresisting  medium, 
bearing  with  them  the  gold  and  jewels  from 
the  central  mines.  Hearing  may  be  sharp- 
ened until  it  takes  cognizance  of  the  grow- 
ing of  the  grass,  and  the  understanding  un- 
til it  can  interpret  the  song  of  birds.  Thus 
allegory  is  born,  and  with  it,  though  the  two 
must  not  be  confounded,  a  belief  in  magic 
or  necromancy.  In  the  Roman  catacombs 
the  lamb  and  the  fish  are  employed  as  a 
kind  of  shorthand,  to  denote  the  person  and 
attributes  of  Christ.  In  the  Old  English  lit- 
erature we  come  upon  two  poems,  "The 
Panther  "  and  "  The  Whale,"  which,  after 
describing  the  supposed  peculiarities  of  the 
two  animals,  end  by  regarding  them  as  types, 
the  one  of  Christ  and  the  other  of  the  Arch- 
Fiend.  Dante's  Epic  is  one  long  allegory. 
The  forest  in  which  the  poet  walks  is  a  sym- 
bol :  the  panther  signifies  worldly  pleasure  ; 
the  lion,  ambition  ;  and  the  she-wolf  ava- 
rice ;  or,  again,  they  stand  respectively  for 
Florence,  the  French  Monarchy,  and  Rome. 
Virgil  is  a  symbol  :  Rachel  and  Leah  are 
symbols;  Beatrice  stands  for  Divine  Wis- 


62 


Fine  Ar?  in  Romantic  Literature. 


dom.  It  is  needless  to  dwell  upon  such  fa- 
miliar examples  as  the  Faerie  Queene  and 
Pilgrim's  Progress,  but  contemporary  poems 
like  Rossetti's  "Card  Dealer,"  are  more  like- 
ly to  be  overlooked  : 

"  What  be  her  cards,  you  ask  ?  Even  these  : — 
The  heart,  that  doth  but  crave 
More,  being  fed  ;  the  diamond, 
Skilled  to  make  base  seem  brave  ; 
The  club,  for  smiting  in  the  dark. 
The  spade,  to  dig  a  grave. 

Thou  see'st  the  card  that  falls, — she  knows 

The  card  that  followeth  ; 

Her  game  in  thy  tongue  is  called  Life, 

As  ebbs  thy  daily  breath  ; 

When  she  shall  speak  thou'lt  learn  her  tongue 

And  know  she  calls  it  Death." 

The  artist,  being  thus  accustomed  to  play 
with  the  great  and  the  petty,  and  to  assem- 
ble the  most  incongruous  images  in  illustra- 
tion of  some  simple,  majestic  thought,  ren- 
ders himself  liable  to  the  reproach  of  extrav- 
agance and  absurdity.  The  Faerie  Queene  is 
a  phantasmagoria  ;  a  series  of  pictures  moves 
onward  as  in  a  revolving  wheel,  or  like  the 
banks  of  a  river  when  one  is  descending  a 
rapid  stream.  One  scene  fades  out  and  is 
borne  on  into  the  distant  perspective  as  an- 
other assumes  vividness  and  life ;  yet  it  is 
possible,  by  an  effort  of  the  will,  to  include 
both  shores,  and  a  long  stretch  of  castled, 
vine-clad,  and  mountain-guarded  country  in 
a  single  glance.  Not  only  is  there  variety  of 
form,  but  variety  of  color  as  well.  The  art- 
ist is  not  a  painter  in  monochrome,  gray  on 
gray.  Spenser  delights  in  brilliant  hues  as 
heartily  as  Titian,  or  any  of  the  Venetian 
school.  Besides,  he  commits  anachronisms. 
To  him  all  the  past  is  present.  Space  and 
time  are  annihilated.  The  ancient  world  is 
one  with  that  of  the  Middle  Ages  and  the 
Renaissance.  If  you  sympathize  with  the 
poet,  and  adopt  his  verities  as  your  own,  all 
will  seem  concordant,  requiring  no  justifica- 
tion nor  apology.  If  you  regard  the  details 
of  his  scheme,  and  do  not  share  in  his  fine 
frenzy,  you  will  be  likely  to  stigmatize  the 
composition  as  Gothic  and  barbarous.  Up- 
on the  former  hypothesis  the  distinction  be- 
tween Fancy  and  Imagination,  so  much  in- 
sisted on,  will  be  obliterated.  Nothing  will 


be  censured  as  wild  or  extravagant  which 
approves  itself  to  be  true. 

IV. 

DURING  the  last  quarter  of  the  eighteenth 
century  and  the  first  quarter  of  the  nineteenth 
century  there  was  a  revival  of  Romanticism. 
Shallow  philosophy  and  formal  poetry  were 
no  longer  adequate  to  those  who  felt  the 
pulse  of  a  new  and  fuller  life  beating  within 
them.  The  more  advanced  of  the  new  gen- 
eration broke  with  tradition,  and  eagerly 
sought  release  from  the  stifling  dungeon  in 
which  they  and  their  fathers  had  been  con- 
fined. In  this  attempt  they  were  successful. 
The  rusty  bars  gave  way,  the  ancient  moat 
was  dry,  the  outer  fortifications  were  falling 
into  decay.  But  those  who  had  thus  emerged 
from  the  house  of  bondage  knew  not  at  first 
what  they  should  do  with  their  dear-bought 
and  highly-prized  freedom.  Many,  overcome 
with  joy,  laughed  and  wept  alternately,  or 
fell  into  paroxysms  of  hysterical  weeping  and 
refused  to  be  comforted.  These  have  been 
already  described  ;  they  include  Sterne  and 
Rousseau,  and  all  the  sentimental  race  that 
followed.  Others,  climbing  the  nearest  hill, 
and  surveying  the  landscape  in  all  direc- 
tions, looked  pityingly  down  on  their  late 
companions  and  the  plain  whence  they  them- 
selves had  but  just  departed,  declaring  that 
they  had  seen  it  all,  and  that  henceforth 
there  was  nothing  worth  living  for.  They 
had  been  cheated  by  the  dreams  of  their 
prison  cell.  Now  they  were  disillusioned 
they  would  neither  return  to  their  pallet  of 
straw,  nor  would  they  strike  out  for  any  goal 
whatever.  They  would  remain  upon  the  hill, 
or  circle  slowly  round  about  it.  From  their 
post  of  observation  they  had  descried  all 
that  lay  in  the  distance,  and  proclaimed  that 
ifr  was  in  no  respect  better  than  what  they 
had  just  quitted.  Of  this  company  Byron 
may  be  taken  as  the  type. 

Still  others,  ascending  the  same  hill  but 
half-way,  looked  beyond  and  over  the  for- 
tress where  they  had  been  immured,  and 
perceived  a  smiling  landscape,  dotted  with 
craggy  steeps,  which  were  crowned  with  bat- 


1885.] 


Fine  Art  in  Romantic  Literature. 


63 


demented  towers.     Knights  and  ladies  were 
descending   through    portcullis   gates    and 
down  winding  bridle  paths  to  the  plain  be- 
low.    There  the  gay  greensward  was  gayer 
still  with  pavilions  and  standards.     The  lists 
were  set,  horses  pranced  and  caracoled,  and 
the  faint  sound  of  the  herald's  trumpet,  as 
he  blew  the  signal  for  the  onset,  was  borne 
through  the  expectant  air.     In  another  place, 
a  train  of  black-robed  monks  was  advancing 
slowly  toward  a  distant  monastery,  an  abbot 
leading  the  way,   with  the  cross  glittering 
above  his  head  and  pointing  out  the  direc- 
tion which   his    followers  should  take  ;  the 
tones  of  the  monastery  bell,  pealing  out  the 
summons  to  evening  prayer,  blent  harmoni- 
ously with  the  subdued  clangor  of  the  trum- 
pet.    In  other  words,  this  band  of  liberated 
prisoners,  not    yet  having  gained  a  height 
whence  they  could  overlook  the  future,  be- 
held only  the  past — the  Middle  Ages,  peo- 
pled with  clerics  and  cavaliers,  and  with  such 
picturesque  members  of  the  Third  Estate  as 
Robin    Hood  and  Maid  Marian.     If  they 
saw  a  darker  side  to  this  joyous  pageantry, 
it  was  only  as  Monk  Lewis   and   Mrs.  Rad- 
cliffe  saw  their  spectres  and  ogres,  without 
half  believing   in   their   existence.      These 
poets  of  the  romantic  past  can  be  named : 
they  are  such  as  the  Germans  Uhland,  Bur- 
ger, Goethe,  Tieck,  Schiller:  they  are  the 
Frenchmen  Chateaubriand  and  Victor   Hu- 
go ;  and  their  leader  in  England  is  Sir  Wal- 
ter Scott.     This  curiosity  regarding  the  Mid- 
dle Ages  resulted  in  a  deeper  study  of  his- 
tory.    Documents  were  brought  to  light  and 
critically   examined.     Old  poems,  like   the 
Nibelungen  Lied,  the  Canterbury  Tales,  the 
Chanson   de    Roland,  and   the    Cid,    were 
published,    commented   upon,  and  perused 
with  avidity.    Antiquarian  zeal  became  fash- 
ionable.    The  historic  method,  the  study  of 
origins,  requiring  a  minute  inspection  of  ev- 
ery 'fact  and  event,  in  itself,  and  with  refer- 
ence to  all  the  circumstances  of  its  occur- 
rence,  now  took  precedence  of  any  other. 
Criticism  became  more  exact,  but    without 
damping  the  ardor  of  the  more  impassioned 
votaries  of  learning.     Of  this  era  the  Idyls 
of  the  King  are  the    poetic   product,  and 


such  histories  as  Freeman's  "  Norman  Con- 
quest," Carlyle's  "French  Revolution,"  and 
Michelet's  "  History  of  France,"  are  the 
scholarly  product. 

The  first  effort  of  a  certain  few  among 
the  emancipated  was  to  make  sure  of  their 
own  identity  and  their  own  freedom.    Weary 
of  their  shackles,  yet  seeing  multitudes  who 
accepted  them   without  a  protest ;    discon- 
tented with  their  companions,   whom  they 
saw  scattering  in  different  directions;  more 
than  half  dissatisfied  with  themselves,  since 
they  found  themselves  intoxicated  with  the 
breath  of  heaven,  and  invested  with  a  new 
accession  of  strength,  yet  possessed  neither 
of  the  ability  to  liberate  others,  nor  to  direct 
their  own  course  toward  any  definite  end, 
they  turned  to  the  plashing  streamlet  and 
the    shady  covert   for    solace  and   refresh- 
ment  of    the    body,   and    to    the   Alpine 
throne  of  liberty  and  the  unfettered  clouds 
for  the  courage  and   unceasing   inspiration 
needed  by  the  spirit.     With  a  renewed  and 
deepened   consciousness  of  personality,  of 
the  existence  and  worth  of  the  soul,  con- 
cealed, yet  manifested,  in  the  organism  of 
their   own  frames,  they  went  farther   than 
the  allegorists,  and  assigned  a  soul  to  every 
organism.     Nature   thus   became   endowed 
with  life ;  not  the  blind  and  creeping  life  of 
sap  or   molluscan    lymph,  but   a   vitalizing 
principle.       Self  determination    and    moral 
qualities  are  attributed  to  plant  and  animal. 
Fouqu^'s  delicious  prose  idyl  of  Undine  is 
the   story  of  a  Naiad,  who,  by    means    of 
her  love  for  a  young  knight,  is  enabled  to 
acquire  a  human  soul.     But  it  was  not  one 
Undine  alone  who  was  thus  distinguished. 
Every  rill  and  waterfall,   every  flower  and 
blade  of  grass,  every  mountain  and  beetling 
cliff,  was  conceived  of  as  instinct  with  Divin- 
ity.    Wordsworth's  Skylark  and  Linnet  are 
not  mere  singing-birds.     The  former  has 

"A  soul  as  strong  as  a  mountain  river 
Pouring  out  praise  to  the  Almighty  Giver." 

The  latter  is  addressed  as 

"A  Life,     A  Presence  like  the  Air, 
Scattering  thy  gladness  without  care, 
Too  blest  with  any  one  to  pair  ; 
Thyself  thy  own  enjoyment." 


Fine  Art  in  Romantic  Literature,. 


And  what  reader,  without  looking  at  the 
superscription,  would  conclude  that  the  fol- 
lowing stanza  was  addressed  to  a  daisy  ? 
4<  Thou  wander'st  the  wide  world  about, 
Uncheck'd  by  pride  or  scrupulous  doubt, 
With  friends  to  greet  thee,  or  without, 

Yet  pleased  and  willing  ; 
Meek,  yielding  to  the  occasion's  call, 
And  all  things  suffering  from  all, 
Thy  function  apostolical 

In  peace  fulfilling." 

The  pantheism,  propounded  as  a  philo- 
sophical system  by  Spinoza,  begins  to  appear 
in  fine  art  with  Rousseau,  and  reaches  its 
literary  consummation  in  Wordsworth  and 
Shelley. 

Those  who  attribute  intelligence  and  sen- 
sibility to  natural  objects  may  be  divided  in- 
to two  classes,  according  as  they  transfer  to 
these  objects  the  passing  emotion  with  which 
they  themselves  are  affected,  or  endeavor  to 
ascertain  what  is  the  real  or  typical  nature 
of  each  created  thing.  Whenever  the  feel- 
ings of  the  poetizing  individual  are  attributed 
to  insentient  objects  or  to  the  lower  animals, 
we  have  an  instance  of  what  Ruskin  calls 
the  "  pathetic  fallacy."  Whenever  an  at- 
tempt is  made  to  express  the  specific  qual- 
ity of  any  object  or  existence  inferior 
to  man  in  terms  of  human  emotion  or 
activity,  we  are  simply  idealizing  in  a  man- 
ner which  is  inseparable  from  our  notions 
of  high  art.  The  two  modes  of  poetizing 
are  perfectly  distinguishable  in  theory, 
though  they  may  be  confounded  in  prac- 
tice ;  as  where  one,  in  determining  the  spe- 
cific quality  of  a  flower,  for  example,  permits 
himself  to  be  influenced  by  the  mode  of 
feeling  which  is  uppermost  at  the  time. 
The  u  pathetic  fallacy "  is  more  common 
in  passionate,  the  idealization  of  specific 
quality  in  reflective  poetry.  Wordsworth  is 
a  master  of  both,  but  particularly  excels  in 
the  second.  The  latter  method  is  closely 
akin  to  that  of  science.  Goethe's  discovery 
that  each  of  the  various  organs  of  the  flower 
is  modeled  upon  the  structure  of  the  leaf  is 
an  example  to  the  purpose,  and  the  union  of 
the  poetic  and  scientific  natures  in  an  ob- 
server like  Alexander  von  Humboldt  will 
illustrate  the  same  truth.  In  fact,  poetry 


precedes  and  accompanies  science,  as  we 
have  already  remarked  that  it  precedes  and 
accompanies  history. 

To  return  again  to  our  point  of  departure, 
the  ego  or  personality  of  the  individual.    Com- 
fortably housed  and  safely  defended  in  the 
eighteenth  century,  it  often  found  itself  home- 
less and  shivering  after  the  French  Revolu- 
tion.    Protected  even  against  the  assaults  of 
others'  self-love  by  the  politeness  of  which 
Chesterfield  is  so  famous  an  exponent,  it  was 
suddenly  stripped  of  every  adventitious  cov- 
ering and  ornament,  and  obliged  to  change 
conditions  with  the  meanest  wretches.     The 
footing  upon  which  it  had  stood  disappeared. 
The  aristocrat  began  to  question  concerning 
himself,  his  inalienable  rights,  and  his  duties, 
at  the  moment  when  the  man   of  the  peo- 
ple had  completed  a  theory,  not  only  of  the 
aristocrat's  rights,  but  of  his  own.     Hence- 
forth the  only  patent  of  prerogative  was  man- 
hood.    In  the  simple  citizen  of  the  new  era 
all  ranks  were  confounded.     Man  had  grown 
self  conscious  and  reflective;  he  was  now  to 
be  analytic.     The  age  of  science  and  exact 
scholarship  was   at  hand,  but   science  and 
exact  scholarship  are  evoked  only  at  the  bid- 
ding of  the  imperious   human   spirit  which 
requires  their  ministrations.     Science  which 
investigates  the  powers  and  functions  of  the 
human  soul  is  psychology.     Science  which 
aims  to  discover  the  essence  and  necessary 
basis  of  all  being  is  ontology.    Spinoza's  pan- 
theism, for   example,  is  ontological.     Both 
were  to  be  cultivated  in  this  epoch,  and  both 
were  to  manifest  themselves  in  fiction  and 
poetry. 

The  French  exponent  of  psychology  in 
fiction  is  Balzac;  the  English,  George  Eliot ; 
the  American,  Hawthorne.  In  poetic  psy- 
chology, Dante  and  Petrarch  are  the  illus- 
trious progenitors  of  the  modern  school. 
All  true  poetry  is  fundamentally  psychologic, 
but  the  word,  as  here  used,  refers  to  an  ab- 
normal development  of  self-consciousness, 
which  therefore  becomes  in  the  highest  de- 
gree observant  and  critical  of  its  own  states 
and  processes.  No  modern  poet  is  more 
psychologic  in  this  sense  than  Robert  Brown- 
ing, and  the  knowledge  gained  by  self-intro- 


1885.] 


Fine  Art  in  Romantic  Literature. 


65 


spection  makes  him  the  shrewdest  diviner  of 
other  men's  thoughts  and  motives.  But  in 
him  the  spirit  has  sublimed  away  the  artistic 
form,  so  that  his  poetry  is  not  ordinarily  sens- 
uous enough  to  be  dramatic,  nor  sometimes 
to  be  truly  lyrical. 

The  poet  of  ontology  is  Emerson.  From 
this  point  of  view,  his  "  Brahma"  is  peculiarly 
significant,  as  marking  the  point  of  junction 
between  Occidental  and  Oriental  philosophy. 
As  California  is  the  border,  and  its  shore  the 
barrier,  where  the  Aryan  race  makes  pause 
before  precipitating  itself  into  the  bosom  of 
the  Orient  whence  it  sprang,  so  Concord  is 
the  halting-place  where  Western  thought,  in 
its  final  outcome  and  supreme  result,  reflects 
for, an  instant  longer,  and  finally  is  merged 
into  the  transcendentalism  of  the  East. 
Goethe  and  Riickert  having  established  the 
precedent  of  composing  poems  in  the  Ori- 
ental manner,  Emerson  and  Browning  have 
thought  fit  to  follow.  Here  again  scholar- 
ship goes  hand  in  hand  with  poetry.  The 
study  of  the  Sanskrit  language  and  antiqui- 
ties has  kept  pace  with  the  growing  predilec- 
tion for  Orientalism  in  poetry  and  in  decora- 
tive art.  Edwin  Arnold  is  not  a  pioneer, 
nor  even  one  of  the  advanced  guard;  he  is 
only  well  up  with  the  main  army.  The 
translators  of  Saadi  and  Omar  Khayyam  are 
"sometimes  anticipated  even  by  the  bard  of 
Lalla  Rookh. 

One  practical  lesson  has  been  taught  by 
Emerson,  or  rather  clearly  formulated  by 
him — -the  lesson  of  self-reliance.  The  French 
Revolution,  like  the  Protestant  Reformation, 
was  a  revolt  of  the  individual  against  society, 
that  is,  against  law  and  custom,  which,  framed 
in  the  interest  of  the  few,  had  grown  unen- 
durable to  the  many.  The  audacity  dis- 
played at  these  periods,  by  Mirabeau  in  the 
French  Tribune,  as  by  Luther  at  the  Diet  of 
Worms,  can  only  be  paralleled  by  that  of 
Paul  on  Mars'  Hill.  The  energy  and  self-  re- 
liance of  the  orator  and  reformer  react  upon 
pure  literature.  Victor  Hugo  rebels  against 
pseudo-classicism  in  France,  as  Wordsworth 
and  Keats  do  in  England.  As  the  trouba- 
dours were  both  poets  and  warriors,  as  Milton 
was  statesman  and  polemic  no  less  than  a  de- 
VOL.  VI.— 5. 


votee  of  the  Muses,  so  these  new  singers  grasp 
the  sword  with  one  hand,  and  wield  the  pen 
with  the  other.  What  Bertrand  de  Born  was 
to  the  Provence  of  Richard  the  First's  day, 
Korner  was  to  the  Germany  that  had  known 
Napoleon.  The  sentimentalism  which  had 
been  despised  as  mere  weakness,  bore  fruit 
in  the  downfall  of  monarchies  which  had  out- 
lived their  usefulness.  Poetry  was  becom- 
ing identical  with  the  truest  and  noblest  life. 
One  indication  of  this  movement  is  the 
change  which  takes  place  in  the  poetic  con- 
ception of  the  Golden  Age.  The  poets' 
of  Greece  and  Rome  have  already  left  it 
far  behind  them.  Quite  otherwise  with  us 
who 

"  Doubt  not  through  the  ages  one  increasing  pur- 
pose runs, 

And  the  thoughts  of  men  are  widened  with  the  pro- 
cess of  the  suns  "; 

and  who  perceive 

"  One  God,  one  law,  one  element, 

And  one  far-off  divine  event, 
To  which  the  whole  creation  moves." 

With  the  Golden  Year  in  the  future,  the 
poets — and  every  writer  is  now  a  poet,  a 
creator  or  maker — set  resolutely  about  bring- 
ing it  near.  Tennyson  cries  out — 

"  But  well  I  know, 

That  unto  him  who  works,  and  feels  he  works, 
This  same  grand  year  is  ever  at  the  doors." 

The  poets  are  revolutionary  as  long  as 
revolutions  tend  to  elevate  humanity.  Shelley 
defies  authority  in  the  name  of  Man,  for 
whose  sake  all  authority  is  constituted.  He 
would  set  no  bounds  to  the  personality  which 
has  wrought  these  stupendous  changes.  Byron 
abandons  poetry  as  craftsmanship,  and  lays 
his  reputation,  his  fortune,  and  his  life  on  the 
altar  of  Grecian  independence.  But  revolu- 
tions accomplish  their  task,  and  are  succeed- 
ed by  reforms.  Southey  and  Coleridge  form 
extensive  plans  for  a  pantisocracy,  or  com- 
munity where  all  men  shall  be  absolutely 
equal,  and  which  is  to  be  situated  in  Penn- 
sylvania. Thus  they  anticipate  the  idea  of 
Brook  Farm,  whose  citizens  were  also  to  be 
literary  people,  and  to  exist  in  a  state  of 
perfect  equality.  Shelley  will  know  nothing 
but 


66 


An  Impossible   Coincidence. 


"  A  life  of  resolute  good, 
Unalterable  will,  quenchless  desire 
Of  universal  happiness,  the  heart 
That  beats  with  it  in  unison,  the  brain 
Whose  ever-wakeful  wisdom  toils  to  change 
Reason's  rich  stores  for  its  eternal  weal." 

Wordsworth  advocates 

"A  more  judicious  knowledge  of  the  worth 
And  dignity  of  individual  man  ; 
No  composition  of  the  brain,  but  man 
Of  whom  we  read,  the  man  whom  we  behold 
With  our  own  eyes.     I  could  not  but  inquire 
Not  with  less  interest  than  heretofore, 
But  greater,  though  in  spirit  more  subdued — 
Why  is  this  glorious  creature  to  be  found 
One  only  in  ten  thousand  ?     What  one  is 
Why  may  not  millions  be  ?  " 

The  watchword  is  repeated  by  others. 
Lowell,  Whittier,  and  Longfellow  chant  the 
fetters  off  the  slave.  Madame  De  Stael  rises 
up  as  the  protagonist  of  womanhood.  Her 
Corinne  is  the  genius  who,  beneath  Italian 
skies,  dares  to  assert  that  woman  is  not  a 
mere  appendage  of  man,  and  to  claim  for  her- 
self co-equal  sovereignty  in  her  own  sphere. 
George  Sand,  Charlotte  Bronte,  and  George 
Eliot,  with  the  female  novelists  of  the  eight- 
eenth century,  make  a  place  for  woman  in 
fiction.  Mrs.  Browning  writes  "  The  Cry  of 


the  Children,"  "Aurora  Leigh,"  and  "Moth- 
er and  Poet,"  and  after  her  death  receives 
from  her  poet-husband  a  tribute  of  invocation, 
such  as  is  due  to  none  but  an  immortal 
muse : 

"  Never  may  I  commence  my  song,  my  due 
To  God  who  best  taught  song  by  gift  of  thee, 
Except  with  bent  head  and  beseeching  hand — 
That  still,  despite  the  distance  and  the  dark, 
What  was,  again  may  be  ;  some  interchange 
Of  grace,  some  splendor  once  thy  very  thought, 
Some  benediction  anciently  thy  smile." 

In  the  name  of  humanity,  Charles  Dick- 
ens espouses  the  cause  of  the  poor,  the  out- 
cast and  forlorn,  and  preaches  against  invet- 
erate abuses  in  sermons  that  are  never  dull. 
Reade  and  Kingsley  are  fellow-laborers  in  the 
same  cause — the  elevation  of  the  suffering 
and  oppressed.  Literature — all  the  best  of 
it — becomes  humanitarian  and  practical,  but 
without  ceasing  to  be  idealistic  and,  in  the 
profoundest  sense,  Romantic.  What  was 
hitherto  thought  trivial  and  mean  is  irradi- 
ated and  lifted  out  of  the  region  of  the  com- 
monplace, until  we  realize  the  meaning  of  the 
voice  that  spake  to  the  Prince  of  Apostles : 

"  What  God  hath  cleansed,  that  call  not 
thou  common." 

Alberts.  Cook. 


AN    IMPOSSIBLE   COINCIDENCE. 


Everett  Boscawen,  of  Boston,  writes  from 
Thompson's  Ranch,  California,  to  his  cous- 
in and  intimate  friend,  Boscawen  Everett, 
also  of  Boston. 

August  12,  1882. 
MY  DEAR  FELLOW  : 

I  have  not  written  before,  because  I  did 
not  feel  sure  that  you  would  be  on  this  side, 
and  did  not  wish  my  letter  to  pass  you  on  the 
Atlantic,  and  follow  you  back  from  London, 
to  be  read  when  as  stale  as  a  campaign 
prophecy  after  election.  I  have  a  great  ob- 
jection to  having  my  letters  read  when  stale  ; 
a  man  appears  with  a  certain  absurdity  in  an 
old  letter,  as  in  an  old  photograph. 

"  Back  in  the  land  of  one-century-old  an- 


tiquities and  three-generations-old  aristoc- 
racy," you  say.  My  dear  fellow,  think  where 
/am.  Our  newness  and  rawness  is  mellow 
antiquity  to  the  place  I  now  inhabit.  As 
America  to  Europe,  so  California  to — Amer- 
ica, I  was  about  to  say,  as  though  our  Atlan- 
tic strip  constituted  America  ;  and,  indeed,  it 
does  as  we  know  America.  It  is  curious  to 
realize  how  unconscious  we  have  always  re- 
mained of  what  is  really  the  chief  bulk  of 
America,  our  America  being  a  mere  little 
edge  in  front  of  this  enormous  expanse. 
There  is  positively  something  vulgar  in  its 
unwieldy  breadth — stretching  away  and  away 
interminably,  an  endless  waste  of  factory  and 
railroad  and  pork-packing  and  cattle-raising, 


1885.] 


An  Impossible  Coincidence. 


67 


without  a  flash  of  real  life  to  have  so  much 
as  made  us  realize  its  existence  :  as  if  our 
ideal  of  Columbia  were  like  the  traditional 
one  of  a  Kaffir  belle — the  fatter  the  more 
beautiful.  We  ought  to  embody  the  national 
ideal  on  the  dollars. 

Don't  imagine  that  I  have  escaped  the  land 
of  the  Philistine  by  crossing  to  salt  water 
again,  nor  picture  me  in  any  California  con- 
ceived from  Bret  Harte.  That  either  was 
only  a  book  California,  or  has  passed  away. 
No  picturesque  miners  and  unconventional 
stage-drivers,  no  frankly  barbarian  Pikes,  are 
here;  only  the  familiar  old  type  of  American 
bourgeois,  somewhat  the  worse  from  reigning 
here  supreme,  unchecked  by  the  presence  of 
any  non-Philistine  class. 

I  wish  my  doctor  could  have  seen  fit  to 
let  me  take  my  lungs  to  Italy  or  Southern 
France.  If  he  had  ordered  me  among  real 
savages,  I  should  have  liked  it  better  than 
this  :  the  savage  is  no  more  objectionable 
than  any  other  lower  animal ;  but  the  man — 
and  worse,  the  woman — of  the  dead  middle 
level —  !  I  was  foolish  enough  to  present 
one  or  two  of  my  letters  in  San  Francisco. 
I  was  hospitably  received  (not  so  effusively 
as  I  have  seen  Englishmen  received  among 
us,  though  I  should  think  a  Bostonian  in 
California  was  much  the  same  thing  as  an 
Englishman  in  Boston),  and  introduced  to 
certain  aristocratic  circles,  where  I  saw  a 
good  deal  of  rude  luxury,  and  met  on  equal 
terms  whom  but  old  Nancy  Rutt's  son 
Dick  (do  you  remember  old  Nancy,  who 
used  to  be  so  intimate  with  our  cook  ?) — 
the  Honorable  Richard  Rutt,  if  you  please. 
His  grammar  was  unchanged,  however. 

Warned  by  experience,  I  presented  no 
more  letters,  but  fell  back  upon  a  village 
some  twenty-five  miles  away,  where  the  pre- 
scribed conditions  of  thermometer  and  ba- 
rometer seemed  to  prevail.  Here  I  man- 
age to  keep  in  pretty  fair  seclusion.  I  was 
trapped  into  a  "literary  gathering  "yesterday. 
I  did  not  wish  to  attend  it.  If  these  peo- 
ple would  follow  out  their  natural  impulses 
with  simple  merry-making  that  they  could 
enjoy,  as  their  Spanish  neighbors  do,  with 
their  fandangoes  (you  know  we  always  liked 


to  look  at  the  people's  fetes  in  England  and 
on  the  continent),  they  would  be  interesting ; 
but  when  they  stand  on  intellectual  tip-toes 
and  caricature  letters  and  art,  they  make 
themselves  as  absurd  as  a  sturdy  hay-maker 
when  he  puts  off  his  shirt  and  trousers  to 
make  himself  fine  for  his  photograph  in  ill- 
fitting  "store-clothes."  I  had  to  yield  to 
urgency,  however.  "You  will  enjoy  being 
among  your  own  sort  of  people,  Mr.  Bos- 
cawen,"  Mrs.  Thompson  said ;  "  We  have  a 
very  cultured  circle  here." 

You  must  know  the  village  contains  sev- 
eral rich  men  who  have  an  ambition  to  trans- 
mute their  wealth  somehow  into  culture; 
hence  they  carefully  nourish  a  "  literary " 
and  "artistic"  tone  in  the  community;  they 
encourage  the  -city  literati  to  visit  them ; 
they  even  lure  into  their  homes  an  occasion- 
al Eastern  visitor  of  distinction.  One  of 
our  Harvard  professors  spent  a  month  last 
summer  in  the  house  I  was  at  yesterday. 

It  is  a  very  good  house  in  appearance — 
large  and  comfortable,  and  midway  between 
a  farmer's  and  a  country  gentleman's  in  its 
air.  Its  master  is  an  elderly  man,  and  its 
mistress  his  niece,  a  young  widow,  a  com- 
monplace person  with  very  literary  tastes. 
She  had  an  appalling  company,  all  bent  upon 
making  an  impression  on  each  other ;  local 
stars  and  imported  attractions  from  the  city. 
I  suppose  I  ought  to  have  been  amused  at 
their  painful  efforts  to  talk  up  to  a  high 
enough  plane;  but  I  was  not — I  wasennuied 
and  exasperated  to  desperation.  I  met  just 
one  interesting  person — -a  young  woman. 
Probably  she  pleased  me  the  more  because 
she  was  produced  just  at  the  point  when  my 
nervous  exasperation  had  become  equal  to 
Von  Rothstein's,  when  those  manufacturer's 
girls  in  Yorkshire  undertook  to  entertain  him 
by  playing  Chopin.  She  made  me  feel  much 
as  he  did  when  they  dropped  the  Chopin  and 
the  youngest  one  sang  "Allan  Water"  in  a 
pretty,  natural  little  voice,  though  she  didn't 
in  the  least  know  how  to  sing. 

She  was  introduced  to  me  pretentiously 
enough  as  "  Miss  Tessenam,  one  of  our  most 
gifted  young  writers."  I  expected  either  an 
acquiescent  simper  or  a  disclaiming  blush  ; 


68 


An  Impossible  Coincidence. 


[July, 


but  she  paid  no  attention  to  it,  and  seemed 
to  be  much  more  interested  in  observing  a 
specimen  from  what  she  must  consider  an 
ancient  and  learned  community,  than  in  the 
impression  she  might  be  making  on  the  spec- 
imen. I  remember  what  an  awed  and  ex- 
cited feeling  we  used  to  have  when  we  were 
little  chaps  over  a  stranger  from  the  wonder- 
land out  of  which  Punch  and  Scott  and  the 
rest  of  them  came  to  us ;  and  if  he  had  ac- 
tually seen  Thackeray  and  shaken  hands  with 
Dickens, — !  Some  point-blank  questions 
from  others  had  already  drawn  from  me  an 
admission  of  a  trifle  of  acquaintance  with 
two  or  three  of  our  most  widely  known  men 
at  home ;  so  it  was  easy  to  see  that  an  ar- 
dent girl  (for  girlhood  is  no  less  given  to 
thrilling  enthusiasms  and  generous  illusions, 
admirations  and  haloes,  than  childhood,  I 
fancy)  would  make  any  commonplace  person 
stand  as  symbol  for  all  I  had  associations 
with  :  Touchstone,  embodying  all  the  dimly- 
dreamed  glories  of  court  to  Audrey — and  all 
the  time  only  court-fool ! 

She  took  me  out  to  show  me  the  view  from 
the  rear  of  the  house — out  of  the  populated 
"  parlor,"  to  my  immense  relief,  through  a 
broad  hall,  which  crossed  the  whole  width 
of  the  house,  and  out  on  the  veranda  to 
which  it  opened.  This  veranda  ran  around 
the  three  sides  of  a  court  formed  by  the 
main  house  and  two  wings,  and  open  on  the 
fourth  side. 

"  Ah,  this  is  more  like  my  preconception 
of  California  than  anything  I  have  seen 
before,"  I  said,  as  I  stepped  out  upon  the 
veranda. 

The  court  itself  was  nothing,  but  a  few 
enormous  scarlet  geraniums  made  it  passa- 
ble. Beyond,  the  ground  fell  away  from  the 
house  in  a  long  slope,  covered  with  grape- 
vines, to  a  small  stream,  a  half-mile  away  ; 
and  beyond,  the  grain  fields  stretched  three  or 
four  miles  to  where  a  bright  strip  of  the  Bay 
was  visible,  bounding  the  western  edge  of  the 
plain  as  far  as  we  could  see,  north  and  south ; 
and  beyond  this,  a  blue  range  of  mountains. 
Miss  Tessenam  had  chosen  a  flattering  hour 
to  show  me  her  view,  for  it  was  late  after- 
noon, the  light  was  low,  and  a  dry,  dusty  air 


like  this  has  almost  unlimited  capacity  for 
coloring  and  atmospheric  effects.  It  was 
like  a  flood  of  transparent  gold  poured  over 
everything,  and  the  gold  and  tawny  shades 
of  the  plain  under  it  beyond  the  green  fore- 
ground of  grape-vines,  and  the  burnished  rim 
of  silver  water,  and  the  blue  mountains  be- 
yond, were  what  no  one  with  any  artist  in 
him  could  fail  to  admire. 

Miss  Tessenam  was  much  gratified  that  I 
liked  it.  She  had  evidently  brought  me  out 
there  alone  with  a  mind  single  to  the  view. 
I  had  half  expected  an  attempt  at  an  Ameri- 
can flirtation  when  she  took  me  off  alone — 
a  thing  that,  innocent  though  it  is,  is  not  in 
the  least  according  to  my  taste,  nor  accord- 
ing to  my  ideas  of  dignity  and  propriety  in 
young  women.  But  she  evidently  had  no 
intention  of  the  sort — whether  from  native 
modesty,  or  because  she  stood  in  awe  of 
Touchstone.  (It  was  not  because  she  was  too 
unsophisticated,  for  you  may  notice  that  girls 
are  only  the  more  crammed  with  crude  co- 
quetry in  proportion  to  their  distance  from 
civilization.)  Her  manner  was  altogether 
frank,  simple,  and  pleasing  :  like  that  of  a 
self-respecting  mechanic,  who  has  not  be- 
come spoiled  by  knowledge  that  there  is 
such  a  thing  as  manners  to  be  anxious 
over. 

She  was  ra.ther  a  pretty  girl :  trim  little  fig- 
ure— a  sort  of  plump  slenderness,  like  a  little 
brown  linnet — compact  without  heaviness, 
slender  without  angularity  ;  excellent  brown 
eyes,  pretty  wave  of  hair  (and  I  should  think 
natural)  round  her  forehead,  child-like  out- 
line of  face ;  bright,  energetic  expression, 
and  a  pretty  resolute  look  around  the  mouth. 
She  looked  as  if  she  might  be  the  eldest 
daughter  of  ten,  with  an  invalid  mother ;  or 
else  might  be  a  girl  who  earned  her  living  in 
some  way.  Her  dress  looked  like  that,  too 
— a  sort  of  cleared-for-action  air  about  it,  and 
all  very  plain ;  but  it  looked  very  lady-like, 
too. 

I  wish  I  might  have  been  at  home  to  shake 
hands  on  your  return,  old  fellow.  I  wish 
you  were  with  me  here.  I  am,  however, 
none  the  less,  most  heartily  yours, 

EVERETT  BOSCAWEN. 


1885.] 


An  Impossible  Coincidence. 


69 


November  28th. 

*  *  *  You  ask  if  I  saw  anything  farther  of 
the  little  Californian  I  mentioned  in  my  first 
letter ;  and  if  I  did  not  find  my  impression 
of  an  agreeable  behavior  mainly  illusion, 
born  of  my  relief  at  getting  out  of  that  par- 
lor; and  if  she  did  not  try  to  flirt  or  to  read 
her  poems  to  me  on  farther  acquaintance. 
To  your  first  question :  Yes,  I  have  seen  a 
great  deal  more  of  her,  and  should  have  recit- 
ed the  fact  if  I  had  supposed  it  would  at  all 
interest  you.  To  the  second :  No  ;  on  the 
contrary,  she  improved  on  acquaintance — 
though  she  proved  more  naive  and  more  of 
a  child  than  I  supposed  her  at  first ;  she 
probably  had,  on  first  acquaintance,  the  dig- 
nity of  shyness. 

They  expounded  her  to  me  as  soon  as  we 
left  the  house  where  I  met  her.  "  I  saw  you 
were  interested  in  Dora  Tessenam,"  Mrs. 
Thompson  said.  "She  is  a  very  smart  girl, 
and  so  capable.  She  is  educating  a  younger 
brother  at  college:  there  was  a  little  left 
them,  enough,  with  some  help  from  her,  to 
keep  him  at  college,  and  she  supports  her- 
self besides ;  she  lives  and  does  her  own 
cooking  in  a  single  room,  and  writes  for  the 
papers  and  takes  scholars." 

This  was  possibly  all  very  laudable,  but 
certainly  all  very  squalid.  To  my  mind,  any 
notion  of  duty  that  sets  a  girl  to  living  and 
cooking  alone  in  a  city  room  and  writing  for 
the  papers  is  not  even  laudable,  for  it  shows 
her  wanting  in  a  fine  sense  of  womanliness. 
It  would  have  been  more  suitable  for  the 
boy  to  go  into  some  respectable  business, 
make  himself  and  his  sister  comfortable,  and 
educate  the  second  generation.  I  resolved 
to  be  pretty  shy  of  Miss  Tessenam ;  for  no 
one  can  ever  be  certain  when  or  where  an 
acquaintance  will  turn  up  ;  and  it  is  not  my 
notion  of  a  gentleman's  behavior  to  make 
acquaintances  for  temporary  amusement,  be- 
cause he  is  out  of  sight,  and  drop  them  when 
he  is  in  sight.  I  propose  to  stand  by  any 
claim  I  give ;  and  to  add  a  woman  who  vol- 
untarily lives  and  cooks  alone  in  lodgings, 
and  writes  for  the  papers,  to  my  list  of  lady 
acquaintances,  was  not  desirable. 

They  asked  her  around  to  dinner,  how- 


ever— on  purpose  to  meet  me,  I  fancy,  for 
Mrs.  Thompson  took  pains  to  leave  us  to- 
gether. Since  tete-a-tete  was  inevitable,  I 
thought  the  most  interesting  use  I  could 
make  of  it  would  be  to  try  to  take  her  ground 
— her  point  of  view  —  see  how  such  a  life 
looked  to  herself. 

"  Mrs.  Thompson  tells  me  you  are  quite 
a  literary  character,"  I  said. 

She  looked  at  me  seriously,  as  if  she  were 
making  up  her  mind  whether  I  was  trustwor- 
thy, and  seemed  to  decide  that  I  was,  for 
she  said,  quite  simply : 

"  Yes,  sir,  I  have  written  a  great  deal.  I 
think  literature  is  a  noble  profession.  Since 
you  came  from  Boston,"  she  added,  hesitat- 
ing a  little,  as  if  she  feared  the  remark  were 
audacious,  "you  write,  of  course?" 

It  was  rather  pathetic  to  see  that  her  Bo- 
hemian work  took  the  dignity  of  "  literature  " 
in  her  eyes.  I  should  have  liked  to  be  able 
to  say  I  never  wrote,  for  there  are  altogether 
too  many  people  writing;  but  my  conscience 
is  at  least  clear  of  poetry  and  fiction,  so  I 
told  her  I  only  did  a  little  in  heavy  articles 
and  criticism.  This  rather  awed  her,  how- 
ever. 

"Are  you  really  a  critic?"  she  said.  "I 
never  knew  one.  We  do  not  have  them  out 
here — only  reviewers,  and  they  are  not  regu- 
lar reviewers;  they  just  give  the  books  to 
somebody  who  is  on  the  staff  anyway.  I 
wish  we  did  have  critics :  I  could  get  ac- 
quainted with  them,  and  get  them  to  criti- 
cise my  work,  and  advise  me  about  it.  My 
literary  friends  cannot  advise  me  very  much : 
they  haven't  had  much  chance.  They  have 
usually  been  poor,  and  had  to  begin  with 
the  country  newspapers — about  barns  that 
have  fallen  victim  to  the  fire-fiend,  and  such 
things,  you  know — and  work  up  gradually. 
I  value  very  much  the  chance  of  spending 
the  fall  here  (did  you  know?  I  am  going  to 
stay  all  fall  with  my  friends) ;  there  is  such 
a  cultured  little  circle  here.  Is  it  anything 
like  New  England,  Mr.  Boscawen?" 

"N-o,"  I  said,  "  not  very  much." 

"  I  suppose  there  is  a  great  deal  more  cul- 
ture there,"  she  said,  "  especially  in  Boston. 
That  is  what  I  have  thought— that  there  must 


TO 


An  Impossible  Coincidence. 


[July, 


be  a  culture  somewhere  as  much  above  ours 
as  ours  is  above  our  ignorance.  And  then 
Europe  is  as  much  above  that,  I  suppose? 
Dear  me,  how  it  does  make  the  world  widen 
out ! " 

"  It  is  not  considered  proper  patriotism," 
I  said,  "  to  admit  that  Europe  can  be  even 
equal  to  us  in  anything.  The  newspapers 
speak  very  ill  of  any  one  who  does." 

"  Ah,  but  patriotism ! "  she  cried,  "  mustn't 
the  true  patriotism  be  for  those  who  are  in 
accord  with  us  wherever  we  find  them  ?  for 
one's  true  country — the  rempitblicam  liter- 
arum  ? "  She  checked  herself  and  blushed. 
"  I  don't  mean  to  pretend  to  know  Latin, '; 
she  apologized.  "  That  phrase  is  in  the  dic- 
tionary. You  know  Latin,  of  course,"  she 
added  wistfully. 

"  Oh,  only  as  the  ordinary  Harvard  man 
does,"  I  said.  "  One  doesn't  know  Latin 
unless  he  goes  in  for  it,  and  I  did  not  do 
that." 

"  It  must  be  a  great  help  to  a  literary  per- 
son to  know  Latin,"  she  said.  "  I  never 
had  a  chance  to  know  anything.  Anybody 
brought  up  in  a  mining-camp,  and  having 
always  to  earn  one's  own  living,  doesn't  have 
much  opportunity  for  anything.  And  now  I 
have  worked  gradually  into  a  pretty  good 
literary  position,  I  don't  want  to  stop  there: 
I  want  to  go  on  and  get  a  grade  higher. 
But  I  don't  know  how  to  do  it ;  I  haven't 
anybody  to  help  me,  Mr.  Boscawen." 

Now,  that  really  constituted  an  appeal, 
though  unintentional.  You  would  have  told 
her  so  by  immediately  becoming  politely 
frigid,  and  the  poor  child  would  have  gone 
home  and  cried  to  think  she  had  been  so 
forward  and  so  snubbed.  I  was  casting 
about  in  my  mind  for  some  gentler  evasion 
of  the  most  obvious  answer — namely,  to  of- 
fer my  services  (not  that  I  was  unwilling,  as 
far  as  my  own  entertainment  went,  but  I  had 
no  wish  to  help  on  any  girl  in  so  ill-chosen 
and  unfit  a  path) ;  when  it  came  across  me 
that  I  had  heard  editors  say  the  surest  way 
to  suppress  ill-founded  literary  aspirations  in 
a  young  person  was  to  give  him  training 
which  should  tend  to  develop  his  critical 
sense  ;  only  real  ability  or  very  robust  vani- 


ty would  survive  this  process.  I  don't  deny 
that  my  being  so  frightfully  bored  with  the 
place  and  people,  and  her  innocent  brown 
eyes  and  confiding  appeal  had  something  to 
do  with  it ;  but  I  did  not  forget  to  forecast 
consequences  and  decide  that  I  would  stand 
by  them  (even  if  it  involved  showing  some 
social  attentions  at  home,  beneath  your  dis- 
approving eyes,  good  sir),  before  I  answered 
that  perhaps  I  might  be  able  to  do  some- 
thing, if  she  thought  my  judgment  of  any 
value. 

"  Oh,  Mr.  Boscawen !  But  of  course  I  do 
— if  you  only  would — but  I  did  not  mean  to 
ask — "  she  cried,  coloring  up. 

No  need  to  bore  you  with  any  more  con- 
versation— in  fact,  I  don't  remember  any 
more.  I  told  her  she  must  perfect  her  knowl- 
edge of  literature,  and  her  judgment  of  it, 
and  we  rather  went  into  a  course  of  reading 
(that  was  over  three  months  ago,  you  know). 
It  involves  no  end  of  unchaperoned  tete-a- 
ttte :  but  no  one  sees  anything  odd  about  it. 
It  is  considered  a  case  of  "birds  of  a  feather." 
"  I  am  taking  a  course  of  reading  with  Mr. 
Boscawen,"  she  announces  proudly;  and 
that  is  accepted  as  exceedingly  natural. 

I  find  it  very  interesting  myself;  it  renews 
the  charm  of  the  old  books  wonderfully  to 
go  over  them  again  with  a  teachable,  bright 
little  pupil,  who  welcomes  them  eagerly  as 
doors  into  a  wonderful  world,  out  of  which 
she  thinks  I  have  stooped  for  the  moment. 

But  she  is  so  intelligent,  Boscawen  !  I 
am  perfectly  amazed  to  find  how  correct  is 
her  criticism,  how  promptly  she  masters  an 
author,  how  penetrating  is  her  appreciation. 
She  suggests  new  thoughts  to  me  constantly, 
and  keeps  well  up  with  my  mind  in  the  most 
difficult  authors  (for,  beginning  with  simple 
ones,  I  found  her  so  quick  that  I  followed 
my  own  tastes  out  of  light  literature  into  the 
philosophical  authors  —  Emerson,  Arnold, 
Spencer,  Mill  —  and  found  her  able  to  fol- 
low); and  I  feel,  after  going  over  a  book  with 
her,  that  I  never  understood  it  so  well  before, 
myself.  I  look  at  her  in  amazement,  and 
say  in  my  heart,  "You  are  cleverer  than  I, 
if  you  did  but  know  it,  you  pupil  of  mine  !  " 

There  is  no  doubt  that  I  have  chanced,  in 


1885.] 


An  Impossible   Coincidence. 


71 


this  most  unexpected  place,  upon  a  woman 
of  the  witty  and  intellectual  type.  You  know 
I  do  not  fancy  the  type;  but  that  is  no  rea- 
son I  should  not  take  the  goods  the  gods 
provide  in  the  way  of  the  entertaining  com- 
pany of  such  an  one,  in  the  absence  of  any- 
thing better.  Then  this  little  girl  has  not 
the  aggressiveness  of  most  intellectual  wo- 
,  men,  for  she  does  not  know  her  own  strength. 
Yes,  thank  you,  my  lungs  are  much  bet- 
ter, though  I  should  not  have  supposed  dust 
would  agree  with  them,  and  the  air  here  con- 
sists chiefly  of  dust.  If  they  continue  to  be- 
have as  well,  I  shall  hope  to  see  you  in  the 
spring ;  and  for  the  present  remain  most  gen- 
uinely yours,  E.  B. 

December,  i4th. 

*  *  *  THERE  is  something  in  what  you  say 
of  the  danger  of  intermeddling  in  the  little 
Californian's  affairs — though  it  isn't  exactly 
intermeddling  to  try  to  train  some  of  her  nat- 
ural abilities.  You  say  she  would  be  much 
happier  to  stick  to  her  Bohemian  writing, 
and  marry  some  newspaper  man,  and  never 
doubt  that  they  are  at  the  top  of  the  ladder. 
That  may  be ;  and  yet  —  it  is  a  question 
whether  one  does  not  take  more  responsibil- 
ity in  refusing  to  help  a  young  thing's  pa- 
thetic eagerness  to  climb  into  a  higher  life 
than  in  helping  it.  Wise  or  unwise,  the 
dream  is  her  own.  You  must  direct  a  man 
to  the  street  he  wants  to  find,  even  if  you 
think  his  errand  thither  foolish. 

But  your  other  warning!  It  makes  one 
feel  a  good  deal  of  a  cad  to  say  so — yet,  of 
course,  it  would  be  affectation  to  deny  that 
girls  who  have  not  seen  many  gentlemen  may 
put  an  altogether  undue  value  on  a  stray 
specimen — that  a  girl  of  generous,  believing 
disposition  might  wrap  up  a  very  common- 
place fellow  in  some  of  her  sweet  illusions, 
and  suppose  she  fancied  him,  when,  in  fact, 
it  was  only  the  sort  of  people  and  the  way  of 
life  he  represented  that  she  fancied.  And  it 
is  a  thing  I  wouldn't  be  reckless  of — amuse- 
ment at  cost  of  a  girl's  heart-ache  is  for  a 
very  different  style  of  fellows  from  you  or 
me.  But,  then,  good  heavens,  man — have 
women  shown  themselves  disposed  to  fall  in 


love  with  me?  Is  a  man  to  go  about  muffling 
his  charms  from  gaze,  lest  the  eyes  of  women 
who  fall  upon  them  may  be  dazzled? 

Your  great  news  is  no  news  to  me  :  I  knew 
Amy  Dudley  would  become  Lady  Averil. 
Perhaps  it  is  because  I  have  known  it  so 
long  that  I  do  not  mind  it  more:  perhaps, 
because  what  I  cared  for  in  her  was  more 
the  type  than  the  woman.  It  may  have  been 
the  title,  as  you  say,  that  made  the  breach 
with  a  plain  American  ;  we  all  know  how  her 
family  would  feel  about  that,  and  a  high-bred 
English  girl  doesn't  choose  against  the  will' 
of  her  family ;  and  in  fact,  though  I  be  the 
man  hurt  by  it,  I  will  say  it  is  much  more 
becoming  in  a  woman  to  be  gentle  and  du- 
tiful about  such  things,  and  to  be  guided  in 
her  actions  by  her  proper  protectors.  Com- 
pare Amy  Dudley  with  the  little  Californian 
here,  rowing  her  own  boat  and  choosing  her 
own  destinies!  There  is  no  doubt,  by  the 
way,  that  the  little  Californian  is  fifty  times 
as  clever.  Amy  made  no  pretence  at  clever- 
ness ;  in  fact,  she  made  it  seem  bad  form  to 
be  clever.  But  it  is  odd  that  the  same  man 
should  be  in  one  place  put  aside  because  of 
his  caste  and  birth-place,  and  in  another 
should  be  considered  so  dangerous  on  ac- 
count of  them  that  he  must  be  warned  against 
entangling  a  girl's  feelings  by  looking  at  her ! 

I  will  confess  to  you,  on  the  whole,  that  one 
thing  has  given  me  a  sort  of  alarm.  I  chanc- 
ed to  show  her,  today,  a  little  novel — very 
pretty  in  its  way — and  I  was  giving  a  resume 
of  the  story  to  her  while  she  turned  over  the 
leaves,  when  she  suddenly  crimsoned,  start- 
ling me  so  that  I  almost  lost  the  thread  of 
my  talk;  and  the  thing  that  I  was  speaking 
of  at  the  instant  had  been  a  situation  in  the 
book  similar  to  that  which  you  forebode.  I 
took  pains  to  go  on  unconcernedly,  but  I  saw 
that  her  fingers,  holding  the  book,  trembled, 
and  she  gave  me  a  covert  look  of  positive 
fright. 

It  came  into  my  head  that  a  girl  might 
look  so  if  she  had  suddenly — but  that  is  non- 
sense, you  know.  There  is  not  the  least 
sentiment  about  our  intercourse.  I  will  re- 
treat, I  assure  you,  if  I  see  the  least  danger. 
And  now  to  other  subjects.  *  *  * 


72 


An  Impossible  Coincidence. 


[July, 


December  i8th. 

BOSCAWEN,  I  cannot  express  my  indigna- 
tion and  humiliation.  You  have  seen  it,  of 
course — the  last  number  of  "  The  Continen- 
tal Monthly."  Let  me  tell  you  that  the  writ- 
er of  that  story  is  the  California  girl  I  have 
wasted  so  much  liking  on !  You  were  quite 
right  in  telling'me  I  was  overrating  her.  Not 
her  mind — she  is  even  cleverer  than  I  dream- 
ed— but  I  might  have  known  the  innate  vul- 
garity would  out  somewhere.  If  it  is  still 
possible  that  you  haven't  seen  the  thing,  I 
will  tell  you.  A  story,  published  in  a  prom- 
inent journal,  whose  hero  bears  the  name  of 
Everett  Boscawen,  and  answers  in  personal 
description  to  an  idealized  copy  of  the  real 
E.  B.  You  will  be  almost  as  angry  as  I,  for 
an  insult  to  the  Boscawen  name  hits  you 
nearly  as  close  as  me;  and  you  will  feel 
yourself  madeJTridiculous  in  the  person  of 
your  cousin. 

The  worst  of  it  is  the  situation  of  the 
story — the  girl's  adoration  ;  the  whole  thing 
is  a  most  unblushing  avowal  of — but  what  is 
the  use  of  talking  about  it  ?  The  thing  can't 
be  undone.  I  would  gladly  buy  up  and  burn 
the  whole  edition,  if  it  were  possible. 

What  could  be  the  girl's  idea  in  blazoning 
her  emotions  and  advertising  me  in  that 
fashion?  Could  she  have  fancied  that  she 
could  make  an'appeal  to  me  through  print 
that  would  be  impossible  to  make  more 
directly  ?  I  wonder  she  did  not  name  her 
heroine  Theodora  Tessenam,  by  way  of  mak- 
ing her  intent  a^little  clearer. 

Or  did  she  think  to  flatter  me  by  publicity? 
such  people  so  hanker  after  publicity  them- 
selves, and  fancy  everybody  does.  I  was  an 
idiot  to  suppose  that  because  a  girl  of  her 
class  has  a  fine  mind  she  could  escape  the 
indelicacy  of  her  kind.  I  shall  beware  of 
Bohemiennes  henceforth. 

I  am  going  to  pack  my  trunks,  now.  I 
shall  leave  the  field  to  Miss  Tessenam's  un- 
disturbed possession. 

I  cannot  help  feeling  sorry,  too.  She 
seemed  such  a  pretty,  sensible,  good  sort  of 
girl.  I  hate  to  see  my  pleasant  conception 
of  her,  and  the  memory  of  all  this  pleasant 
intercourse  go  down  into  a  mud-hole  of  dis- 


gust. Ah  well ! — I  do  not  care  ever  to  si  gn 
my  be-handled  name  again,  so  you  may  have 
this  unsigned. 

January  3d,  1883. 
MY  DEAR  BOSCAWEN  : 

Yours  just  received.  Do  you  know,  I  fan- 
cy we  are  not  being  quite  fair  to  the  girl. 
Your  letter  seemed  rather  harsh.  It  is  only 
just  to  think'of  her  side  of  it.  Probably,  with 
her  provincial  inexperience,  she  did  not 
realize  the  publicity  of  the  thing — indulged 
her  fancy  in  using  the  name,  supposing  me 
and  every  one  ignorant  of  her  signature 
(her  hostess — who  is  probably  her  confi- 
dante throughout — had  told  me).  That  the 
enormous  impropriety  was  not  intended  as 
an  advance,  and  that  she  herself  realized 
its  frightfulness  as  soon  as  she  saw  it  in 
print,  is  evident ;  for  she  anticipated  me  in 
leaving  the  village — fled  precipitately,  with- 
out a  word  of  good-by,  which,  after  our  in- 
timacy of  so  many  weeks,  could  only  mean 
that,  overwhelmed  with  mortification,  she 
had  retreated  to  hide  herself. 

After  all,  she  has  the  worst  of  it — no  mor- 
tification the  thing  can  cause  me  could  be 
equal  to  hers.  Poor  little  soul!  It  would 
certainly  be  very  rough  to  have  done  such  a 
thing,  and  then  realized  the  consequences. 
And  considering  the  misplaced  emotion 
there  is  in  the  case,  to  go  off  and  hide  her- 
self, break  our  intercourse  short  off,  and  for- 
ever (for  she  did  not  leave  an  address),  shows 
that  she  did  realize  it.  In  fact,  it  is  not  im- 
possible that  she  over-realized  it.  Girls  are 
conscientious,  tender-hearted  creatures — she 
may  be  torturing  herself  with  even  more 
shame  and  remorse  over  it  than  the  thing  de- 
serves. 

It  is  a'good  story — you  are  right  there"; 
and  my  namesake  is  really  a  fine  fellow,  with- 
out any  miss'ishness  about  him.  ThereTis 
precious  little  of  me  really  in  him  ;  it  gives 
one  a  queer  feeling  to  fancy  himself  looking 
like  that  in  a  girl's  eyes.  It  is  hard  on  her — 
with  the  cravings  for  a  wider  life  the  child  had, 
to  spend  weeks  constantly  with  somebody 
whose  circumstances  made  it  possible  for 
her  to  idealize  him  into  an  embodiment  of 


1885.J 


An  Impossible   Coincidence. 


73 


all  the  things  she  most  admired  and  desired  ; 
to  express  her  innocent  devotion  in  a  good 
story,  and  stumble  into  the  unaccountable 
folly  of  transferring  his  name  to  the  page  ; 
then  to  realize  too  late,  what  cause  for  of- 
fence she  had  given  (how  she  has  comprom- 
ised herself,  she  cannot  know,  for  she  does 
not  know  that  I  know  her  signature),  and  to 
take  it  thus  seriously — it  causes  me  com- 
punction, for  I  might  have  taken  warning. 

I  miss  her  companionship,  and  find  all 
my  books  spoiled  by  the  now  uncomforta- 
ble association.  It  is  raining  dismally  out- 
side, heavily,  as  if  the  clouds  had  dropped 
the  rain  they  were  too  tired  to  hold  any 
longer,  not  as  if  they  dashed  it  down  with  a 
good  will.  It  is  horribly  depressing.  I  am 
counting  the  weeks  till  I  may  come  home. 

Think  over  her  side  of  it,  and  write  and 
tell  me  if  you  do  not  think  we  were  too 
harsh  in  the  first  shock.  E.  B. 

February  ist. 

I  DON'T  like  your  tone,  Boscawen.  How- 
ever, if  you  choose  to  distress  yourself  about 
my  dangerous  weakness  toward  Dora  Tesse- 
nam,  you  may  set  your  mind  at  rest:  there 
is  no  danger,  because  it  is  past  danger. 
Think  what  you  like  of  me,  but  I  am  in  love 
with  her.  Oh,  I  know  I  am  a  fool  ;  I  know 
all  about  the  difference  in  station,  and  that  I 
am  brought  up  to  a  fastidiousness  which  all 
her  circumstances  are  unpleasant  to,  and 
which  even  she  herself  has  shown  herself  ca- 
pable of  offending  (yet  only  once,  in  all  my 
knowledge  of  her).  I  can't  help  it.  I  am 
going  to  marry  her,  and  you  may  disown  me 
if  you  like.  I  have  missed  her  too  horribly 
not  to  know  that  she  is  more  to  me  than 
you  and  all  the  rest  of  the  world  put  togeth- 
er. I  met  her  last  week  in  the  street;  she 
blushed,  barely  bowed,  and  slipped  around 
a  corner  before  I  could  speak".  But  I  knew 
then  what  I  had  been  longing  after  ever 
since  she  left  me.  The  whole  world  broke 
into  blossom  when  I  caught  sight  of  the  lit- 
tle trim  gray  figure.  Good-by  to  you,  Bos- 
cawen, forever  or  not,  just  as  you  choose  ;  I 
am  going  to  keep  my  world  in  blossom. 
EVERETT  BOSCAWEN. 


SAN  FRANCISCO,  February  ad. 
MY  DEAR  COUSIN  : 

You  may  add  to  my  epithet  of  fool,  ap- 
plied to  myself  in  my  letter  of  yesterday,  as 
much  emphasis  as  you  choose  ;  I  had  at  the 
time  of  writing  no  conception  of  its  appro- 
priateness. Is  it  possible  no  one  has  detected 
me  hitherto  for  a  despicable  idiot  ?  or  have 
you  all  known  it  all  along?  I  wish  1  were  a  me- 
diaeval ascetic,  given  to  the  use  of  the  scourge. 
The  best  substitute  possible  under  modern 
circumstances  is  probably  to  relate  to  you 
every  word  of  what  has  passed.  Don't  im- ' 
agine  I  dislike  to  do  it.  I  am  so  absolute- 
ly sick  of  the  cad  in  question,  that  I  take 
satisfaction  in  abasing  him  ;  if  he  writhes 
a  little  over  every  detail  of  his  discomfiture, 
so  much  the  better. 

I  hunted  her  up  and  sent  my  card  to  her 
room.  She  came  down  to  the  boarding- 
house  parlor,  and  she  was  self-possessed 
enough  at  bottom,  under  a  thin  film  of  em- 
barrassment. /  was  not  embarrassed — not 
I ;  I  smiled  at  her  reassuringly  and  affection- 
ately. Her  conventional  "Good  morning" 
smile  faded  at  once,  and  she  looked  interrog- 
ative. She  had  put  out  her  hand  as  a  mat- 
ter of  course,  and  I  took  it  and  held  it,  while 
I  looked  down  tenderly  into  her  eyes,  and 
said  : 

"  My  poor  little  girl,  I  am  afraid  you  have 
been  fretting  yourself  greatly  over  that  story. 
Put  it  out  of  your  mind  now ;  we  will  both 
forget  it.  Perhaps  it  was  a  good  thing  after 
all,  for  it  revealed  to  me  that  the  world  was 
empty  after  my  little  Dora  had  gone." 

Long  before  I  had  ended  that  speech, 
she  had  pulled  her  hand  away,  and  retreated 
some  steps  to  a  table  at  the  side  of  the 
room  (a  painfully  shabby  room,  and  the 
table  was  covered  with  stamped  green  flan- 
nel) ;  she  put  one  hand  on  the  table,  and  I 
saw  the  fingers  of  the  other  curl  up  tightly 
into  the^pink  palm.  She  did  not  say  a  word, 
but  looked  straight  at  me.  I  followed  her, 
and  said : 

"  I  know  now  that  I  want  Dora  Tessenam 
and  no  one  else  for  my  wife.  Come  to  me, 
my  Dora,  and  we  will  not  let  any  foolish 
memories  come  between  us." 


74 


An  Impossible   Coincidence. 


[July, 


She  trembled  visibly,  and  her  breath  came 
and  went  hard,  but  she  did  not  speak  till  I 
put  out  my  arms  to  draw  her  to  me.  Then 
she  drew  back  just  out  of  reach,  and  said 
"Stop,  sir,"  in  a  way  that  did  stop  me. 
Her  color  came  up  with  a  rush  as  soon  as 
she  spoke,  and  her  eyes  began  to  blaze. 
She  was  the  prettiest  thing  I  ever  saw  in  my 
life,  but  there  was  no  mistaking  that  she  was 
angrier  than  I  ever  saw  any  one.  After  all 
my  magnanimity,  it  was  hard  to  understand  ! 

"  Why,  Dora—"  I  began. 

She  cut  me  short. 

"  Why  do  you  take  the  liberty  to  call  me 
that  ?  "  she  said.  Her  voice  trembled  when 
she  began,  and  then  steadied,  and  she  turned 
icily  instead  of  excitedly  angry.  Her  eyes 
looked  positively  steely,  for  all  their  brown- 
ness.  ''Perhaps,  however,  in  spite  of  your 
appearance  of  a  gentleman,  you  think  you 
may  treat  women  whom  you  consider  your 
social  inferiors  in  a  way  impossible  with  those 
whose  position  defends  them." 

I  understood,  of  course,  that  it  was  not 
the  use  of  the  name  she  was  so  angry  at, 
but  the  assuming  her  affection;  and  it  seem- 
ed to  me  a  not  unnatural  expression  of  her 
own  humiliation  over  having  betrayed  her- 
self. I  had  touched  the  sore  spot,  where 
she  could  not  bear  to  have  even  a  feather- 
weight laid. 

"Dear  child,"  I  said,  "there  is  no  want 
of  respect.  Believe  me,  I  never  put  any  such 
construction  on  your  story  as  you  think — 

"Oh,  that  story!  "she  broke  in.  "You 
mean,  I  suppose,  in  plain  language,  that  you 
acquit  me  of  having  intentionally  proclaimed 
the  state  of  my  young  affections  to  you 
therein,  with  a  view  to  producing  the  pres- 
ent result.  That  is  really  quite  high-minded 
in  you.  But  why  do  you  lay  the  whole  re- 
sponsibility on  the  story?  Do  you  pretend 
that  it  did  more  than  ripen  suspicion  into 
certainty  ?  " 

Her  tone  and  manner  were  of  a  sort  hard 
to  stand — contemptuous  ;  I  never  knew  be- 
fore what  it  was  like  to  be  addressed  con- 
temptuously— and  I  was  terribly  in  love  with 
the  girl.  It  brought  the  blood  to  my  face; 
yet  I  suspected  her  of  partly  shamming. 


"  My  dear  girl,"  I  said,  "  I  had  not  a 
thought  disrespectful  to  you.  When  a  man 
offers  his  love  to  a  girl,  he  has  usually  had 
some  reason  to  believe  it  acceptable,  before- 
hand." 

" You  had  no  reason"  she  said,  still  con- 
temptuously. "You  had  some  excuse — at 
least  what  might  serve  as  excuse  to  a  man 
predisposed  to  suppose  a  girl  in  love  with 
him.  You  were  mistaken.  I  think  there  is 
no  need  of  continuing  the  subject  nor  our 
acquaintance.  I  wish  you  good-day,  Mr. 
Boscawen." 

She  was  actually  leaving  the  room,  and  it 
penetrated  my  conceit  by  that  time  that  she 
was  in  earnest,  and  not  merely  trying  to  re- 
instate her  dignity. 

"  Stop,  Miss  Tessenam,"  I  said,  and  I  felt 
my  voice  thicken  in  my  throat.  "  I  am  not 
the  coxcomb  you  would  make  me.  I  am 
very  much  in  earnest,  and  you  have  no  right 
to  deny  me  an  explanation." 
.  She  turned  in  the  door,  full  of  wrath  and 
scorn,  and  more  than  pretty. 

"  You  mean  proof,  I  suppose,"  she  said. 
"  I  might  have  known  it  would  require 
proof  to  convince  you  I  was  not  in  love  with 
you.  Fortunately,  I  am  able  to  supply  it." 

She  walked  straight  on  out  of  the  room,  and 
as  something  more  seemed  coming,  I  tramp- 
ed around  over  the  tawdry  carpet  till  she 
came  back,  in  about  five  minutes.  She  had 
in  her  hand  a  package  of  letters. 

"  I  wrote  to  my  boy  to  send  me  back  one 
of  my  letters  which  contained  some  dates 
and  other  memoranda  I  needed;  and  he, 
boy-like,  unable  to  find  the  right  one  at 
once,  tied  up  all  my  letters  of  the  last  year, 
and  sent  them  to  me  by  a  friend  who  was 
coming  out  here."  She  was  rapidly  sorting 
out  several  envelopes  from  the  rest,  and  held 
them  out  to  me. 

"  If  you  suspect  forgery,"  she  said,  smil- 
ing in  an  unflattering  way,  "  let  me  refer  you 
to  the  post-marks — I  am  told  they  are  very 
difficult  to  forge." 

She  turned  away,  leaned  nonchalantly 
against  the  window-frame,  and  looked  down 
into  the  street.  I  sat  down,  began  at  the 
beginning,  and  read  straight  through  the  let- 


1885.] 


An  Impossible   Coincidence. 


75 


ters  she  had  given  me.  I  have  them  before 
me  now ;  and  since  they  are  calculated  to 
make  any  man  wince,  I  propose  to  copy 
every  word  of  them  for  you.  Here  they 
are : 

"SAN  FRANCISCO,  January  i3th,  1882. 
"  DEAR  HARRY  : 

"  By  all  means  decline  that  or  any  other 
offer  of  employment.  I  will  not  have  my 
theories  invaded,  and  one  of  them  is  that  a 
man  in  college  should  have  his  time  undi- 
vided for  study.  Besides,  these  things  make 
a  social  difference  where  you  are,  and  there 
is  no  use  flying  in  the  face  of  a  prejudiced 
old  society ;  while  anonymous  newspaper 
work,  story-writing,  or  private  pupils,  cannot 
possibly  hurt  me  here.  When  you  are  once 
through  your  studies  you  may  turn  over  the 
patrimonial  income  to  me  for  an  equal  term 
of  years,  and  supplement  it,  if  you  like; 
meanwhile,  it  doesn't  hurt  me  in  the  least  to 
take  my  turn  at  doing  that  same.  I  am  med- 
itating a  considerable  addition  to  the  income 
at  one  blow.  I  have  just  written  a  story 
which  is  my  l  cheff  dooverj  and  I  have  a  pri- 
vate conviction  that  the  editor  of  the  'Conti- 
nental '  will  accept  it.  I  would  if  I  were  he. 
I  didn't  sign  my  truly  name — which  was  a 
weakness  on  my  part,  for  the  old  name  need 
not  be  afraid  of  an  honorable  publicity ;  but 
I  do  not  like  to  see  my  name  in  print. 

'•  Oh,  Hal,  I  did  have  such  a  struggle  to 
name  my  hero  just  right  in  this  story!  I  have 
hitherto  named  them  as  it  came  handy; 
but  I  wanted  just  exactly  a  certain  flavor  in 
this  name — neither  commonplace,  nor  gro- 
tesque, nor  fine ;  neither  Henry  Taylor,  nor 
Zimri  Hoey,  nor  Eugene  Arundel.  There 
I  sat  on  the  floor,  studying  the  'births, 
deaths,  and  marriages '  that  I  have  clipped 
out  and  accumulated  in  my  bottom  drawer 
for  just  such  purposes.  At  last  a  '  Boscawen ' 
struck  the  chord  in  me  that  is  devoted  to  our 
Welsh  ancestry.  Another  search,  this  time 
through  one  of  your  Harvard  catalogues,  sug- 
gested that  Everett  might  do  for  a  prefix.  It 
is  not  just  the  thing,  but  I  like  to  put  together 
names  that  will  not  by  any  chance  find 
themselves  together  in  real  life.  Boscawens 


there  be,  and  Everetts  there  be,  but  no  such 
Boston-Wales  team  as  Everett  Boscawen. 

"  Don't  get  moonstruck,  nor  lightning- 
struck,  nor  anything.  And,  Harry,  sign 
your  name  in  full,  for  the  convenience  of 
the  Dead  Letter  clerks.  Never  shall  I  for- 
get my  feelings  when  a  letter  with  the  trian- 
gular blue  mark,  addressed  '  Teddy,  599 
Payne  St.,  San  Francisco,  Cal.,'  was  handed 
me  by  the  grinning  postman.  Since  when, 
I  remain  consistently, 

"  THEODORA  TESSENAM." 

"  SAN  FRANCISCO,  March  8th. 
"Mv  DEAR  BOY  : 

"The  editor  of  the  'Continental'  is  a  man 
of  literary  taste,  and  I  am  not  merely  richer 
than  yesterday,  but  invited  to  try  it  again. 
'  Now  is  the  winter  of  our  discontent  made 
glorious  summer  by  this  sun  of  New  York. 
(No,  my  dear,  restrain  the  pun ;  I  happen  to 
know  that  the  editor  is  not  a  son  of  New 
York,  but  was  born  in  Vermont.)  My  reg- 
ular letter  to  you  went  by  this  morning's 
mail  ;  this  is  just  a  postscript  to  report  the 
note  from  the  '  Continental,'  received  just 
now  ;  so  I  am,  in  haste,  yours, 

"THEODORA  TESSENAM." 

"Ax  MR.  ELDON'S,  August  i4th. 
"  MY  DEAR  HARRY  : 

"  You  will  see  by  the  date  that  I  am  visit- 
ing Carrie  Hill — she  keeps  house  for  her 
uncle  now,  you  remember.  Carrie  is  one 
of  the  loveliest  women  in  the  world  when  you 
know  her  well,  but  the  dear  girl  is  not  especial- 
ly bright,  and  it  is  unfortunate  that  she  has  a 
special  desire  for  literary  society.  She  does 
get  together  the  drollest  collections  of  village 
as  pirants,  and  city  Bohemians,  and  really 
charming  people.  The  day  after  I  came, 
she  had  such  an  assemblage.  There  was  a 
Boston  gentleman  boarding  at  the  Thomp- 
sons'— weak  lungs — and  they  brought  the 
poor  soul  over.  He  evidently  regarded  it 
as  a  typical  California  affair. 

"  There  was  one  very  curious  thing  about 
him.  Do  you  remember  about  my  '  Con- 
tinental '  story,  and  my  hero,  Everett  Bos- 
cawen ?  Well,  this  fellow's  name  is  Bosca- 


76 


An  Impossible  Coincidence. 


[July, 


wen.  Moreover,  he  answers  not  badly  to 
my  description  of  my  Boscawen.  He  doesn't 
look  in  the  least  like  my  idea,  you  under- 
stand, but  my  expression  of  the  idea  will  ap- 
ply about  equally  to  both  the  Mr.  B's.  That 
is,  they  are  both  dark — not  in  the  glittering, 
black  way  of  dime  novel  heroes,  but  in  a 
mild,  mellow  fashion ;  hair  a  soft  black,  or 
brown  'on  the  black,' and  very  dark  gray  eyes. 
Good,  slim,  strong  figure,  well  carried — 
the  Apollo  type,  you  know,  rather  than  either 
the  Antinoiis  or  the  Hercules.  Now  this  Mr. 
B.  (don't  know  his  first  name — call  him  Fer- 
guson), Mr.  Ferguson  B.  is  a  little  stiff,  a  lit- 
tle too  perfect  in  bearing,  manners,  looks, 
everything.  He  doesn't  speak  to  you  a 
shade  too  familiarly  nor  too  distantly ;  he  is 
not  self-conscious  nor  self-unconscious.  Yet 
his  manners  could  be  described  in  almost 
the  same  words  as  Everett  B's.  Of  this  I 
am  certain  :  Ferguson  B.  would  never,  never 
be  willing  to  make  himself  ridiculous,  while 
Everett  B.  would,  if  it  were  necessary  in  a 
good  cause. 

"He  evidently  scorned  California,  climate 
and  people  and  all.  I  made  him  admire 
the  view  from  the  back  porch,  and  he  talked 
very  '  cleverly '  about  that  and  other  things 
(said  that  it  was  like  everything  in  California, 
in  substituting  for  fineness  and  finish  a  cer- 
tain bold  lavishness  of  effect.  "  For  instance, 
the  sole  elements  of  this  view  are  breadth  of 
distance  and  atmospheric  effect.  In  New 
England,  we  should  have  that  thirty  miles 
filled  with  hill  and  valley  and  varied  wood- 
land"—which  I  should  say  was  fair  criticism). 
He  was  just  a  bit  condescending ;  his  man- 
ner to  me  would  have  been  perfect,  if  I  had 
been  an  ignorant  backwoods  girl,  whom  he 
was  compelled,  for  the  time,  to  meet  as  an 
equal. 

"Just  find  out  about  his  family,  if  it  comes 
convenient,  Harry.  He  evidently  comes 
of  nice  people,  but  he's  awfully  narrow. 
Has  some  English  airs,  too. 

"I  will  write  again  tomorrow  and  talk  of 
other  things,  for  Mr.  Ferguson  Boscawen 
has  taken  too  much  of  this  letter.  Good 
night,  my  boy. 

"  THEODORA  TESSENAM." 


"August  24th. 

"Oh,  Harry,  my  boy,  I  wish  you  were 
here,  for  I  am  in  mischief,  and  you  might 
share  the  fun.  It  is  that  Ferguson  Bosca- 
wen who  led  me  into  it.  I  met  him  again, 
and  was  left  alone  with  him.  The  most  bored 
look  came  over  his  face,  politely  suppressed 
at  once,  and  he  said,  graciously, 

"  'Mrs.  Thompson  tells  me  you  are  quite 
a  literary  character.' 

"  I  looked  at  him.  There  was  not  a.  trace 
of  sneer  in  voice  or  face.  He  thought  I  was 
such  a  little  idiot  that  I  would  take  the  remark 
as  a  compliment,  while  he  himself  would  know 
it  to  be  a  sneer.  '  You  poor,  unsophisticat- 
ed little  Californian,'  it  meant,  'I  will  not  un- 
deceive you  as  to  the  true  value  of  your 
attempts  at  literature.' 

'"All  right,  sir,' thought  I,  'if  you  like 
that,  I  can  stand  it  as  long  as  you  can  ' ;  and 
I  assumed  the  mogt  innocent  face,  and  an- 
swered as  nearly  as  I  could  in  the  character 
'he  assigned  me.  He  took  it  in  good  faith, 
so  I  ventured  farther  and  farther,  and  he 
swallowed  it  all.  I  told  him  the  awfullest 
lot  of  lies — that  I  was  bred  in  a  miners'  camp, 
and  began  literature  with  barns  and  fire- 
fiends;  and  I  said  'culture'  reverentially. 
Once  I  let  a  Latin  phrase  slip,  and  thought 
I  had  given  myself  away  ;  but  I  told  him  I 
found  it  in  the  dictionary,  and,  do  you  know, 
the  man  believed  me,  though  there  was  an 
oblique  case  in  it  that  couldn't  possibly  have 
been  in  any  dictionary  form  of  the  phrase ! 
Before  I  left  the  house  he  had  promised  (I 
confess  I  fished  for  it)  to  give  me  a  course  of 
instruction  to  improve  my  mind.  I  expect 
to  enjoy  it  immensely,  for  it  will  be  exciting 
to  see  how  far  the  immaculate  Ferguson  B. 
will  make  himself  ridiculous.  If  flirting  was 
in  my  line,  it  would  be  an  excellent  chance; 
but  it  isn't.  I  detest  this  getting  into  per- 
sonal relations  with  men,  and  I  think  there's 
a  defect  of  good  taste  in  every  girl  that  does 
it;  and  if  sometimes  I  feel  tempted  to  step 
in  and  show  bunglers  at  that  game  how  to  do 
it  (for  I've  the  making  of  an  expert  in  me),  I 
know  enough  of  the  after  disgust  to  refrain. 
But  this  is  just  the  thing  :  our  relations  shall 
be  purely  intellectual,  and  I  can  have  the  ex- 


1885.] 


An  Impossible  Coincidence. 


77 


citement  of  experimenting  in  human  nature, 
without  the  objectionable  elements  of  flirta- 
tion. He  is  interesting  and  well-bred,  or 
the  joke  would  be  too  stupid  to  fash  myseP 
wi'.  I  won't  ever  let  him  know,  for  I  don't 
care  to  mortify  him — he  hasn't  been  horrid 
enough  to  deserve  that,  you  know ;  only  just 
horrid  enough  to  deserve  a  little  strictly  pri- 
vate guying  him  on  my  part.  Nobody  but 
you  shall  know;  and  so,  good  night. 

"THEODORA    TESSENAM." 

"  December  i4th. 

"O  my  Harry,  I'm  afraid  your  unlucky 
Ted  has  got  herself  into  a  dreadful,  dread- 
ful scrape,  and  it's  all  along  o'  that  horrid  Mr. 
Ferguson  Boscawen.  Harry,  dear,  he  isn't 
Ferguson  at  all !  and  what  do  you  think  he 
is?  Guess  the  very  worst  thing  you  can,  and 
you'll  be  right. 

"  He  was  showing  me  a  book,  and  I  was 
pretending  I  had  never  heard  of  it,  and 
turning  the  leaves  over  while  I  half  listened 
to  his  exposition  of  it,  when  I  chanced  to 
catch  sight  of  his  name  on  the  title-page,  and 
it  made  me  jump  as  if  it  had  been  yelled 
at  my  ear. 

"Harry  (brace  yourself)  —  Harry — his 
name  is — EVERETT  BOSCAWEN  !  ! 

"  '  Can  such  things  be  and  overcome  us, 
&c.  ? '  I  suppose  the  chance  of  my  Everett 
Boscawen  being  duplicated  was  about  one 
in  thirty-nine  billion ;  and  there  I've  struck 
that  one  chance  !  I  might  have  known  that 
where  there  was  as  much  as  one  chance  in 
thirty-nine  billion  of  getting  into  a  scrape, 
I  should  certainly,  with  unerring  aim,  hit 
it! 

"  I  wrote  at  once  to  the  magazine,  asking 
to  be  allowed  to  see  my  proof  again  (they've 
got  the  thing  into  type,  and  sent  me  proof  a 
month  ago;  but  that's  no  sign  they  are  going 
to  print  it  within  a  year),  and  I  shall  change 
the  name.  But  if  my  note  should  be  too 
late  !  I  thought  of  telegraphing,  but  consid- 
ering that  they  probably  have  no  intention 
of  printing  it  soon,  that  would  be  foolish. 

"I  could  do  this:  I  could  just  say  to 
him:  '  1  happened  to  see  your  full  name  the 
other  day,  Mr.  Boscawen,  and  was  much 


surprised  to  find — '  and  then  tell  him  the 
whole  thing. 

"  But  I  couldn't  make  him  believe  that  I 
had  never  seen  his  name  before,  for  he  has 
lent  me  books  innumerable.  But,  you  see, 
I  have  always  tossed  his  Matthew  Arnold,  or 
Spencer,  or  George  Eliot,  or  Turgenief,  into 
a  corner,  let  them  stay  there  long  enough  to 
give  plausibility  to  the  theory  that  I  was 
reading  them  for  the  first  time,  then  brushed 
up  my  acquaintance  with  the  authors  in  my 
own  books,  and  taken  his  bade  to  him. 

"  Besides,  I  don't  want  him  to  know  what 
I  write:  this  story  would  give  me  away  as  to 
having  known  nothing  before  his  advent. 
Anyway,  he  wouldn't  believe  me.  He  thinks 
I  have  a  most  reverent  admiration  for  him, 
and  he  would  certainly  believe  that  I  had 
written  the  story  to  celebrate  him,  and  then 
disavowed  it.  And  if  worst  comes  to  worst, 
it  isn't  signed  with  my  name.  But  if  it 
should  come  out  uncorrected,  and  he  should 
see  it,  and  I  should  find  that  Carrie  had  let 
slip  my  signature,  I  should  just  fold  my  tent 
like  the  Arab,  with  a  bigger  body  of  Arabs 
on  the  war-path  visible  on  the  horizon. 
There  would  be  no  mortal  use  in  explana- 
tions, and  I  should  just  run. 

"  Meantime,  I  really  enjoy  him,  for  all 
his  shadow  of  snobbishness,  he  is  so  intel- 
ligent and  gentlemanly.  He  would  be  a 
very  good  fellow  if  he  were  not  so  crammed 
with  notions,  and  false,  narrow  views  of  life 
and  society.  I  don't  know  but  the  worst  of 
him  is,  he  hasn't  a  proper  sense  of  humor. 
He  takes  himself  so  awfully  seriously;  is  so 
afraid  of  not  being  just  right  and  entirely 
dignified  and  admirable.  But  one  can  see 
there  is  something  peculiarly,  punctiliously 
honorable  and  high-minded  and  cleanly 
about  him,  and  he  is  thoroughly  kind,  too. 
I  should  be  ashamed  of  making  a  guy  of  him 
if  I  had  begun  it.  But  I  have  only  followed 
his  lead — acted  out  his  ideas. 

"Thank  you  for  the  information  about 
his  family  and  reputation.  I  knew  they 
must  be  irreproachable.  But  don't  get  ac- 
quainted with  the  cousin  :  he  would  find  out 
your  connections  there,  and  might  chance  to 
let  this  man  know,  and  I  don't  want  him  to 


78 


An  Impossible  Coincidence. 


[July, 


know  the  fluid  in  my  veins  runs  as  blue  as 
his  own. 

"  Good  night,  Harry,  from  your  scared,  but 
not  yet  penitent  sister, 

"THEODORA  TESSENAM." 

I  don't  suppose,  Boscawen,  I  could  make 
you  realize  the  view  of  myself  with  which  I 
folded  up  those  letters.  It  made  a  differ- 
ence, of  course,  that  I  was  so  profoundly  and 
irretrievably  in  love  with  the  girl.  She 
turned  from  the  window  when  she  heard  me 
rise  from  my  chair.  I  did  not  shirk  meet- 
ing her  eyes.  I  hated  myself  too  much  for 
that;  I  almost  felt  that  I  could  shake  hands 
with  her  over  her  opinion  of  the  fellow. 

"I  will  wish  you  good-day,  Miss  Tesse- 
nam,"  I  said. 

"My  letters,  please,"  she  said. 

"  They  are  in  my  pocket.  I  am  going  to 
keep  them,  Miss  Tessenam." 

She  looked  at  me  keenly.  What  she  could 
not  guess  was  that  even  stinging  words  in  that 
particular  trim,  frank  handwriting  had  a 
value  to  me ;  but  of  the  other  half  of  my 
two-fold  object  in  keeping  the  letters,  she 
seemed  to  divine  something. 

"  As  you  please,"  she  said,  more  gently. 

I  moved  to  the  door,  and  she  followed  with 
cool  civility.  At  the  door  I  stopped,  and 
made  some  motion  to  offer  my  hand.  She 
stepped  back  a  little  and  bowed. 

I  could  not  go  so,  for  my  very  soul  cried 
out  for  her.  "Miss  Tessenam,"  I  said,  "if 
some  time  in  the  future  I  should  be  able  to 
come  back  to  you  with  some  title  to  your  re- 
spect— 

She  broke  in  impatiently. 

"  Don't,  Mr.  Boscawen  !  I  can't  endure  to 
have  any  sentimental  conversation  with  you. 
I  beg  you  to  leave  anything  of  that  sort  un- 
said." 

I — lifted  my  hat  and  walked  off;  and  left 
there  the  only  thing  I  seriously  care  for  in 
this  world. 

But  don't  imagine  that  is  the  end  of  it. 
The  end  will  be  when  the  end  of  me  comes. 
I  have  no  more  intention  of  giving  her  up 
than  of  giving  up  my  life.  I  imagined  once 
it  was  a  fine  thing  to  be  in  love  with  a  sweet- 


voiced  English  girl.  The  whole  affair  was 
half-affectation,  and  I  resigned  her  easily 
enough  to  a  title.  This  affair  breaks  sharp 
off  all  my  old  life  and  begins  a  new  one.  I 
am  going  to  go  to  work  ;  and  it  will  be  some- 
thing hard  and  useful,  and — mark  you,  Bos- 
cawen— something  that  is  uncompromisingly 
bad  form,  according  to  our  old  codes  and 
formulas.  Yours,  as  you  choose, 

EVERETT  BOSCAWEN. 

Miss  Theodora  Tessenam  writes  from  San 
Francisco  to  her  brother,  Harold  Tessenam, 
at  Harvard  College. 

June  2d,  1884. 

DEAR  HARRY  : 

I  have  a  curious  story  to  tell  you — one 
that  has  caused  me  some  embarrassment 
I  went  out  to  Berkeley  this  Commencement, 
and  saw  some  of  your  old  High  School  boys 
among  the  students,  and  several  of  my  co- 
temporaries  among  the  younger  alumni. 
Will  Camden,  who  has  been  out  a  year  or 
two  now,  came  and  sat  in  front  of  me  in 
alumni  meeting,  and  turned  round  in  his 
chair  and  chatted  during  the  interstices, 
Camden  always  was  an  enthusiastic  sort  of  a 
fellow,  and  managed  to  get  through  college 
without  learning  to  be  ashamed  to  confess 
enthusiasm  ;  so  pretty  soon  he  began  : 

"  By  the  way,  Miss  Tessenam,  I'm  expect- 
ing a  friend  whom  I'm  very  anxious  to  intro- 
duce to  you.  He's  a  magnificent  fellow ; 
grandest  man  I  ever  knew.  If  I  were  a  few 
years  younger  I  should  get  up  a  perfect  hero- 
worship  for  him.  He's  a  finely  educated  man, 
of  good  family,  still  young,  not  many  years 
older  than  I,  and  has  a  comfortable  property  ; 
yet  he  has  been,  this  last  year,  teaching  a  coun- 
try school  in  my  county,  purely  because  he 
says  he  wanted  to  have  a  hand  in  the  real,  gen- 
uine work  of  civilization.  And,  Miss  Tesse- 
nam, you  can't  think  what  a  power  that  man 
has  been  in  our  neighborhood  !  He  has  made 
our  rough  farmers  and  wild  boys  believe  in 
education,  and,  what  is  more,  in  fineness, 
and  high-mindedness,  and  gentleness.  I  tell 
you,  sir,"  he  exclaimed,  sacrificing  accuracy 
of  address  to  emphasis,  "I  tell  you,  sir,  it 
was  something  fine  to  see  that  man  going 


1885.] 


An  Impossible  Coincidence. 


79 


about  among  us,  so  superior  to  us  all,  and 
yet  so  free  from  airs  of  superiority,  so  high- 
bred, and  yet  so  simple  and  grand.  It  made 
me  ashamed  to  think  how  little  good  my  ed- 
ucation, that  -my  old  father  worked  so  hard 
for,  has  done  to  my  community." 

"  That  is  fine  !  "  I  said  enthusiastically. 
"  I  shall  be  delighted  to  know  him.  What 
is  his  name  ?  " 

"  Boscawen,"  said  he ;  "  Everett  Bosca- 
wen." 

You  are  prepared  for  it,  by  the  connection ; 
but  I  wasn't,  and  I  positively  jumped.  Cam- 
den  had  turned  his  head,  for  a  speaker  was 
beginning,  so  he  didn't  see.  But  wasn't  it  a 
fix,  Harry  !  I  couldn't  meet  the  man,  and  I 
couldn't  confess  to  having  anything  against 
him  by  refusing  to  meet  him. 

A  friend  in  the  gallery  gave  me  an  excuse 
to  leave  my  place  at  the  end  of  the  address. 
I  had  barely  taken  my  seat  in  the  gallery, 
when  I  saw  my  deserted  seat  occupied  by 
him.  Camden  jumped  up  and  greeted  him 
with  rapture.  I  could  not  resist  staring  at 
him  ;  and  I  am  so  unconscionably  far-sight- 
ed that  I  could  see  him  quite  well.  And, 
Harry,  in  spite  of  my  old  grudge  against  him 
— I  had  to  admit  that  his  expression  was  no- 
ble. Something  had  gone  out  of  him — an 
indefinable  something,  too  subtle  to  be  called 
stiffness  or  self-consciousness.  I  should  have 
to  describe  his  air  in  almost  the  same  words 
that  I  should  have  used  before;  but  he 
looked  this  time  as  if  he  ivould  be  willing  to 
makehimself  ridiculous,  if  it  seemed  right  and 
necessary. 

His  face  drew  my  eyes  back  and  back  to 
it.  There  was  something  in  it  that  grew  on 
me :  it  seemed  almost  like  endurance  and 
courage,  the  look  of  a  man  who  has  a  trou- 
ble and  a  purpose  that  has  taken  the  non- 
sense out  of  him. 

Going  out,  just  as  I  hoped  I  had  escaped, 
the  crowd  swept  us  together,  shoulder  to 
shoulder.  He  must  have  seen  me  first,  for 
when  I  discovered  who  was  at  my  elbow,  he 
was  already  gazing  at  me,  with  quite  a  serene 
air.  So  it  was  I  who  blushed  and  looked 
confused.  He  bowed  at  once,  very  nicely — 
pleasantly,  but  not  eagerly;  gravely,  but  not 


severely.     He  didn't  offer  his  hand,  nor  I 
mine. 

"  Good-day,  Miss  Tessenam,"  he  said 
pleasantly.  "I'm  glad  to  meet  you." 

I  suppose  that  was  really  the  best  way — to 
acknowledge  the  broad  general  fact  of  ac- 
quaintance, and  ignore  all  the  details  there- 
of. I  said  "  How  do  you  do,  Mr.  Bosca- 
wen,"and  then  walked  out  dumbly  at  his  side. 
I  was  going  directly  to  the  train,  and  he 
walked  on  down  the  road  beside  me.  I 
asked  about  his  lungs,  and  he  said  they  were 
all  sound  again  ;  and  then  he  talked  about 
the  Commencement,  as  if  we  had  been  pleas- 
ant acquaintances — a  little  gravely,  but  in  a 
very  kindly  way.  You  know  that  I  told  you 
that  of  old  I  should  have  thought  him  al- 
most the  pleasantest  company  I  ever  knew, 
but  for  the  touch  of  snobbishness  and  con- 
descension. There  was  not  a  bit  of  that  now. 
Fancy  Mr.  Everett  Boscawen  commenting 
on  a  California  Commencement  without 
sneer  or  snub  !  He  was  as  friendly  and  ap- 
preciative in  his  criticisms  as  the  best  friends 
of  the  college  could  ask. 

He  stayed  with  me  all  the  way  to  the  boat ; 
there  some  friends  joined  me,  and  he  lifted 
his  hat  and  walked  off. 

I  feel  quite  upset  at  his  reappearance.  I 
had  piously  hoped  he  was  underground.  He 
recalls  a  freak  I  am  considerably  ashamed 
of  now,  and  a  decidedly  mortifying  encoun- 
ter I  had  with  him  before  I  was  through  with 
it.  His  turning  out  so  well  makes  my  be- 
havior look  worse  :  an  ex  post  facto  condem- 
nation of  my  judgment. 

You  know,  Harry,  to  be  really  square,  he 
had  about  as  much  to  complain  of  as  I  did 
in  that  affair.  If  he  had  chosen  to  take  it  so, 
he  might  have  turned  on  me  and  been  very 
justly  indignant  over  having  been  deliberate- 
ly fooled,  instead  of  pocketing  my  letters 
and  going  off  as  meek  as  Moses,  taking  all 
the  blame  to  himself.  For  it  was  a  rowdy 
thing  to  do  in  the  first  place,  to  deliberately 
play  the  game  I  did  on  him  ;  and  it  was  an 
awfully  mean  thing  to  show  him  all  those 
letters.  The  first  one  would  have  fully  suf- 
ficed. But  I  was  angry  enough  at  the  mo- 
ment, and  I  meant  to  trample  on  him.  Af- 


80 


An  Impossible  Coincidence. 


terward,  the  face  he  had  after  reading  them, 
and  when  he  went  away — with  them  in  his 
pocket — kind  o'  worked  on  me. 

He  is  to  be  in  San  Francisco  some  months, 
and  asked  if  he  might  call ;  so  I  shall  have 
to  worry  through  the  embarassment  as  best 
I  can. 

Your  beginning-to-be-penitent  sister, 

THEODORA  TESSENAM. 

November  i5th,  1884. 
MY  DEAR  BOY  : 

You  ask  why  you  hear  no  more  of  Mr. 
Boscawen.  Well,  you  shall  hear  enough 
now  : 

I  have  been  feeling  rather  sore  about  him, 
Harry.  He  has  been,  all  summer  and  fall, 
just  grave  and  pleasant,  and  not  cordial,  till 
my  guilty  conscience  began  to  torment  me 
with  a  suspicion  that  he  must  have  a  very 
bad  opinion  of  me.  (He  had  a  right  to,  in 
all  conscience.)  I  saw  him  quite  often,  and 
I  had  to  admire  him.  All  the  time  he  never 
offered  me  his  hand.  I  liked  him  better  all 
the  time,  and  I  got  fairly  unhappy  over  his 
grave,  distant  manner.  This  evening  he 
called,  but  rose  to  go  quite  early.  I  deter- 
mined to  solve  the  hand  question  ;  so  when 
I  opened  the  door,  I  put  mine  out  quite 
pointedly.  He  took  it  promptly,  and  a  queer 
sort  of  look  went  over  his  face. 

"So  you  will  give  me  your  hand  now, 
Miss  Tessenam  ?  "  he  said  seriously. 

"  Why  not  ?  "  I  said  carelessly. 

"  Once  you  would  not — at  this  very  door." 

"  Once  I  was  very  much  out  of  temper," 
I  said — laughing  at  the  grotesque  situation 
of  that  day,  and  yet  coloring  because  I  was 
ashamed  of  it. 

"  May  I  come  back  and  prolong  my  call  ?  " 

I  cheerfully  took  him  back  to  the  parlor, 
but  panic  was  in  my  heart,  for  that  old  scene 
was  not  a  comfortable  thing  to  talk  over. 
We  were  both  chilled  with  the  few  minutes 
at  the  door,  so  I  drew  a  chair  for  him  before 
the  stove  and  sat  down  .in  another — in  that 
horrid,  shabby  room,  you  know.  He  did 
not  sit  down,  but  stood  with  his  hand  on  the 
back  of  his  chair,  and  he  looked  awfully 
handsome,  and  good,  too. 


"  When  I  went  away,"  he  said,  "  you 
would  not  shake  hands  with  me  because  you 
had  not  enough  respect  for  me.  You  offer- 
ed me  your  hand  just  now.  That  means 
you  have  a  better  opinion  of  me,  now." 

"  I  wouldn't  shake  hands  because  I  was 
angry,"  I  protested,  but  he  thought  he  knew 
best,  and  went  on  as  if  I  hadn't  said  any- 
thing : 

"  When  I  went  away,  I  did  not  ask  your 
pardon  for — insulting  you."  He  brought 
out  the  word  in  a  sort  of  sincere  way  that 
made  me  feel  queer — to  see  him  standing 
there  looking  so  exceedingly  gentlemanly, 
you  know,  and  talking  about  insulting  peo- 
ple. "  I  did  not  ask  it,  because  I  did  not 
see  any  possible  reason  why  you  should  par- 
don me.  May  I  ask  it  now  ?  " 

"  Good  gracious  !  "  I  said,  "  I  brought  it 
on  myself,  Mr.  Boscawen.  And  you  use  too 
strong  words  about  it." 

"  I  ask  your  pardon,"  he  repeated  obstin- 
ately, but  quite  humbly,  too.  "  May  I  not 
have  it  ?  " 

"By  all  means,"  I  said.  "But  we  shall 
have  to  exchange  pardons,  for  you  have  a 
longer  score  against  me." 

He  paid  no  attention.  "  When  I  went 
away,"  he  said,  "  you  would  not  even  let  me 
ask  if  I  might  come  back  some  time.  I 
have  come  without  permission.  You  have 
given  me  your  hand,  and  your  pardon. 
Does  that  mean  that  you  regard  past  scores 
all  wiped  out,  and  that  I  may  begin  new  with 
a  clean  slate?  Does  it  mean,"  he  said,  his 
voice  getting  deeper,  "  that  I  am  free  to  ask 
a  woman  to  marry  me,  as  if  all  that  had 
never  happened  ?" 

I  assure  you,  Harry,  my  heart  went  in  two 
directions  at  once,  for  I  distinctly  felt  it  sink- 
ing down  like  lead,  at  the  same  instant  that 
I  felt  it  in  my  throat.  I  never  had  attached 
the  least  importance  to  the  sentiment  he  had 
talked  that  other  day  ;  but  it  seemed  he 
meant  to  be  fully  released  and  acquitted  of 
it  all,  and  take  a  clean  scutcheon  to  the 
chosen  lady.  And  it  made  me  feel  awfully 
snubbed  and  deserted.  The  fact  was — and 
I  had  had  a  misgiving  of  it  for  some  time — I 
found  I  was  tremendously  in  love  with  him. 


1885.] 


Victor  Hugo. 


81 


I  got  up,  too,  and  put  my  hand  on  the 
back  of  my  chair.  Now  that  I  think  of  it, 
we  must  have  looked  a  little  as  if  we  meant 
to  fling  the  chairs  at  each  other ;  but  I,  at 
least,  felt  like  holding  on  to  something. 
"Surely,  Mr.  Boscawen,"  I  said.  "What 
possible  reason  that  you  should  not  ?  " 

He  turned  and  walked  once  or  twice  across 
the  room,  evidently  very  much  excited ;  then 
he  came  and  stood  in  front  of  me. 

"  Is  it  too  presumptous  in  me,"  he  said, 
" —  is  it  any  use  for  me  now  to  ask  you" — 
well,  in  short — we  became  engaged. 

Now,  mind  you,  Harry,  he  is  the  best  man 
in  the  world,  and  I  would  give  a  good  deal 
if  I  had  never  told  you  a  thing  you  could 
remember  to  the  contrary.  But  who  could 
have  foreseen  ?  Anyway,  all  that  past  stuff 
is  straight  between  him  and  me  now.  I  was 
by  all  odds  the  main  sinner;  but  he — well, 
it's  all  right,  anyway.  And  you  are  to  give 
me  all  sorts  of  joy,  dear  boy,  for  I  am  really 
very  happy  over  it. 

Just  before  he  went  away,  I  said  : 

"  Will  you  give  me  back  my  letters  now, 
Mr.  Boscawen  ? " 


He  smiled  at  me,  and  said,  "  Do  you 
think  their  mission  is  done?  " 

"I  don't  want  you  to  have  them,"  I  said, 
blushing  furiously.  "  Besides,  it's  senti- 
mental— you  meant  it  for  penance." 

"  But  if  I  am  to  be  emancipated  from  the 
fear  of  being  ridiculous,  that  need  not 
frighten  me,"  he  said,  laughing.  But  he  took 
them,  after  awhile,  out  of  his  inside  pocket, 
where  he  said  he  always  kept  them.  They 
looked  well-worn,  and  it  made  me  tingle  to 
think  of  his  reading  them  over.  In  fact,  to 
be  frank,  it  made  me  cry.  I  burned  up 
every  shred  of  them,  and  said: 

"  I'll  write  you  some  better  ones." 

"  Perhaps  not  truer  ones,"  he  said. 

"  A  great  deal  truer,"  said  I.  And  then 
he  went  away,  and  after  a  little  I  came  and 
wrote  all  this  to  you,  and  now  I  must 
stop. 

There's  one  thing,  Harry:  if  I  could  see 
all  that  he  wrote  about  me  to  his  cousin  (he 
admits  that  he  wrote  to  a  cousin)  perhaps  I 
should  find  that  we  were  pretty  near  square, 
after  all.  Always  your  loving  sister, 

THEODORA  TESSENAM. 


VICTOR  HUGO. 


"  Et  peut-etre  en  ta  terre  ou  brill e  I'esperance, 

Pur  flambeau, 

Pour  prix  de  man  exil,  tu  nt'accorderas,  France, 
Un  tombeati." 

"AND  perhaps  in  thy  land  where  hope 
shines,  a  pure  torch,  for  price  of  my  exile 
thou  wilt  grant  me,  France,  a  grave."  This 
is  the  last  stanza  of  a  poem  that  Victor 
Hugo  wrote  in  Brussels,  on  the  3ist  of 
August,  1870,  at  which  date  he  returned  to 
France,  after  an  exile  of  eighteen  years.  On 
Monday,  June  8th,  1885,  France  accom- 
plished the  wish  of  her  Poet,  by  opening  to 
him  the  Pantheon,  as  his  last  resting-place, 
whither  he  was  attended  by  a  mourning  pro- 
cession of  more  than  one  million  people,  from 
all  parts  of  France  and  the  civilized  world. 

Literature,  like  science,  has  its  common- 
place formulas   of  inquiry.     Any  one  who 
VOL.  VI.— 6. 


begins  to  speak  of  a  celebrated  man  is 
immediately  addressed  with  such  introduc- 
tory questions  as  these :  Did  you  see  him  ? 
Did  you  know  him?  What  are  your  impres- 
sions of  him  ?  Though  I  have  seen  Victor 
Hugo,  I  must  acknowledge  that  my  impres- 
sions of  him,  at  least,  from  having  met  him, 
are  quite  inconsiderable.  '  Victor  Hugo  was 
not  a  great  talker,  except  with  intimate 
friends,  and  he  gave  to  reporters  no  favor- 
able audience.  "To  the  public,"  he  used 
to  say,  "  I  give  my  ideas,  not  myself."  I 
remember  only  one  circumstance  worth  men- 
tion. It  was  in  1873  or  1874,  in  a  large 
company  of  gentlemen,  few  ladies  being 
present,  that  conversation  glanced  upon  the 
great  subject  of  a  future  life.  Victor  Schoel- 
cher,  who  has  since  taken  a  prominent  part 
in  French  politics,  observed  : 


82 


Victor  Hugo. 


[July, 


"  Some  persons  pretend  to  feel  in  their 
souls  an  irresistible  longing  for  another  life, 
from  which,  as  from  a  reliable  promise,  they 
infer  such  a  life  to  be  a  reality.  I  do  not 
feel  anything  of  the  kind,  and  am  perfectly 
satisfied  with  this  lower  world." 

"  My  friend,"  Victor  Hugo  answered,  "  I 
believe  you  ;  but  do  you  not  know  that  there 
are  different  kinds  of  worms?  Some  of 
them  are  silk-worms,  and  spend  their  terres- 
trial life  in  weaving  a  cocoon,  from  which 
silken  grave  they  emerge  transformed  into 
brilliant  butterflies;  while  common  worms 
— Well,  you  are  satisfied  with  creeping  on  the 
earth ;  I  am  not,  and  I  weave  my  cocoon. 
Let,  then,  everybody  be  served  according  to 
his  own  wishes,  and  with  reference  to  the 
fact  of  his  having  spun  a  cocoon  or  not." 

These  few  words,  which  I  gather  from  a 
remembrance  eleven  or  twelve  years  old,  are 
not  certainly  very  remarkable.  But  these 
and  many  other  ideas  on  the  same  subject 
were  expressed  with  a  gentle,  delicate  irony 
hardly  to  be  expected  from  the  Poet  of 
Chatiments.  On  that  occasion  I  think  I 
had  my  first  real  glimpse  of  the  man  who  was 
to  teach  L'art  d  'etre  Grand-fere. 

But  no  casual  allusions  of  this  kind  can 
teach  to  us  Victor  Hugo  in  the  fullness  of  his 
genius.  This  literary  Titan  has  just  left  ten 
volumes  of  manuscripts,  after  giving  to  the 
world  during  his  life  so  many  celebrated 
novels,  political  speeches,  and  volumes  of 
literary  and  philosophical  miscellany.  Of 
far  greater  worth  than  his  prose  are  his  poetic 
lines,  more  than  one  hundred  thousand  in 
number,  very  few  of  which  are  destined  to 
be  erased  by  Time.  He  never  wrote  a  line 
for  money  or  other  unworthy  purpose.  He 
was  thus  more  fortunate  than  Alexandre 
Dumas  pere,  from  whom  his  creditors  ex- 
torted so  much  that  is  unworthy  of  him. 
Lamartine  also,  like  Dumas  p&re,  after  wast- 
ing several  fortunes,  was  reduced  to  deal  in 
watered  prose,  and  "  to  change  his  lyre  into 
a  tire-lire  "  (money-box). 

This  will  not  be  a  regular  criticism.  My 
only  wish  is  to  make  Victor  Hugo  under- 
stood, and  to  increase  the  desire  of  my  read- 
ers to  read  our  poet  in  his  own  language 


rather  than  in  translations  —  "  Traduttore, 
Traditore." 

Victor  Hugo  was  an  enfant  prodige,  one 
of  those  wonderful  children,  most  of  whom 
become  mere  failures,  as  if  Nature  had 
not  the  power  to  fulfil  an  extravagant 
promise.  Yet  Nature  sometimes  surpasses 
herself  to  honor  human-kind  with  a  Pascal. 
When  twelve  years  old,  without  teachers  or 
books,  Pascal  discovered  by  himself  the  first 
elements  of  geometry.  At  the  age  of  fifteen 
he  ranked  among  the  first  mathematicians 
of  his  age,  and  died  at  thirty-seven,  killed 
mentally  and  bodily  by  thought,  and  leaving 
a  literary,  philosophical,  and  scientific  work 
which  Chateaubriand  pronounced  to  be  that 
of  an  awful  genius.  Victor  Hugo,  also,  be- 
fore his  sixteenth  year,  wrote  a  very  remark- 
able poem,  the  most  remarkable  written  on 
a  subject  proposed  by  the  French  Academy 
in  the  year  18-16.  It  was  his  wish  from  that 
time  to  be  a  Chateaubriand  or  nobody.  He 
composed,  while  still  a  school-boy,  and  be- 
tween two  games  of  prisoner's  base,  a  novel 
entitled  "  Bug-Jargal,"  worthy  of  a  place  in 
the  collection  of  his  books.  At  his  gradu- 
ation, at  the  age  of  sixteen  years,  he  re- 
ceived three  medals  from  the  Academic  des 
Jeux  Floraux  of  Toulouse.  The  President 
of  the  Academy,  -M.  Alex.  Soumet,  himself 
a  distinguished  poet,  addressed  to  Victor 
Hugo  the  following  letter  : 

"  Since  we  have  received  your  poems,  everyone 
speaks  only  of  your  beautiful  talent  and  of  the  great 
hopes  which  you  give  to  our  literature.  If  the  Academy 
coincide  with  my  opinion,  there  will  not  be  crowns 
enough  to  reward  the  merits  of  the  two  brothers 
[Victor  Hugo  and  his  brother  Eugene].  Your  seven- 
teen years  find  with  us  only  admirers,  I  should  say 
skeptics.  You  are  to  us  an  enigma,  which  the  Muses 
alone  are  able  to  solve." 

This  enfant  sublime — as  Chateaubriand, 
who  then  dominated  French  literature,  called 
him — began,  as  early  as  1820,  when  eighteen 
years  old,  to  issue  those  immortal  Odes 
which  are  still  considered  his  best  work  by 
some  critics.  The  resemblance  between 
Hugo  and  Pascal  happily  stopped  at  the 
limits  of  youth.  Our  poet  was  made  strong 
enough  to  bear,  uninjured  and  to  old  age, 
the  weight  of  his  genius.  He  became  greater 


1885.] 


Victor  Hugo. 


83 


every  year,  and  advanced  farther  toward  the 
summit  of  fame,  keeping  to  the  last  all  the 
resources  of  his  mind.  His  brother  Eugene, 
on  the  contrary,  his  rival  in  the  Academy  of 
Toulouse,  had  hardly  arrived  at  his  twen- 
tieth year,  when  he  was  confined  in  zmaison 
de  sante,  where  he  soon  died,  having  never 
recovered  his  reason. 

From  the  influence  of  his  mother,  a  de- 
cided partisan  of  the  educational  system  sup- 
ported by  Rousseau,  and  also  from  circum- 
stances that  carried  him,  still  a  child,  suc- 
cessively throughout  Italy,  France,  and  Spain, 
Victor  Hugo's  education  was  of  a  rather  pe- 
culiar sort.  At  eight  years  of  age  he  was 
reading  Tacitus  with  General  Lahorie,  an  old 
soldier,  probably  more  familiar  with  battle- 
fields than  classics.  In  his  tenth  year  he 
studied  Spanish,  and  went  to  Madrid,  where 
his  father,  General  Hugo,  had  gained  a  high 
position.  Here  he  entered  a  Spanish  school 
and  the  following  year,  1812,  returned  to 
Paris,  with  no  increase  of  classical  knowl- 
edge, I  should  say,  but  with  his  imagination 
full  of  the  brilliant  sunlight,  the  picturesque 
mountains,  the  strange  palaces  and  churches, 
the  original  pictures,  the  barbarous  supersti- 
tions, and  the  heroism  of  Spain.  All  of  these 
impressions  were  forever  engraved  upon  his 
extraordinary  mental  and  visual  memory. 
Classics  were  then  begun  again,  but  the 
school-room  was  a  garden.  According  to 
Madame  Hugo's  ideas,  Nature  was  the  book 
to  read  first  of  all,  and  plants  and  children 
can  develop  harmoniously  only  in  perfect 
freedom. 

As  to  religious  matters,  Victor  and  his 
brothers  never  had  any  connection  with  any 
church,  and  received  no  Christian  instruc- 
tion. They  never  went  to  a  Catholic  or 
Protestant  place  of  worship.  They  were  al- 
lowed to  read  any  kind  of  books,  good  or 
bad,  moral  or  immoral,  being  let  loose  in  the 
library,  as  in  the  garden,  with  perfect  freedom 
and  no  more  suggestions  than  prohibitions. 
Rousseau,  Voltaire,  Diderot,  prose  and 
poetry,  historical  and  philosophical  writings 
— all  the  works  of  the  eighteenth  century 
went  through  their  young  brains.  There 
was  never  anything  more  the  reverse  of 


common  rules  than  Victor  Hugo's  educa- 
tion. 

I  really  doubt  if  he  was  much  of  a  Latin 
scholar,  or  able  to  write  good  Latin  prose. 
Yet  he  seems  at  the  early  age  of  twelve 
years  to  have  been  reading  at  sight  most  of 
the  authors  of  a  collegiate  course. 

As  General  Hugo  did  not  at  all  share  the 
ideas  of  his  wife  in  educational  matters,  he 
desired  Victor,  when  thirteen  years  old,  l£> 
enter  a  school  preparatory  to  the  celebrated 
Ecole  Polytechnique,  but  it  was  too  late  for 
a  change.  Instead  of  solving  equations  or 
studying  geometrical  theorems,  the  free  pu- 
pil, after  Jean  Jacques  Rousseau,  began  to 
write  verses — his  first  verses  with  no  rhyme 
nor  rhythm,  no  caesura,  it  is  true,  for  he  was 
never  taught  anything  by  anybody.  He 
would  read  to  himself  his  queer  lines,  chang- 
ing again  and  again  as  long  as  his  ear  might 
feel  offended,  until  he  happened  to  strike  the 
right  words  and  measure.  And  so,  through 
a  succession  of  attempts,  burning  sheet  after 
sheet,  and  yet  recommencing  new  ones,  this 
literary  Robinson  Crusoe  learned  by  himself 
the  technical  part  of  versification.  He  was 
thus  prepared  to  become  the  great  reformer 
of  the  French  rhythm  and  metre,  as  he  was 
to  accomplish,  perhaps  from  his  very  lack  of 
regular  classical  studies,  that  still  greater  re- 
form of  our  literature,  historically  known  as 
Romantisme.  No  wonder  that  such  a  man, 
accustomed  as  he  had  been  since  his  early 
childhood  to  trust  but  himself  and  admit  no 
other  guide  than  his  own  judgment,  and  gift- 
ed with  so  powerful  a  genius,  should  reject 
so  much  of  the  past,  and  create  in  his  coun- 
try nothing  less  than  a  new  literature. 

Immediately  after  the  publication  of  his 
first  volume  of  lyric  poems,  Victor  Hugo 
took  place  in  the  literary  world  by  the  side 
of  Lamartine,  but  did  not  as  yet  appear  the 
man  he  was  to  be.  Scarcely  can  we  trace  in 
these  early  productions  some  faint  marks  of 
the  thinker,  fewer  still  of  the  patriot  who 
afterwards,  either  from  research  or  the  per- 
spicacity of  devotion,  understood  so  clearly 
and  so  extensively  the  historical  destinies  of 
France.  No  traces  whatever  are  revealed 
to  us  of  the  seer  who  will  write  years  after 


84 


Victor  Hugo. 


the  Legendes  des  Siecles.  A  remarkable 
poet,  without  doubt,  he  sings  with  harmoni- 
ous voice ;  but  in  that  singing  there  is  too 
little  of  his  own  personality  and  too  much  of 
his  mother's. 

She  was  one  of  those  strange,  though  fre- 
quent, combinations  of  a  royalist  "Ven- 
de"enne,"  and  an  infidel  disciple  of  Voltaire. 
Her  early  influence  must  have  been  present 
tp  her  son's  mind,  when,  forty  years  after,  he 
describes,  in  "  Les  Miserables,"  the  charac- 
ter of  the  grandfather  of  Marius.  General 
Hugo,  who  differed  widely  from  his  wife  in 
political  opinions,  used  to  say  about  Victor's 
excessive  royalism :  "Let  it  go;  children  think 
with  their  mother  and  men  with  their  father." 

In  fact,  a  change  had  already  begun  in 
his  religious,  if  not  in  his  political,  views. 
After  reading  Chauteaubriand's  Atala  and 
Genie  du  Christianisme,  young  Hugo  had 
renounced  Voltaire's  sterile  negations,  with 
the  materialistic  doctrines  of  the  eighteenth 
century.  By  degrees,  Roman  Catholic  be- 
liefs, blended  with  admiration  of  old  cathe- 
drals and  of  grand  Biblical  metaphors,  took 
possession  of  this  poetical  mind,  and  effected 
a  primary  and  important  change,  which  has 
apparently  been  too  much  overlooked  by 
critics,  although  it  merits  their  full  attention. 
Do  not  imagine  him  a  semi-convert  merely, 
for  he  went  so  far  as  to  adopt  a  regular  con- 
fessor. The  man  of  his  choice  was  the  cel- 
ebrated Abbe  de  Lamennais,  a  deep  thinker, 
and  a  writer  of  the  first  order.  It  would  be 
interesting  to  know  to  what  extent  the  peni- 
tent was  morally  influenced  by  the  confessor, 
who  was  a  Breton,  as  Hugo  was  himself  on 
his  mother's  side ;  how  long  Hugo  went  to 
confession  and  complied  with  Catholic  rules. 
It  is  certain  that  the  association  lasted  long, 
and  that  both  the  confessor  and  the  penitent 
sustained  publicly  for  many  years  the  most 
intimate  relations.  More  recently,  in  1832, 
after  the  Roman  court  had  pronounced  his 
expulsion  from  the  Church  for  liberalism, 
Lamennais  lapsed  into  pantheism,  while 
Hugo,  who  had  abandoned  confession  and 
church  several  years  before,  retained  to  his 
last  days  the  essential  principle  of  Christian- 
ity, viz.,  a  firm  belief  in  God  and  in  immor- 


tality. This  belief,  with  the  desire  of  politi- 
cal freedom,  inspired  all  his  poetry,  and  he 
never  ceases  speaking  of  the  grave  as  Her- 
nani  speaks  of  it : 

"  C'est  un  prolongement  sublime  que  la  tombe, 

On  y  monte,  etonne  d'avoir  cru  qu'ony  tombe." 
"How  sublime  a  continuation  is  the  grave! 
we  rise  thither,  amazed  to  have  believed  we 
should  descend." 

In  1874,  at  the  tomb  of  Madame  Paul 
Meurice,  he  solemnly  professed  adherence 
to  his  faith,  before  an  audience  composed 
almost  exclusively  of  atheists  : 

"  Death  is  a  second  entrance  into  more 
light.  May  the  eternal  mind  welcome  the 
immortal  one  in  the  abode  on  high  !  Life 
is  the  great  problem,  and  death  its  solution. 
The  grave  is  not  empty  darkness,  but  a  pas- 
sage to  boundless  splendor.  When  a  man, 
so  to  speak,  does  not  exist  any  more  here 
below "  (he  was  seventy-two  years  old), 
"  and  all  his  ambitions  culminate  in  death, 
he  has  a  right  to  hail,  far  away  in  the  infinite, 
across  the  sublime  and  awful  glare  of  the 
sepulchre,  this  immense  sun — God  ! " 

Many  persons  mistake  Victor  Hugo  for 
an  atheist,  on  the  ground  of  his  hatred 
against  the  Roman  priesthood.  But  the  dis- 
tinction between  two  things  so  widely  differ- 
ent, he  himself  made  on  another  occasion, 
again  speaking  over  a  grave,  that  of  a  com- 
panion of  his  exile  :  "  Men  of  democracy 
know  the  human  soul  to  have  a  double  des- 
tiny, and  their  self  abnegation  in  this  life 
shows  their  deep-rooted  hopes  in  another, 
.  .  .  Our  faith  in  this  grand  and  mysterious 
future  can  support  even  such  a  heart-rending 
spectacle  as  is  exhibited  by  the  Catholic 
priesthood,  who  enslaved  themselves  to  the 
man  of  December  [Napoleon  in].  Popery, 
in  this  very  moment,  does  terrify  human 
conscience.  .  .  .  Those  priests,  who,  for 
money,  palaces,  mitres,  and  crooks,  do  bless 
and  exalt  perjury,  murder,  and  treason ; 
those  temples  resounding  with  hymns,  in 
honor  of  Crime  elevated  to  a  throne — those 
temples,  I  say,  those  priests,  might  ruin  the 
most  firm  convictions,  the  most  profound 
ones,  if  we  did  not  see,  far  above  the  Church, 
heaven,  and  far  above  the  priest,  God." 


1885.] 


Victor  Hugo. 


85 


So  it  must  be  understood  that  the  hatred 
of  Victor  Hugo  against  the  Roman  church 
is  political,  not  religious.  If  he  assailed 
priests,  as  he  did  magistrates  and  the  army, 
it  was  only  because  they  played  an  active 
part  in  the  Coup  d'Etat. 

His  contempt  of  bourgeois  or  of  peasants 
was  solely  due  to  their  approval  of  a  sover- 
eignty which  represented  to  his  eyes  all 
shame,  ignorance,  and  immorality.  Nobody, 
indeed,  was  spared  by  his  poetical  indigna- 
tion, not  even  the  City  of  Paris,  the  greatest 
pride  of  his  life.  On  a  certain  night  of  Septem- 
ber, 1855,  from  his  rock  of  Jersey,  while  gazing 
on  the  light-house  of  St.  Malo,  face  to  face 
with  France,  he  composed  an  eloquent  ap- 
peal .to  the  people  of  Paris:  "A  ceux  qui 
dorment " — "  To  those  that  sleep  " ;  conclud- 
ing: 

"Si  dans  ce  cloaque  on  demeure, 
Si   cela  dure  encore  un  jour, 
Si  cela  dure  encore  une  heure, 
Je  brise  clairon  et  tambour, 
Je  fletris  ces  pusillanimes  ; 
O  vieux  peuple  des  jours  sublimes, 
Geants,  a  qui  nous  les  melions, 
Je  les  laisse  trembler  leurs  fievres, 
Et  je  declare  que  ces  lievres, 
Ne  sont  pas  vos  fils,  6  lions  !  " 

The  "Coup  d'Etat"  was  a  turning  point 
in  the  life  of  Victor  Hugo  :  "  Be  ye  cursed," 
he  exclaims  :  "  D'emplir  de  haine  un  cosur 
quideborde  d1  amour!" — "  for  filling  with  hate 
a  heart  that  overflows  with  love."  Until  the 
2d  of  December,  1851  — fatal  date — not  a 
line,  not  a  single  word,  was  ever  uttered  or 
written  by  him  hostile  to  religion  or  to  priests. 
Even  since  that  epoch,  did  he  hear  of  a  priest 
who  had  sealed  his  devotion  to  the  gospel  by 
his  blood,  Hugo  would  celebrate  the  mar- 
tyr with  a  vehemence  of  admiration,  unsur- 
passed by  the  energy  of  his  bursts  of  indig- 
nation. Thus,  number  eight,  first  book,  Les 
Chaliments : 

"  O,  saint  pretre  !  grande  ame  !  Oh  !  je  tombe  a  ge- 
noux,"  etc. 

In  1870,  after  the  fall  of  Napoleon,  if  the 
French  church  had  joined  with  republican 
France,  instead  of  losing  their  popularity  in 
foolish  attempts  for  an  impossible  restora- 
tion, without  doubt  Victor  Hugo  could  have 


been  thoroughly  reconciled  to  the  church, 
and,  perhaps,  as  his  death  approached,  if 
not  seen  kneeling  as  formerly  with  Lamen- 
nais,  he  would  have  been  heard  conversing 
"  with  Monseigneur  Bienvenu,"  of  the  great 
future. 

In  the  days  of  the  Coup  d'Etat  and  of 
his  subsequent  exile,  began  the  period  of  the 
full  development  and  grandest  works  of  our 
greatest  poet. 

"  What  shall  we  do  ?  "  he  asked  his  sons 
Charles  and  F.  V.  Hugo,  on  their  leaving 
France  for  Jersey. 

"  I  will  translate  Shakspere,"  was  F.  V.'s 
answer.  (This  he  did,  and  gave  us  our  best 
translation  of  the  greatest  poet  of  England.) 

"  As  for  me,"  said  Hugo,  "  I  will  gaze  on 
the  ocean " ;  and  the  ocean,  in  its  turn, 
seemed  to  reflect  itself  in  his  poetry  in  deep 
and  boundless  metaphors. 

From  that  moment,  also,  he  is  no  more  an 
artist,  in  exclusive  pursuit  of  "art  for  art's 
sake."  The  social  and  political  future  of 
France  and  of  all  nations  will  absorb  him  so 
entirely  that  it  would  be  senseless  to  draw  in 
his  works  a  dividing  line  between  politics  and 
poetry.  It  does  not  matter  whether  you  call 
his  verses  poetical  politics,  or  political  poetry. 
The  two  elements  can  no  more  be  separated 
than  mind  and  body  in  human  nature,  and 
form  a  whole  in  which  the  style  derives  all 
its  beauty  from  political  and  philosophical 
inspiration.  Victor  Hugo  is  the  man  who, 
face  to  face  with  the  empire,  almost  alone, 
during  eighteen  years,  with  his  avenging 
verse  and  inexorable  prose,  fought  and  final- 
ly overthrew  that  other  man,  Napoleon,  who 
had  stolen  France,  conquered  Russia,  form- 
ed alliance  with  England,  weakened  Austria, 
liberated  Italy,  and  for  a  score  of  years  daz- 
zled Europe  and  America.  Victor  Hugo  is 
that  poet,  or  he  is  of  no  worth  at  all  in  liter- 
ature and  politics. 

There  are  several  kinds  of  persons  devoted 
to  politics.  The  most  common,  though  not 
the  highest  in  rank,  are  the  politicians  of 
their  time  and  of  their  country,  absorbed 
entirely  with  present  issues  and  national  in- 
terests, and  even  when  endowed  with  gen- 
ius, thoroughly  unconscious  of  the  ultimate 


86 


Victor  Hugo. 


[July, 


solution  of  the  problem  whose  factors  they 
are  combining.  Has  the  great  German 
statesman  ever  looked  beyond  the  interests 
of  his  country  or  his  caste  ?  He  has  suc- 
ceeded marvelously  well,  and  nowadays 
Germany  is  ruled  according  to  the  most  aris- 
tocratic and  despotic  principles.  She  is  a 
formidable  military  power,  and  the  greatest 
obstacle  to  universal  peace  that  has  ever  ex- 
isted So  was  France  in  the  hands  of  Rich- 
elieu (I  do  not  speak  of  Napoleon  i. — a 
passing  hurricane.)  Richelieu  was  followed 
by  Madame  de  Maintenon  and  Madame  de 
Pompadour,  and  his  work  went  to  pieces. 
So  will  it  be  with  Bismarck's — dura  /ex,  sed 
lex.  Above  the  politicians  we  place  the 
thinkers,  either  philosophers  or  poets,  mere 
dreamers  in  the  judgment  of  many,  who  de- 
vote their  efforts  to  the  advancement  of  man- 
kind, and  for  whom  civilization  rests  upon 
moral  foundations.  There  is  also  a  scien- 
tific school,  whose  most  illustrious  represen- 
tative is  Herbert  Spencer,  but  this  school 
seems  to  incline  toward  materialistic  con- 
ceptions. 

Victor  Hugo  is  assuredly  not  a  politician 
of  the  order  of  Bismarck  or  Richelieu  ;  never 
did  he  seek  the  reputation  of  a  practical  man, 
nor  take  place  in  a  cabinet.  He  desired  to 
be  a  depute  or  senateur,  only  to  ascend  the 
tribune,  and  thus  gain  a  higher  ground  of 
vantage  for  his  ideal.  No  more  is  he  a  sci- 
entist. 

"Le  penseur  est  croyant,  le  savant  est  athee." 
"The  thinker  is  a  believer,  the  scientist  is 
an  atheist." 

"  I  know,"  he  said,  "that  philosophers  ad- 
vance rapidly,  while  statesmen  advance  slow- 
ly; the  latter,  nevertheless,  must  in  the  end 
join  the  former.  If  a  timely  union  is  effect- 
ed, progress  is  established  and  revolutions 
are  avoided.  But  if  this  cooperation  is  too 
long  delayed,  then  danger  arises.  It  is  ur- 
gent that  legislators  consult  with  thinkers, 
that  politicians,  so  often  superficial,  take  into 
account  the  profound  meditations  of  writers, 
and  that  those  who  make  laws,  obey  those 
who  make  morals." 

His  voice,  the  voice  of  the  people,  a  sing- 
ing voice,  like  the  chorus  of  ancient  tragedy, 


while  denouncing  abuses,  requests  and  sum- 
mons statesmen  to  find  and  apply  practical 
remedies. 

Justice  and  truth,  that  is  to  say,  anything 
just  and  true,  must,  sooner  or  later,  arrive  at 
actual  embodiment.  Such  is  the  fundamen- 
tal dogma  of  his  political  creed,  and  the  su- 
preme rule  for  the  solution  of  international 
as  well  as  social  problems.  "  We  shall  have 
the  United  States  of  Europe  supervening 
upon  the  old  world,  as  the  new  one  has  cul- 
minated in  those  great  United  States  of 
America.  ...  To  unite  all  European  na- 
tions into  a  large  family,  to  liberate  commerce 
impeded  by  frontiers,  and  industry  paralyzed 
by  prohibitions,  to  emancipate  labor  enslaved 
by  luxury,  land  crushed  by  taxes,  thought  si- 
lenced by  despotism,  conscience  fettered  by 
dogma." 

We  see  from  these  citations  what  are  some 
of  those  objects  that  he  had  in  view  in  call- 
ing into  existence  true  and  just  principles  of 
action.  A  firm  idealist,  he  constantly  op- 
posed the  doctrines  of  those  writers  to  whom 
men  are  mere  bodies,  and  whose  politics 
concentrates  in  the  development  of  wealth, 
without  moral,  artistic,  or  intellectual  aims. 

When  Darwin's  conception  is  applied  to 
public  and  international  relations,  how  cruel 
and  unnatural  it  appears,  as  compared  with 
so  great  an  Ideal !  Struggle  for  life,  survival 
of  the  fittest,  every  one  for  himself,  indul- 
ging all  selfish  instincts,  and  constructing  his 
own  happiness  from  the  unhappiness  of  oth- 
ers— these  are  the  Darwinistic  substitutes  for 
justice  and  truth.  Such  principles  are  based 
upon  real  facts,  perhaps,  but  are  more  suit- 
able to  lower  animals  or  to  savages  than  to 
civilized  and  Christian  nations.  Cholera, 
also,  is  a  reality;  so  is  famine,  as  well  as  the 
barbarity  of  the  Middle  Ages.  If  those 
scourges  have  already  measurably  disappear- 
ed, why  in  like  manner  should  not  other 
obstructive  realities  disappear,  which  are 
equally  unacceptable  to  enlightened  minds? 
All  inferior  races,  it  is  asserted,  shall  die  to 
make  room  for  a  superior  race:  or,  as  Bis- 
marck cynically  says,  "  Force  is  prior  to 
law."  In  opposition  to  such  maxims,  Victor 
Hugo  believed  in  an  endless  perfectibility 


1885.] 


Victor  Hugo. 


87 


of  all  grades  of  human-kind,  not  of  the  high- 
est only.  All  races  must  perpetuate  and  de- 
velop themselves  by  education,  because  each 
race  represents  a  special  department  of  hu- 
man nature,  and,  to  obtain  its  full  evolution 
and  perfect  development,  not  one  of  its  ele- 
ments, or  its  special  capacity,  or  its  individ- 
ual energy,  can  be  disregarded  with  impun- 
ity. It  is  not  sufficient,  in  his  eyes,  to 
multiply  rich  merchants  or  clever  manufac- 
turers, to  build  numberless  miles  of  railroads, 
to  construct  telegraphs,  telephones,  electric 
candles,  and  to  secure  the  endless  parapher- 
nalia of  luxury:  art,  literature,  poetry,  men- 
tal and  scientific  speculations,  appear  to  him 
more  necessary  to  civilization.  Fraternity, 
far  from  being  an  empty  word,  is  the  embod- 
iment of  a  real  law,  and  moral  progress  pre- 
cedes and  does  not  follow  material  progress. 

"  Chimeras,"  the  wise  will  say,  "  mere  chi- 
meras. l£ah  !  Le  Poete,  il  est  dans  les  nuages' 
— the  poet,  he  is  in  the  clouds.  Look  upon 
America;  there,  as  the  Caucasian,  not  to 
say  the  Saxon,  advances,  the  Indian  race  is 
gradually  retreating  toward  complete  extinc- 
tion." 

This  cannot  be  denied,  and  we  can  reckon 
upon  the  eventual  disappearance  of  the  few 
hundred  thousand  Indians  who  formerly 
peopled  the  vast  solitudes  of  North  America. 
But,  on  the  other  hand,  can  any  one,  un- 
less he  has  lost  the  last  vestige  of  common 
sense,  admit  for  one  moment,  from  the  phe- 
nomenon of  Indian  decay,  a  world-wide  gen- 
eralization that  inferior  races  succumb  before 
the  higher,  according  to  the  doctrines  of 
Darwin  ?  Consider  other  races  vastly  more 
numerous  and  tenacious,  and  so  extensively 
prolific,  in  spite  of  their  supposed  inferiority. 
Turn  to  China  or  to  India.  Count  their  in- 
habitants. Regard,  also,  the  Irish  Celts,  so 
despised  by  Saxons  and  Germans,  the  Celt- 
Latins  of  France  and  of  Southern  Europe, 
the  Slavonians,  who  spread  all  over  the  east 
and  the  north,  as  well  as  the  Spanish  half- 
breeds  extending  from  Mexico  to  Cape 
Horn.  Can  any  one  really  believe  in  their 
coming  disappearance  before  an  advancing 
superior  race  ?  If  the  survival  of  the  fittest, 
as  understood  by  many,  is  a  law  of  human 


life,  we  should  expect  a  Chinafication  of  the 
world.  Such  must  be  the  conclusion  after 
a  serious  consideration  of  the  facts. 

But,  after  all,  is  not  Victor  Hugo  of  the 
same  school  as  Darwinistic  philosophers  ? 
Does  he  not  attribute  to  Latins,  and,  first  of 
all,  to  the  French,  this  same  superiority, 
which  he  refuses  to  recognize  among  Ger- 
mans or  Saxons?  No  one  who  reads  his 
works  carefully  will  come  to  such  a  conclu- 
sion. Victor  Hugo  had  too  broad  a  mind 
to  adopt  so  narrow  views  of  human  destiny. 
Certainly,  he  loved  France  more  than  any 
other  country  in  the  world,  and  frequently 
dwells  with  some  complacency  upon  her 
leading  role  in  the  advancement  of  modern 
civilization.  But  Germans,  as  all  men  know, 
contemplate  very  generally  the  future  Ger- 
manization  of  the  world ;  and  Englishmen, 
gazing  on  their  vast  Empire,  draw  similar 
inferences  for  their  own  tongue,  as  if  their 
language  were  already  spoken  from  one  pole 
to  the  other — in  Africa,  from  the  Cape  of 
Good  Hope  to  Alexandria,  throughout  the 
Soudan  and  Congo;  in  Asia,  from  India 
through  Afghanistan  to  Constantinople  ;  and 
in  America,  from  the  extreme  north  to  Cape 
Horn.  Victor  Hugo  never  indulged  such 
extravagant  dreams,  or  thought  of  Frenchi- 
fying our  planet.  "  Will  there  be  several 
languages  in  the  thirtieth  century  of  our 
era?  and  if  but  one  language,  which  one  ?  " — 
he  neither  proposes  nor  answers  such  a 
question.  There  is  an  English,  a  German, 
and  a  French  civilization,  and  their  concur- 
rence is  to  produce  a  result  greater  than 
its  elementary  components  :  United-Civiliza- 
tions and  United-States,  nothing  more. 

Whenever  Victor  Hugo  speaks  of  Ameri- 
ca, he  sees  her  as  a  great  example  set  to 
Europe.  In  an  address  to  the  Parisian  del: 
egates  who  were  sent  to  the  Philadelphia  ex- 
hibition, he  said  :  "  The  future  of  the  world 
is  clear  from  this  moment,  and  you  are  to 
outline  this  superb  reality,  which  another 
century  will  fulfil,  the  embrace  of  the  United 
States  of  America  by  the  United  States  of 
Europe." 

The  obstacles  which  oppose  his  hope,  the 
Americanization  of  Europe,  do  not  escape 


Victor  Hugo. 


his  eyes  :  "  In  the  middle  of  the  continent, 
Germany  stands  armed  to  the  teeth,  an  un- 
ceasing threat  to  peace,  the  last  effort  of  the 
mediaeval  spirit.  Everything  that  was  done 
(1870)  must  be  undone.  Between  the  great 
future  and  us  there  is  a  fatal  obstacle.  Peace 
is  perceptible  only  after  a  collision  and  an 
inexorable  struggle.  Alas  !  Whatever  the 
future  may  promise,  the  present  has  no  re- 
alization of  peace." 

If  we  compare,  for  instance,  Europe  in 
the  eleventh  century  with  America  in  the 
nineteenth,  and  realize  what  an  immense 
distance  extends  between  them,  and  how 
easily  that  distance  has  been  traversed  and 
overcome,  we  may  clearly  understand  that 
none  of  the  expectations  of  Victor  Hugo  are 
impossible,  or  even  to  be  relegated  to  a  dis- 
tant future.  Undoubtedly,  European  na- 
tions are  widely  separated  by  differences  of 
race  and  religion.  But  America,  with  so 
many  different  sects — Catholics,  and  Protes- 
tants of  all  denominations,  with  such  various 
nationalities,  Saxons,  Germans,  Celts,  Lat- 
ins, and  even  negroes  multiplying  in  the 
Southern  States  to  an  almost  alarming  ex- 
tent— America,  I  say,  shows  such  difficulties 
not  to  be  insurmountable.  The  barrier 
raised  by  diversity  of  language,  which  does 
not  exist  on  this  side  of  the  Atlantic,  is  be- 
coming every  moment  less  formidable.  The 
time  is  near  when  the  culture  of  modern 
languages,  taking  possession  of  all  the  ground 
.  lost  by  the  Greek  and  the  Latin,  will  pro- 
duce a  mutual  interpretation  of  ideas  and 
sentiments,  and  demolish  those  walls  of  pre- 
judice so  carefully  maintained  by  conceit  and 
narrow  mindedness.  Why,  then,  shall  we 
draw  a  line  between  the  new  and  the  old 
world,  and  say :  "  Freedom  and  justice  on 
this  side,  despotism  and  social  tyranny  on 
the  other  side  ? "  Is  this  really  a  mere 
question  of  longitude? 

These  are  the  opinions  of  Victor  Hugo. 
They  have  nothing  new — nil  novi  sub  sole, 
except  in  the  scientific  fields.  Only  he  sang 
these  grand  old  themes  with  a  voice  so  so- 
norous, so  powerful,  so  sublime,  that  they 
have  resounded  all  over  the  earth,  and  deep- 
ly impressed  and  modified  men's  hearts  and 


minds  in  France  and  other  civilized  coun- 
tries. 

Victor  Hugo,  though  considered  by  most 
men  in  all  countries  as  the  greatest  of  French 
poets,  had  and  still  has  many  adversaries. 
First  among  them,  we  may  see  the  Bonapart- 
ist  admirers  of  that  Napoleon  branded  by 
Hugo  as  Napoleon  le  Petit,  or  Cartouchele 
Grand.  These  men  were  supporters  of  a 
throne  shown  by  him  to  be  founded  on  per- 
jury, murder,  and  burglary.  Against  Bona- 
partism  Victor  Hugo  has  written  two  satires, 
the  most  forcible,  perhaps,  that  exist  in  any 
language.  When  the  first,  a  prose  pamphlet, 
entitled  Napoleon  le  Petit,  was  issued,  the 
Bonapartists  affected  to  laugh.  After  the 
Coup  d'Etat,  a  few  weeks  before  Napoleon 
in.  assumed  the  title  of  Emperor,  one  could 
read  in  one  of  the  journals  that  favored  the 
Prince-President :  "  M.  Victor  Hugo  has  just 
issued  in  Brussels  a  pamphlet  with  the  title 
Napoleon  le  Petit,  which  contains  the  most 
severe  animadversion  against  the  head 
of  the  government."  An  officer  of  rank 
brought  to  Saint  Cloud  the  satirical  issue. 
Louis  Napoleon  took  it  in  his  hands,  looked 
at  it  a  moment  with  a  smile  of  contempt  on 
his  lips,  and  then,  pointing  to  the  pamphlet, 
he  said  to  the  persons  around  him  : 

"Look  here,  gentlemen,  this  is  Napoleon 
le  Petit,  described  by  Victor  Hugo  le  Grand." 

Was  Louis  Napoleon  a  prophet  inferior 
in  any  respect  to  the  biblical  ass  of  Balaam? 

The  would-be  laugh  stopped  short,  for, 
soon  after,  the  Chatiments  made  their  ap- 
pearance, and  never  did  such  a  whip  fall  on 
the  shoulders  of  a  criminal.  In  fact,  this 
book,  printed  on  candle-paper — not  one 
publisher  in  all  Europe  could  be  found  to 
print  the  terrible  book — secretly  introduced 
into  France,  secretly  read,  for  fear  of  prison 
or  deportation — this  book,  I  say,  prepared 
the  fall  of  the  Empire,  by  indoctrinating  the 
rising  generation  with  the  noble  cause  of  lib- 
erty. After  the  Franco-German  war  and  the 
horrors  of  the  Commune,  there  would  have 
been  perhaps  an  attempt  at  Napoleonic  res- 
toration, but  for  that  powerful  book.  Through 
Hugo's  influence,  such  an  attempt  had  be- 
come utterly  hopeless,  and  remained  untried. 


1885.] 


Victor  Hugo. 


89 


Many  books,  before  and  after  the  definite 
fall  of  Bonapartism,  have  been  written  with 
the  purpose  of  impairing  the  force  of  the 
Chatirnents,  all  in  vain.  The  Memoirs  of 
M.  de  Maupas,  recently  published,  have  been 
the  last  and  strongest  effort  made  by  Bona- 
partists  to  vindicate  an  event  that  disgraced 
France,  between  the  years  1851  and  1870. 
Poor  M.  de  Maupas  !  why,  in  fifty  years — 
twenty,  ten,  five  perhaps — nobody  will  read 
his  Memoirs,  and  thus  not  a  line  of  that 
plea  of  his  shall  linger  in  history,  in  which 
truth  alone  is  allowed  by  time  to  remain. 
The  book  will  be  forgotten — not,  alas  !  the 
name  of  its  author,  for  that  name  has  been 
engraven  in  the  Chdtiments  by  a  hand  that 
engraves  for  all  time  : 
"Trois  amis  1'entouraient,  ils  etaient  &  l'Elys<5e 

Morny,  Maupas  le  grec,  Saint- Arnaud  le  chacal." 

and  forever  will  men  say,  Maupas  le  grec,^ 
they  will  say  Napoleon  le  Petit  or  Cartouche 
le  Grand. 

To  the  adversaries  of  Victor  Hugo,  known 
as  Bonapartists,  we  shall  add  a  class  known 
as  Les  Ventrus.  They  worshiped  the  em- 
pire, inasmuch  as  this  government  was  to 
them  a  golden  calf,  and  allowed  them  to  fill 
their  purse  with  other  people's  money. 
These  latter  did  not  go  so  far,  perhaps,  as  to 
hate  Victor  Hugo,  but  could  not  help  refus- 
ing their  admiration  to  a  man  who  address- 
ed them  in  those  lines  : 

"  Le  bon,  le  stir,  le  vrai,  c'est  1'or  dans  notre  caisse. 
L'homme  est  extravagant  qui,  lorsque  tout  s'affaisse, 
Proteste  seul  debout  dans  une  nation 
Et  porte  a  bras  tendu  son  indignation. 
Que  diable  !  il  faut  pourtant  vivre  de  1'air  des  rues, 
Et  ne  pas  s'enteter  aux  choses  disparues. 
Quoi !  tout  meurt  ici-bas,  1'aigle  comme  le  ver 
Le  Charancon  perit  sous  la  neige  1'hiver, 
Quoi !  mon  coude  est  troue,  quoi  !  je  perce  mes 

chausses, 

Quoi  !  mon  feutre  etait  neuf  et  s'est  use  depuis, 
Et  la  Verite,  matre,  aurait,  dans  son  vieux  puits 
Cette  pretention  rare  d'etre  eternelle. 
De  ne  pas  se  mouiller  quand  il  pleut,  d'etre  belle 
A  jamais,  d'etre  reine,  en  n'ayant  pas  le  sou; 
Et  de  ne  pas  mourir  quand  on  lui  tord  le  cou  ! 
Aliens   done  !     Citoyens,   c'est  au  fait   qu'il  faut 
croire  I " 

The  "rentrus"arQ  followed  by  the  "Phil- 
istines," and  by  all  those  who  remain  infat- 


uated with  an  inordinate,  although  in  some 
respects  legitimate,  admiration  of  that  litera- 
ture, called  by  them  rather  pompously  "  The 
Literature  of  the  Grand  Siede."  Most  of 
these  men  are  fifty  years  old  or  more.  No 
hatred  in  them  for  Victor  Hugo ;  not  even 
the  refusal  of  some  esteem.  They  are  ig- 
norant of  his  poetry  or  prose.  While  they 
were  school-boys  they  heard  that  Hugo 
might  be  permitted  to  occupy  a  place  of  a 
certain  distinction  between  Lamartine  and 
Alfred  de  Musset.  All  their  poetical  ideas 
are  derived  from  Boileau  and  M.  de  la 
Harpe,  that  strange  critic  who  thought  it 
necessary  to  justify  Racine  for  the  use  of 
the  word  Men  (dog)  in  his  tragedy  of 
Athalie.  Could  such  people  possibly  un- 
derstand a  Hugo  bold  enough  to  write  with- 
out blank  (en  toutes  lettres)  the  real  word  of 
Cambronne  on  the  Waterloo  battle-field, 
and  many  other  things  no  less  shocking  to 
their  refined  taste  ? 

But  we  must  go  on ;  thanks  to  God,  Bon- 
apartists or  bourgeois  are  but  a  small  minor- 
ity in  France,  and  Victor  Hugo  is  to  nearly 
all  the  uncontested  king  of  our  literature. 

"  Victor  Hugo  was  born  with  the  century," 
writes  M.  Henri  Rochefort,  "  and  when  he 
disappears  we  shall  feel  as  if  he  had  taken 
the  whole  century  with  him." 

Are  there  any  writers,  in  fact,  bold  enough 
to  divide  among  themselves  the  empire  of 
that  other  Alexander,  who  subdued,  himself 
alone,  the  whole  literary  world  in  writing 
dramas,  romances,  and  unlimited  verse, 
which  extends  from  the  Orientales  to  the 
Legende  des  Siedes"?  Will  any  others  re- 
new that  prodigious  labor  by  which  he  trans- 
formed the  French  language  to  such  an  ex- 
tent as  to  make  almost  unreadable  today 
writers  who  were  his  seniors  by  a  few  years 
only,  such  as  Chateaubriand,  Casimir  Del- 
avigne,  or  Alfred  de  Vigny  ?  He  marked 
with  his  own  stamp  and  impressed  with  his 
genius  three  successive  generations  of  writ- 
ers, several  of  whom  submitted  to  him  as  by 
force,  unable,  in  spite  of  their  will,  to  escape 
this  irresistible  domination.  All,  or  nearly 
all,  French  writers  of  the  nineteenth  century, 
whether  they  know  it  or  not,  whether  they 


90 


Victor  Hugo. 


[July, 


acknowledge  it  or  not,  have  been  moulded 
by  the  hands  of  Victor  Hugo. 

The  variety  of  his  political  formulas  is  al- 
most incredible,  and  no  chord  has  been  miss- 
ing in  his  lyre.  Grand  and  sublime,  he  strikes 
all  imaginations ;  sweet  and  tender,  he 
sings  of  children  and  roses ;  then,  suddenly, 
he  is  full  of  burning  indignation — he  terrifies, 
he  forces  admiration  and  awe.  There  was 
never  a  more  complete  poet ;  to  France  he 
is  a  real  Shakspere. 

Among  his  characteristics  we  must  dwell 
upon  his  marvelous  memory,  either  of  facts 
or  of  conceptions.  Nothing  written  on  the 
bronze  tablets  of  his  memory  has  ever  been 
erased.  Hence  the  marvelous  variety  of  his 
metaphors,  never  diminishing,  always  increas- 
ing in  number.  His  eyes  do  not  perceive 
objects  in  the  ordinary  manner ;  there  is  in 
them  an  extraordinary  power  of  magnifying. 
"  Hence,"  says  so  appropriately  M.  Emile 
Montegut,  "  his  predilections  for  immense, 
overpoweringly  gigantic  objects  and  for  fright- 
ful and  sublime  spectacles.  He  prefers  to  all 
other  themes  war,  storms,  death,  early  civiliza- 
tions, with  their  Babels  and  monstrous  orgies, 
nature  in  prehistoric  times,  with  her  colossal 
prodigies  and  forests  of  gigantic  ferns.  What 
powerful  imitations  of  oceans  howling  under 
tempests!  How  graphically  glaring  to  our 
eyes  does  he  depict  the  conflagration  of  cit- 
ies, how  crushing  the  trampling  of  steeds 
in  bloody  battles ! "  These  are  his  favorite 
subjects  of  description;  here  is  the  domin- 
ion over  which  he  rules,  with  no  fear  of  ri- 
valry. In  other  fields,  he  may  have  com- 
p6titors;  here  Victor  Hugo  is  peerless. 

Never  do  ideas  occur  to  his  mind  in  ab- 
stract forms  ;  to  him  they  are  always  embod- 
ied in  metaphors.  After  he  has  long  gazed 
upon  things,  his  imagination  becomes  in- 
flamed, as  Sybilla's  on  the  tripod;  apocalyptic 
visions,  rising  from  objects  all  around,  and 
from  his  own  fancy,  swarm  before  his  mental 
sight  with  a  stormlike  fury,  amidst  a  dazzling 
light,  in  all  the  colors  of  the  rainbow;  while 


he,  ever  calm,  serene,  master  of  himself,  re- 
lates, describes,  engraves  everything  he  sees 
in  the  fathomless  abyss.  Most  other  poets 
or  writers,  after  the  over-excitement  of  com- 
position, have  to  suppress  and  concentrate  ; 
he  does  neither.  He  makes  only  a  few  cor- 
rections of  detail,  about  which  he  is  known 
to  be  very  peculiar.  Thus  is  explained  the 
abundance,  the  multiplicity  of  his  points  of 
view,  and  also  his  repetition.  First  he  per- 
ceives his  object  under  a  certain  light,  de- 
scribes it,  but  is  not  satisfied  ;  after  that  first 
image,  a  second,  a  third,  and  so  on,  succeed 
in  turn,  until  he  finally  comes  to  the  supreme 
expression,  to  the  full  light,  to  what  he  terms 
somewhere  "the  embrace  of  Mind  and 
Truth."  So,  with  him  things  become  grad- 
ually comprehended,  on  all  their  sides  suc- 
cessively, more  and  yet  more  clearly,  until 
we  come  to  the  perfect  vision.  His  prelim- 
inary views,  with  which  many  a  distinguished 
poet  would  be  satisfied,  are  seldom  to  be 
suppressed,  as  they  lead  on  to  a  more  com- 
plete understanding.  On  ascending  the 
mountain,  the  reader  passes  from  enchant- 
ment to  enchantment,  until  he  is  at  last 
transported  on  the  summit,  face  to  face  with 
the  sun  in  his  radiant  splendor. 

Are  there  no  spots  on  that  sun  of  French 
poetry?  There  are  certainly,  and  many  of 
them.  But  why  should  I  care  to  point  them 
out?  Every  one  will  be  inclined  to  discover 
them,  and  even  to  exaggerate  their  number 
and  size.  Read  his  works,  his  novels,  plays, 
and  verse — the  latter  especially.  His  poet- 
ical diamonds,  in  my  opinion,  are  the  Chdt- 
tments,  and,  superior  to  all,  the  Legendes 
des  Sieves,  a  series  of  wonderful  epic 
poems,  a  mirror  of  twenty  centuries  of  past 
civilizations,  and  an  idealized  World's  His- 
tory. Read,  allow  me  to  repeat,  read  and 
meditate  upon  the  great  French  poet.  With 
the  object  of  reading  Victor  Hugo's  poetry, 
it  is  worth  the  trouble  to  study  the  French 
language,  as  it  is  worth  the  study  of  English 
to  read  Shakspere. 

F.  V.  Paget. 


1885.] 


Four  Bohemians  in  Saddle. 


91 


FOUR  BOHEMIANS  IN  SADDLE. 


WE  sat  on  a  brown,  sunlit  slope  in  the 
high  hills  that  looked  down  on  Pope  Valley, 
and  talked  of  California  and  its  horticultural 
future.  One  of  our  number  had  grown  up 
with  the  prosperous  colonies  of  the  Southern 
counties — each  one  of  them  worthy  a  sepa- 
rate magazine  article  ;  another  knew  the  old 
camps  of  the  Sierras  "  like  a  book  *  and  held 
that  the  future  would  prove  the  most  valua- 
ble land  of  the  State  to  lie  in  that  region  ;  a 
third  had  helped  to  reclaim  some  of  the  tule 
islands,  and  had  fought  spring  floods  of  the 
Sacramento  and  San  Joaquin.  The  journalist 
of  our  party  had  ridden  on  horseback  over 
the  State,  questioning  all  men,  and  saying 
all  that  his  conscience  allowed  in  praise  of 
each  and  every  district  he  visited,  being  gift- 
ed by  nature  with  that  faculty  of  enjoying 
everything,  which,  while  men  envy,  they  also 
criticise  without  mercy. 

Keen  and  glad,  the  wind  blew  from  rocky 
ridges  and  across  bits  of  vine-planted  clear- 
ings, while  we  talked  of  the  brave  work 
that  men  were  doing  in  these  Pacific  States. 

"If  we  could  look  forth,  this  moment," 
said  one,  "and  have  a  birdseye  view  of  Cal- 
ifornia, how  much  pioneer  work,  and  how 
much,  also,  that  seldom  comes  to  commu- 
nities till  the  third  generation,  we  should  see. 
The  interior  towns  are  growing  with  great  ra- 
pidity, the  State  is  receiving  accessions  of 
the  better  sort  of  settlers,  the  large  tracts  of 
land  are  being  subdivided,  there  is  no  suffer- 
ing and  but  little  poverty.  The  season  that 
we  call  a  '  hard '  one  will  nevertheless  distri- 
bute nearly  twice  as  much  money  per  capita 
as  is  received  by  the  inhabitants  of  one  of 
the  dull  and  slow  Atlantic  States." 

"Always  the  hit  at  the  East!"  said  anoth- 
er ;  "You  are  California  born  and  bred.  It 
is  worse  than  absurd  for  any  one  who  has 
not  known  the  charm  of  life  in  the  New  Eng- 
land and  Middle  States  underproper  auspices 
to  pronounce  that  life  dull  and  slow.  The 
Eastern  man  who  comes  to  California  may 


do  a  good  thing  for  himself  financially,  though 
even  that  is  not  certain,  but  he  will  assuredly 
miss  much  in  society  and  climate." 

"Climate  —  oh-h  !  New  York's  soggy 
heat  that  untwists  the  very  tendons,  and 
melts  the  marrow  in  one's  bones — why,  cer- 
tainly, how  one  must  miss  it ! " 

"Peace,"  said  the  journalist.  "Let  us 
saddle  our  horses,  and  try  a  gallop  over  this 
high  table  land.  Leave  climatics,  for  that 
way  madness  lies.  I  once  spent  a  year  of 
time  and  all  my  spare  change  vainly  trying 
to  convince  my  New  York  friends  that  fruits 
of  reasonable  quality  grew  in  California,  that 
drinkable  wine  was  really  made  here.  To 
us,  it  is  strange  that  so  many  Eastern  people 
prefer  Hudson  Valley  Concords  and  Clin- 
tons to  Sqlano  County  Muscats  and  Flame 
Tokays  ;  to  them  it  is  passing  strange  that 
dust,  and  wind,  and  rainless  summer,  and 
gold-brown  fields,  can  be  found  endurable  by 
any  mortal.  Yet  we  know  with  how  strong  a 
charm  California  calls  back  her  wandering 
children,  and  so  we  can  afford  to  smile,  and 
go  on  planting  our  orchards,  vineyards,  and 
gardens.  When  we  have  made  it  as  beauti- 
ful as  the  plains  of  Lombardy  or  the  valleys 
of  Southern  France,  these  pioneer  days  will 
seem  but  the  rude  beginnings  that  they  are 
in  reality.  'Tis  only  a  small  corner  of  the 
world  as  yet,  this  California,  and  only  when 
one  speaks  of  the  realm  of  the  Pacific  Coast 
does  the  thought  of  its  imperial  possibilities 
over-master  the  imagination.  The  world 
will  say  hard  things  about  us,  or  worse  still, 
will  ignore  us  in  calm  preoccupation,  until 
we  know  beyond  dispute  that  we  have  the 
permanence  of  varied  industries,  and  the  ca- 
pacity to  work  out  our  own  civilization. 

"  There's  room  and  to  spare  for  a  discus- 
sion," said  another,  "but  let  us  saddle  the 
mustangs,  and  be  off." 

We  ran  down  the  rocky  slope  to  the  pas- 
ture-field, drove  the  manada  of  horses  and 
colts  to  the  corral,  selected  our  mounts,  and 


92 


Four  Bohemians  in  Saddle. 


in  fifteen  minutes  more  were  fairly  afloat  in 
the  sea-like  chapparal,  and  galloping  stormi- 
ly  against  the  wind.  Soon  we  were  riding 
south  and  southwest,  along  narrow  paths 
through  the  woods,  across  a  broad  and  su- 
perbly picturesque  table-land  of  red  volcanic 
soil,  corrugated  into  low  ridges  on  which 
pines  and  redwoods  grew.  Of  perfect  and 
satisfying  blueness  was  the  glorious  sky  over- 
head ;  deepest  purple  were  the  remote  ran- 
ges north  of  Pope,  west  of  Napa,  south  of 
Conn,  east  of  Berryessa — an  unbroken  cir- 
cle of  purple  and  violet  walls  rising  out  of 
dark  emerald  woods,  and  brown  cliffs,  and 
ripe  harvest  fields  of  checkered  silver  and 
gold,  lying  deep  in  the  valleys,  or  out- 
stretched upon  sun-lit  slopes. 

Fifteen  minutes  of  this  impetuous  gallop, 
and  we  rein  up  our  horses  ;  we  let  them  walk 
slowly  through  the  forest,  and  again  the  care- 
less sybarite  of  our  party,  the  Santa  Barbara 
Bohemian,  who  has  no  love  to  spare  for  any 
land  where  oranges  are  not,  begins  the  con- 
versation : 

"I  call  that  good  fun."  he  said.  "Any 
horse  worth  the  name  enjoys  a  stampede  in 
such  a  breeze,  and  on  this  height.  But  it's 
one  thing  to  gallop  for  the  pleasure  of  the 
thing,  and  it's  another  to  ride  on  a  life  and 
death  errand — as  men  have  done  so  often." 

"Yes!"  quoth  the  tule-islander.  "The 
thought  carries  one  back  to  the  elder  world 
of  song  and  story,  of  kings'  courier  and  true 
knights'  haste.  In  the  world  of  which  we 
are  now  a  part,  the  telegraph  and  railroad 
take  messages,  and  only  on  the  Gran  Chaco, 
or  across  the  African  Vledt,  or  in  the  Cen- 
tral Asian  waste,  do  men  ride  as  Captain 
Burnaby  rode." 

The  Sierra-dweller  smiled  at  this.  "That 
is  what  people  are  apt  to  say,  and  yet  I  ven- 
ture to  assert  that  not  a  night  passes  over  the 
Pacific  Slope,  but  that  somewhere  this  side 
of  the  Rockies  men  are  riding  for  life. 
They  may  be  fugitives  with  justice  pursuing, 
or  fathers  seeking  a  doctor  for  their  dying 
children.  The  thing  happens  hourly.  Ire- 
member  in  my  own  case —  We  drew  clos- 
er, in  eager  attention,  for  this  friend  of  ours 
seldom  spoke  of  himself. 


"It  was  ten  years  ago.  I  was  eighteen 
years  old,  and  had  been  away  from  home 
for  months.  I  came  back  to  the  dull  farm 
in  the  upper  San  Joaquin,  near  the  foothills, 
and  my  mother  came  crying  to  the  door  to 
meet  me.  My  little  brother  was  very  ill.  He 
was  only  five  years  old,  my  pet  and  delight, 
and  my  mother  was  a  widow.  An  elder  sis- 
ter was  in  Tuolumne,  teaching  school ;  my 
elder  brother,  who  managed  the  small  farm, 
had  gone  to  Stanislaus  to  buy  sheep,  and 
mother  and  Walter  were  all  alone.  It  was  four 
miles  to  tffe  nearest  village  and  stage  station, 
from  which  place  I  had  walked,  reaching  the 
house  at  dark.  I  went  in  and  found  little 
Walter  unconscious ;  my  mother  could  not 
tell  what  was  the  matter  with  him.  I  ran 
down  to  the  pasture  and  called  my  colt,  Ma- 
jor, the  best  horse  I  ever  owned.  He  came 
at  once,  and  I  saddled  him  and  rode  off  at  a 
gallop. 

"  It  was  early  winter,  and  rain  had  made 
the  road  heavy ;  cloudy  all  day,  a  drizzle  be- 
gan before  I  had  been  five  minutes  in  the 
saddle.  I  had  neither  whip  nor  spur.  Now 
and  then  I  spoke  to  Major,  and  he  knew  the 
work  before  him.  Two  miles  we  went  with- 
out a  pause,  the  road  dead  level,  and  so  slip- 
pery that  I  could  feel  Majors  lide  like  a  boy 
on  a  frosted  side-walk,  but  he  would  keep 
his  feet  and  resume  his  wild  pace.  He  took 
the  bit  in  his  teeth  and  ran,  snorting  with 
excitement  ;  for  a  year  he  had  not  been  rid- 
den by  living  creature,  and  his  muscles  were 
steel,  his  lungs  like  a  steam  engine.  I  let 
him  walk  for  a  few  moments,  then  he  did  the 
remaining  two  miles  at  a  tearing  gallop.  We 
reached  the  village,  and  I  rode  to  the  doc- 
tor's door. 

"'Not  here.  Gone  ten  miles  into  the 
foothills  to  the  old  Bemont  place.' 

"That  was  east,  in  a  direct  line,  and  three 
miles  south  was  another  village,  where  per- 
haps a  doctor  could  be  found.  If  not,  it 
was  but  a  few  minutes  lost,  for  another  road 
could  be  taken  to  Bemont's. 

"  Again  the  wild  pace,  under  the  clouded 
night  and  cold  rain,  thoughts  of  my  lonely 
mother  and  my  little  brother  urging  me  to  yet 
greater  haste.  The  road  was  hard,  with  a 


1885.] 


Four  Bohemians  in  Saddle. 


93 


thin  coating  of  mud  that  spattered  me  from 
head  to  foot,  and  the  wind  blew  sharply  in 
my  face.  I  lived  over  in  memory  every 
scene  of  our  lives,  every  word  said  to  my 
brother,  every  act  done  in  the  past — his  arms 
about  my  neck  in  thanks  for  some  little  gift; 
long  days  behind  the  plow,  with  his  toddling 
feet  in  the  furrow ;  a  child  asleep  in  the 
summer  grass,  a  bunch  of  wild  poppies  in 
his  chubby  hand,  the  calico  sunbonnet  tossed 
back  from  the  curly  hair.  Then  I  remem- 
bered that  when  I  went  away  mother  wrote  that 
every  day  little  Walter  asked :  "Won't  brother 
Tom  come  home  to-night  ?  I  want  to  see 
brother  Tom."  Suddenly  the  speaker's  voice 
failed.  He  caught  a  quick  breath,  and 
paused  a  moment. 

"  Well,  I  reached  the  other  village,  and 
found  that  the  doctor  who  lived  there  was  sick 
himself,  and  worthless  at  best.  Nothing  to 
do  but  to  start  for  Bemont's,  and  find  a  man 
I  could  trust.  Again  the  gallop,  no  longer 
on  level  roads,  but  through  rolling  hills,  and 
under  a  darkness  that  was  Egyptian.  Major 
began  to  falter,  but  he  kept  on  with  noble 
courage.  A  horse  of  that  sort  one  might 
trust  with  the  bearing  of  a  kingdom's  ran- 
som, a  man's  honor,  a  woman's  love,  or  a 
mother's  protection. 

'"We  were  descending  into  a  hollow  be- 
tween high  hills.  The  road  was  narrow,  dark, 
slippery,  and  the  soft  sound  of  falling  rain 
drowned  the  noise  of  wheels.  Through  a 
break  in  the  eastern  clouds,  the  stars  shone 
out  ab.ove  the  hill-crest.  Suddenly,  instant- 
ly, without  a  stroke  of  warning,  there  loomed 
up  before  me,  black,  dreadful,  appalling  as 
De  Quincey's  "Vision  of  Sudden  Death,"  a 
vast  moving  pile,  six  mules,  a  Carson  wagon, 
ore-laden  to  the  brim,  a  sleepy  driver,  nod- 
ding on  his  seat — and  tearing  into  that  mass 
of  wood,  iron,  stone,  and  wild  animal  life, 
was  a  tired  horse,  a  heart-sick,  wearied  rider. 
Simultaneously  came  the  discovery  upon  us 
all.  The  driver  awoke  with  a  loud  cry,  the 
mules  sprang  back  and  snorted ;  I  saw  and 
heard  a  neck-yoke  snap,  and  a  flash  of  light- 
ning lit  up  the  dark  hollow  to  the  very  feet 
of  the  frightened  animals.  Of  myself  I  could 
do  nothing,  so  narrow  was  the  space  between, 


so  brief  the  time  left  for  thought.  But  in- 
stinct helps  in  such  cases.  On  one  side  of 
the  road  was  a  shallow  ditch,  on  the  other  a 
wall  of  rock.  Major  gathered  himself  up, 
and  made  a  leap  sidewise,  crying  out  in  mor- 
tal terror  as  he  sprang,  and  we  landed  safely 
below,  clearing  by  a  few  inches  the  tangled 
leaders  and  the  great  wheel  of  the  wagon. 
Wild  with  terror  still,  and  screaming  with 
fright,  Major  ran  as  he  had  not  run  before. 
He  climbed  the  bank  again  and  resumed  his 
tearing  pace  along  the  roadway.  That  night 
in  the  nearest  village  the  teamster  told  his 
cronies  at  the  tavern  that  a  ferocious-looking 
highwayman  had  ridden  down  upon  him, 
frightened  his  mules,  and  fired  several  shots 
as  he  galloped  past ;  but  excited  imagina- 
tion, and  stones  rolling  down  the  hills  may 
be  held  responsible  for  the  pistol-firing  item. 

"  I  reached  Bemont's  in  safety,  but  only 
to  find  that  the  doctor  had  returned  to  the 
valley  by  another  road,  and  was  already  far 
past  my  overtaking — for  the  condition  of  my 
horse  warned  me  that  I  must  slack  my  pace. 
I  hired  a  boy  on  a  fresh  horse,  and  sent  him 
after  the  doctor,  while  I  took  the  shortest 
way  home." 

Again  a  long  pause. 

"  And  when  I  reached  home  Walter  had 
been  dead  an  hour.  No  human  power  could 
have  prolonged  his  life.  He  revived  a  little 
once,  and  asked  whether  brother  Tom  had 
come  home." 

"Poor  child,"  said  the  sybarite,  after  a 
moment,  making  a  pretence  of  wiping  the 
dust  from  his  face;  then  a  pause,  and  he 
spoke  again,  very  quietly,  and  in  a  tone  we 
had  never  heard  him  use  : 

"  I  knew  a  man  once,  who  owned  a  farm 
in  San  Luis  Obispo  County,  fifteen  miles 
north  of  Cambria,  on  the  coast.  He  was 
young,  happy,  and  ambitious;  not  a  lazy 
fellow,  such  as  I  am.  And  he  was  romantic, 
I  may  add,  and  foolish  in  many  things. 
Then  came  a  pretty  girl  into  the  district,  and 
taught  the  school  there.  She  boarded  at 
the  nearest  farm-house  to  his,  and  sometimes 
called  upon  his  mother  ;  and  so  they  grew  to 
like  each  other,  and  they  read  German  to- 
gether, and  took  long  walks  on  Saturdays ; 


94 


Four  Bohemians  in  Saddle. 


[July, 


and  he  felt  almost  certain  that  she  loved 
him.  Now,  several  months  before,  his  old- 
est friend  and  college  chum — in  New  York 
— had  lost  all  his  property,  and  so  this  San 
Luis  farmer — let  us  call  him  Marion  Lee — 
wrote  to  Will  Burns  to  come  and  help  him 
run  the  ranch,  and  share  the  profits.  Burns 
had  been  only  two  weeks  on  the  place,  when 
a  little  boy,  son  of  the  woman  with  whom 
Miss  Carman,  the  school  teacher,  boarded, 
came  over,  and  said  that  she  was  dangerously 
ill,  with  symptoms  of  poisoning.  The  near- 
est doctor  was  at  Cambria  ;  and  it  was  a  wet 
winter,  and  the  streams  were  very  high.  Lee 
saddled  his  best  horse,  told  Burns  to  go  and 
see  what  could  be  done,  and  rode  off.  He 
found  bridges  washed  away,  and  had  to 
swim  several  streams.  The  tide  was  high, 
and  when,  to  save  time,  he  rode  along  the 
beach,  it  was  dangerous  enough.  He  struck 
a  bit  of  marsh,  and  narrowly  escaped  being 
engulfed  in  black  mud.  But  he  tore  ahead, 
and  made  the  fifteen  miles  in  less  time  than 
it  has  ever  been  made  before  or  since ;  he 
found  the  physician,  and  started  back  with 
him.  They  rode  for  several  miles  along  the 
beach — there  are  better  roads  there  now ; 
they  found  the  streams  still  higher.  The 
physician's  horse  failed,  and  Lee  gave  him 
his,  and  told  him  to  push  ahead.  Well,  it 
saved  the  girl's .  life,  for  there  was  vegetable 
poisoning  from  weeds  carelessly  gathered 
with  garden  vegetables,  and  an  hour  later  no 
skill  could  have  pulled  her  through. 

"  After  the  physician  had  gone,  pronoun- 
cing the  patient  out  of  danger,  Lee  reached 
the  house,  on  foot,  and  through  the  open 
door,  looking  into  the  large  family  room, 
saw  Burns  and  Miss  Carman  talking  ear- 
nestly together.  His  look  was  deeply  ear- 
nest, hers  radiant.  Lee  slipped  away,  for 
neither  of  them  had  seen. him.  Two  weeks 
later  they  were  engaged.  Burns  had  some 
money  left  him,  and  bought  the  farm,  where 
they  live  now.  Lee  adopted  three  little  girls, 
named  them  all  after  Mrs.  Burns,  and  is  ed- 
ucating them  in  three  different  cities.  He 
drifts  about,  and  bids  fair  to  become  a  con- 
firmed bachelor." 

"  Well,  if  you  ever  see    him,"   said  the 


journalist,  "  tell  him  that  hard  work  will 
bring  him  out  of  the  worst  of  his  troubles, 
and  nothing  else  will.  Now  I'll  tell  you  a 
true  story.  It  happened  in  Shasta  county, 
a  number  of  years  ago.  A  man  had  been 
murdered  by  a  gang  of  desperate  scoundrels. 
The  principal  witness  for  the  State  was  a 
mountain  school  teacher.  Soon  after  the 
leaders  of  the  gang  had  been  arrested  and 
taken  to  Shasta  City,  this  witness  was  sum- 
moned from  his  home  in  the  Sierras  to  testi- 
fy. The  rest  of  the  gang  heard  of  it,  and 
determined  to  shoot  him  down  while  he  was 
crossing  a  certain  ford  across  a  creek.  But 
a  young  woman  of  rather  questionable  char- 
acter, a  relative  of  one  of  the  desperados, 
had  once  been  nursed  through  a  dangerous 
fever  by  the  wife  of  this  school  teacher,  and 
had  received  many  kindnesses  at  her  hands. 
She  happened  to  overhear  the  plans  of  the 
villains,  and  after  they  had  left,  she  took  a 
horse  and  rode  off  through  the  woods  and 
hills,  at  such  an  angle  as  might  best  inter- 
cept the  teacher  before  he  reached  the  ford. 
She  had  about  twelve  miles  to  go,  and  was 
compelled  to  make  a  considerable  detour  so 
as  to  avoid  being  seen,  as  little  mercy  would 
have  been  shown  her  in  case  of  discovery. 
She  rode  at  the  top  of  her  speed,  but  it  was 
dusk  before  she  reached  the  cross  road,  a 
mile  from  the  place  where,  with  buck -shot- 
ted guns,  the  men  lay  close  concealed  in 
the  willows.  She  drew  her  veil  closely  over 
her  face,  hid  her  horse  in  the  manzanita, 
and  stood  silently  by  the  trunk  of  a  large 
pine.  The  school  teacher  rode  up,  and  saw 
her  there.  He  nodded,  in  mountain  fashion, 
and  started  on.  She  stepped  into  the  road, 
lifted  her  hand,  and  said  : 

"  '  Go  back  and  take  another  trail,  or  you 
will  be  shot  at  the  next  ford.  Tell  your  wife 
this  warning  is  because  of  her.' 

"  He  followed  her  advice,  and  reached 
Shasta  City  in  safety.  The  young  woman 
managed  to  get  home  long  before  the  baffled 
villains,  and  they  never  suspected  her  agen- 
cy." 

We  had  ridden  slowly  for  so  long,  that 
again  we  let  our  horses  take  the  bits ;  again 
we  rushed  stormily  over  the  fragrant  creep- 


1885.]  Their  Days  of  Waiting  are  so  Long.  95 

ers  and  through  the  thickets  of  azalea  by  the  veins,  and  we  shout  aloud  in  the  joy  of  ex- 
borders  of  flowing  springs.  On  the  hillsides  istence. 

men  were  hewing  down  the  tall  oaks  and  We  leave  the  main  road,  and  hasten 
conifers,  and  gathering  the  brush  into  piles  across  sloping  and  barren  volcanic  rock  to  a 
for  the  burning.  Quail  flew  up  far  in  front  deep  and  wild  gorge,  from  whose  heart  a 
of  our  horses'  ringing  hoofs,  and  scurrying  sound  of  falling  waters  comes,  mingled  with 
before  the  loud-mouthed  hounds  ran  a  the  murmur  of  wind  in  the  tree-tops.  In  the 
mountain  hare,  swift  and  victorious.  We  midst  of  blooming  styrax  we  leave  our  tired 
round  the  base  of  a  sunlit  peak,  and  come  horses,  and,  vying  with  each  other,  in  boyish 
upon  a  small  vineyard,  a  cottage  therein,  haste,  we  scramble  down  the  rocky  path, 
children  playing  about  the  door,  and  roses  and  swing  ourselves  from  bush  to  bush  until 
clambering  over  the  rustic  porch.  The  we  stand  in  an  amphitheatre  of  rock  with  a 
owner  is  at  work  tying  up  the  vines'  green  waterfall  on  either  hand,  and  bright  ripples 
shoots  to  redwood  stalks,  and  he  waves  his  and  lovely  cascades  at  our  feet.  Here  we 
hat  and  smiles  at  our  dust -heralded  caval-  rest,  and  loaf,  and  tell  stories,  and  the  after- 
cade.  The  healthy  pulse  of  life  is  in  our  noon  wears  away  before  we  start  homeward. 

Stoner  Brooke. 


THEIR   DAYS   OF   WAITING   ARE   SO   LONG. 

THEIR  days  of  waiting  were  so  long,  so  long ! — 

Greeting  with  smiles  that  over-brimmed  in  tears ; 
Parting  for  sluggard  months — but  hope  was  strong 

To  draw  a  solace  from  the  coming  years. 
And  o'er  the  barren  hours,  their  life  to  be 

Hover'd  in  blissful  dreams  by  night  and  day, 
As,  in  mid-azure  o'er  the  sleeping  sea, 

The  wizard  dreams  of  glad  lands  far  away. 
But  days  of  waiting  were  so  long ! 

Their  time  of  living  was  so  short,  so  short ! — 

A  twelvemonth  of  unrippled  heart-content. 
The  long  past  faded  and  they  took  no  thought 

Of  morrow  hid  where  blue  horixon  bent. 
If  they  had  asked  for  aught,    they  would  have  prayed 

Only  to  drift  for  aye,  unchanging,  blest, 
Nor  dreamed  they  on  that  Heaven  could  invade 

A  cloud  to  mar  the  bliss  of  perfect  rest. 
Their  time  of  living  was  so  short ! 

Their  days  of  waiting  are  so  long,  so  long  ! — 

For  she  was  summoned,  smiling  through  her  tears, 
And  he  is  desolate — but  hope  is  strong 

To  draw  a  solace  from  eternal  years. 
No  cloud  their  blissful  greeting  may  invade 

Upon  the  quay  of  gold  by  pearl-strewn  sands ; 
The  long  past  shall  anew  dissolve  and  fade 

In  silent  kiss  and  clasp  of  wistful  hands. 
But  days  of  waiting  are  so  long  ! 

Wilbur  Larremore. 


96 


A  Midsummer  Night's    Waking. 


[July, 


A  MIDSUMMER  NIGHT'S  WAKING. 


IF  ANY  lover  of  unique  theories  should 
propound  one  to  the  effect  that  night,  not 
day,  is  the  mother  of  us  all,  no  dash  between 
two  clauses  of  life,  a  swoon,  a  temporary 
death  of  earth,  but  the  very  source  of  exist- 
ence, instinct  through  all  its  darkness  with 
unfolding  wings  of  life,  pierced  through  and 
through  with  roots  of  life — he  could  make  a 
very  fair  showing  for  his  theory.  Unanswer- 
able science  could  crush  him  with  the  rela- 
tion of  the  sun  to  animal  and  vegetable  life; 
but  he  could  go  back  of  unanswerable  sci- 
ence to  that  region  of  eternal  night  where 
science  is  unanswering,  but  into  which  the 
imagination  gropes  with  blindly  reaching  fin- 
gers, and  feels— half  feels,  strains  to  its  ut- 
most and  hardly  touches,  and  misses  again 
— not  death,  not  uncreative  blackness,  but 
the  very  life  of  life,  stirring  in  the  void  be- 
fore ever  it  was  said  "  Let  there  be  light." 

Whither  but  into  night  and  darkness — says 
our  theorist,  warming  into  conviction  of  what 
he  at  first  propounded  as  a  mere  whimsical 
paradox — whither  but  into  night  and  dark- 
ness can  you  trace  back  any  thread  of  life  ? 
Put  your  hand  on  the  tiny  fraction  of  it  that 
stretches  in  the  sunshine,  and  feel  back,  back 
— the  life  of  the  plant,  the  life  of  the  animal, 
the  life  of  the  race,  the  life  of  all  being — and 
into  night  and  darkness  they  all  take  you. 
Down  into  the  dark  go  the  roots  of  the  plant : 
and  if  the  seed  that  started  there  came  from 
the  sunshine,  bringing  with  it  the  germinat- 
ing power  stored  up  in  the  light,  to  use  at  its 
leisure  in  the  quiet  dark,  it  is  only  that  indi- 
vidual vessel  for  the  holding  of  life,  that  lit- 
tle seed-package  of  carbon  and  oxygen  and 
hydrogen  and  nitrogen,  whose  genesis  we 
found  in  the  light;  the  life  poured  into  it,  and 
through  it  for  the  new  plant,  came  through 
how  many  myriads  of  such  little  vessels, 
shaped  in  the  light  and  stirring  into  power 
in  the  dark  for  how  many  myriads  of  ages, 
from — where  ?  Where  but  from  the  primal, 
potent,  all-creative  night?  Down  into  the 


dark  go  the  roots  of  the  tree  Ygdrasil,  and 
though  the  leaves  come  and  go  in  the  sun- 
light above,  no  one  finds  the  seed  that  was 
shaped  in  the  light  for  the  making  of  that  tree. 
"  The  Books  teach  Darkness  was  at  first  of  all, 
And  Brahm,  sole  meditating  in  that  Night." 

The  all-creative,  all-inspiring  Life  dwelleth 
in  darkness ;  out  of  the  eternal  dark  it  flows 
into  the  visible  forms  that  we  call  lives. 
What  if  day  be  the  cheerful,  noisy,  warmed 
and  lighted  workshop  in  which  lives  are 
made,  and  night  the  recurrent  glimpse  of 
that  all-embracing  darkness  wherein  life 
broods  ? 

Something  of  a  consciousness  of  this  life 
and  potency  in  the  wide  darkness  stirs  in  the 
human  soul  of  a  summer  night.  Winter  night 
has  less  of  this  power:  it  means  fireside, 
and  lamp,  and  book — a  miniature  reproduc- 
tion of  the  narrow  day-workshop.  The  tides 
of  life  in  human  veins  run  low.  But  out  un- 
der the  summer  night  the  soul  expands,  and 
seems  aware  of  the  breathing  of  an  infinite 
life  through  the  surrounding  space,  the  stir- 
ring of  the  great  earth's  pulse,  the  mighty 
marchings  of  th^e  cosmic  bodies,  and  the 
streams  of  force,  drawing  and  repelling,  and 
filling  every  inch  of  all  space.  Life  runs 
deeper  and  stronger ;  the  tide  pours  into  all 
the  shallow  places  and  dry  creeks  and  marshes 
of  feeling :  the  old  dead  love  of  years  ago 
stirs  in  its  grave;  the  living  love  of  today 
cries  and  yearns  across  land  and  sea  to  the 
distant  beloved  one. 

"  In  the  dark  and  in  the  dew, 
All  my  soul  goes  out  to  you." 

At  night,  too,  religious  awe  and  religious 
ecstasy  mount  to  their  height :  then  comes 
the  vision  to  the  mystic,  the  passion  of  ador- 
ation to  the  devotee,  the  sense  of  the  divine 
actually  present  and  in  conscious  commun- 
ion with  the  human  soul.  The  envelope  of 
life  seems  too  narrow  to  hold  the  feeling  that 
dwells  within  it,  strains  and  aches  against  its 
sides,  searches  for  place  to  overflow. 


1885.] 


A  Midsummer  Night's    Waking. 


97 


As  winter  night  is  less  full  of  life  than  sum- 
mer night,  so  northern  night  is  less  than  south- 
ern. This  is  not  solely  because  the  night  of 
winter  or  of  the  north  drives  the  weak  hu- 
man body  in  to  the  fireside,  but  because  the 
animal  and  vegetable  world  stir  with  activity 
in  the  nights  of  warm  climates,  and  send  to 
the  human  ear  and  eye  their  constant  breath- 
ings and  motions.  Travelers  describe  the 
waking  up  of  the  tropic  forests  as  night 
comes:  the  voices  of  animals  begin,  the 
drooping  leaves  straighten  up  and  unfold,  all 
the  denizens  of  the  great  forest  are  abroad. 

On  the  plains  where  by  day  the  world 
lay  drooping  and  passive,  and  by  night  the 
lion  came  abroad,  and  the  palms  freshened, 
and  men  knew  the  night  well,  and  brooded 
much  under  the  stars,  were  born  all  the 
world-religions — not  among  the  sturdy,  day- 
light, northern  races,  who  have  become  the 
chief  supporters  of  at  least  one  of  these. 
From  spirits  nurtured  in  this  same  familiari- 
ty with  the  voices  of  night  came  the  sacred 
poems  of  the  ancient  world,  with  their  unap- 
proachable weight  of  feeling;  and  the  mod- 
ern poet  who,  more  than  any  one  else,  has 
caught  a  note  or  two  from  David's  harp, 
seems  to  find  his  deepest  wells  of  feeling 
stirred  by  summer  night : 

"  From  the  intense,  clear,  star-sown  vault  of  heaven, 
Over  the  lit  sea's  unquiet  way." 

Or  in  the 

"  Plainness  and  clearness  without  shadow  of  stain  ! 
Clearness  divine! " 

of  moonlight. 

For  even  with  us  who  are  not  of  the  trop- 
ics, night  is  no  time  of  suspended  activity. 
It  is  full  of  breathings  and  soft  little  mur- 
murs of  life.  The  trade  wind  goes  down 
with  the  sun;  the  vague  bustle  that  even  in 
the  country  is  in  the  air,  ceases  (while  it  lasts 
you  cannot  hear  it,  but  when  it  stops  you 
can  perceive  the  purer  silence);  there  is  no 
jubilation  of  insect  voices,  as  in  the  summer 
nights  on  the  Atlantic  coast — for  while  the 
Eastern  summer  lasts,  it  is  much  more  like 
the  tropics  than  ours.  Yet  there  is  a  light, 
steady  trill  of  crickets — a  sound  not  sharp 
and  insistent,  but  almost  bird-like.  It  runs 
on,  soberly,  monotonously,  until  you  become 
unaware  you  are  hearing  it.  Bits  of  white 


moths  flutter  aimlessly  about,  as  if  they  had 
no  more  knowledge  of  where  they  wished 
to  go  or  what  they  wished  to  do  than  so 
much  white  down  floating  on  the  air.  It  is 
high  noon  for  the  toads ;  now  is  their  time 
to  come  out,  and  sit  cooling  their  fat  sides 
in  the  dew,  and  listening  contemplatively  to 
the  crickets.  It  should  properly  be  their 
hunting  time :  but  they  have  the  whole  night 
to  forage  in,  and  will  not  hurry  themselves  ; 
it  is  only  at  leisurely  intervals,  if  you  sit  still 
and  listen,  that  you  hear  the  scuffling  stir  of 
their  clumsy  movements.  But  walk  about 
the  paths,  and  they  go  rustling  heavily  away 
from  under  your  feet  every  few  minutes — a 
discomforting  sound,  for  at  first  it  seems  im- 
possible so  small  an  animal  can  make  so 
much  noise  in  soft  grass  or  green  tufts  of 
violets,  with  no  dry  leaves  about,  and  you 
have  a  fleeting  apprehension  of  some  unspec- 
ified creature  of  more  formidable  size ;  while 
on  second  thought,  after  recognizing  the 
sound,  or  seeing  the  lumpish  bit  of  darkness 
tumbling  away,  it  seems  impossible  that  you 
can  avoid  stepping  on  one,  sooner  or  later, 
so  awkward  is  their  retreat.  No  wonder  they 
like  best  to  sit  and  meditate,  like  Dutch  bur- 
gomasters—  only  the  toad,  sitting  amid  the 
cool,  dewy  grass,  bathing  in  moonlight,  seems 
really  more  a  creature  of  taste  in  his  pleas- 
ures, than  the  burgomaster  with  his  pipe  and 
mug. 

The  domestic  animals  do  not  seem  to 
think  the  night  is  to  be  regarded  as  a  hiatus 
in  life  ;  and  one  must  be  fairly  in  the  wilder- 
ness not  to  hear  from  time  to  time  the  dogs 
answering  each  other  from  distant  farm- 
houses— now  one  a  half  mile  away,  and  then, 
as  he  pauses,  the  answering  bark,  faint  and  far- 
off,  sounding  as  if  it  came  from  the  very  edge 
of  the  horizon — or  a  horse  moving  and  stamp- 
ing in  his  stall.  The  kitten  comes  and  ruhs 
about  your  feet,  and  makes  progress  almost 
impossible,  with  the  same  inconvenient  fond- 
ness as  by  day.  She  is  even  more  alive  than 
by  day,  like  her.  tawny  kindred  who  come 
out  by  night  to  stalk  over  the  ruins  of  Pal- 
myra; and  shows  a  little  excitement,  as  kit- 
tens do  on  a  windy  day,  dodging  away  from 
a  stroking  hand  to  dash  after  a  toad  who  has 
reluctantly  found  a  change  of  position  neces- 


98 


A  Midsummer  Night's    Waking. 


sary,  or  to  skitter  aimlessly  about  among  the 
geraniums,  making  wild  little  light-footed  re- 
treats, with  about  as  much  noise  among  the 
leaves  as  a  toad  no  bigger  than  her  head 
would  create. 

About  half  an  hour  before  midnight,  the 
cocks  have  their  first  few  minutes  of  crow- 
ing. It  is  a  great  mistake  to  suppose  that 
they  only  herald  the  dawn  :  at  this  season 
"  the  bird  of  dawning  singeth  all  night  long" 
—  at  due  intervals  —  every  pleasant  night, 
without  any  reference  to  saint's  days  or  holi- 
days. 

Nothing  gives  one  a  better  realization  of 
the  waking,  busy  life  of  a  summer  night  than 
to  find  the  flowers  nearly  all  wide  awake. 
They  seem,  somehow,  far  more  awake  than 
in  the  daytime,  as  if  this  were  their  time  to 
talk  to  each  other  and  attend  to  their  own 
affairs,  when  intrusive  mankind  is  out  of  the 
way.  They  hold  up  their  heads  more  firm- 
ly ;  they  turn  their  faces  to  the  sky,  instead 
of  bending  them  this  way  and  that  toward 
the  light.  They  have  an  air  of  independent, 
conscious  existence  ;  and  the  human  imagi- 
nation has  recognized  this  by  peopling 
them  with  a  world  of  fairies,  up  and  stirring 
by  night,  folded  away  somewhere  uncon- 
scious by  day.  The  fragrance  of  the  gar- 
den, deadened  by  day,  now  comes  out  freely 
on  the  fresh  air — heliotrope,  and  jasmine, 
and  magnolia,  and  lily,  and  sweet  pea,  and 
a  vague  blending  of  odors  from  the  flowers 
that  give  scarcely  any  by  day, — roses  and 
pansies  and  geraniums,  and  all  the  endless 
variety  from  all  corners  of  the  earth  that  a 
Californian  garden  gathers  together.  The 
white  flowers  shine  across  the  beds  and 
lawns,  startlingly  plain  in  even  clouded 
moonlight,  and  pale  pink  geraniums  and 
roses  scarcely  less  so.  By  day  it  was  scarlet 
geraniums  and  gladiolas  and  nasturtiums 
that  challenged  the  eye ;  now  they  are  gone 
out  of  sight  altogether,  unless  you  come  very 
close  to  the  bush,  or  unless  the  moon  be  at 
its  very  brightest.  On  these  very  brightest 
nights,  all  the  colors  in  the  garden — red  and 
pink  and  blue  hardly  less  than  white — stand 
scarcely  changed,  only  all  softened  and 
toned  together  in  the  silvery  illumination. 


But  when  the  moonlight  is  dimmed,  the 
scarlet  flowers  become  visible  as  you  come 
close  to  them,  in  a  deep,  black-red  hue. 
Pick  one,  and  look  at  it  as  closely  as  you 
will ;  hold  it  up  to  the  full  light  of  the  moon  ; 
— still  it  keeps  that  rich  and  beautiful  black- 
red.  Look  at  it  well,  for  you  will  see  no  such 
color  in  any  flower  by  day. 

By  night  the  trees,  too,    seem  to  have  a 
life   and  consciousness  of  their  own.     The 
leaves  stir  and  breathe   in  elm  and  maple  ; 
the  palm-trees  stand  rigid  like  sentinels,  and 
one  may  well  summon  a  little  courage,  and 
half-listen  for   a   challenge,  before   he   can 
march  past  them  to  pace  a  walk  whose  en- 
trance  they  guard  ;    the  red-gums  brandish 
their  little  swords    and    clash  them  against 
each  other,     and  bicker   and    make   peace 
again.     It  is  easy   to   personify  everything, 
when  the  dim  light  turns  trees  into    mere 
dark  figures,  and  flowers  into  mere  white  up- 
looking  faces  ;  by  day  there  is  bark  and  stem 
and  chlorophyll,  petal  and  stamen,  and  cell- 
structure,  that  you  may  place  under  a  mi- 
croscope; by  night,  the  being — flower  or  tree. 
The  Greeks  filled  full  their  night  with  per- 
sonification ;    along   the  moon-lit    beaches 
the  white  wave-crests  rose  up  into  nymphs, 
flying  in    tireless  dances  all  night  over  the 
sand  :  naiads  stole  out  from  the  springs,  and 
nymphs    from    the   trees  ;    Apollo  led   the 
Muses  across  the  hills.     The  fullness  of  hap- 
py,   half-supernatural   life   with    which    the 
Greek  brimmed  his  world  at  all  times,  rose 
to  its  highest  in  the  summer  night ;  though 
man  might  sleep,  the  world  was  taken  pos- 
session of,    in  their   turn,  by  another  race 
who  held  it  with  even  more  vivid  activity,  till 
day.     Indeed,  it  has  been  the  instinct  of  man 
everywhere  to  deliver  over  the  night-world 
to   other  powers — glad  or  gloomy,  friendly 
or    harmful,    according   to    the   suggestion 
yielded   by  night  nature.     Man  crept  into 
his  cave  or  his  hut  or  his  castle  and  closed 
the  entrance — then    all   night  long   around 
his  refuge  roamed  a  medley  of  living  beings 
to  whom    the  night  belonged— wild  things 
of  the  woods,  fairies  and  elves  of  every  sort, 
spirits  and  monsters — and  much  uneasiness 
he   endured  lest   they   should   not   confine 


1885.] 


A  Midsummer  Night's    Waking. 


99 


themselves  to  the  outside  of  that  little,  shut- 
up  refuge.  But  wherever  nature's  mildness 
encouraged  men  to  sleep  without  so  shutting 
themselves  in,  though  they  none  the  less 
peopled  the  night  full  with  living  beings,  it 
was  without  terror. 

Bright  moonlight  nights — nights  of  a 
"  plainness  and  clearness  without  shadow  of 
stain,"  beyond  any  Mr.  Arnold  is  likely  to 
have  seen  in  England — are  frequent  here  ; 
but  the  midsummer  moons  are  not  apt  to  be 
entirely  undimmed.  At  this  season,  a  night- 
fog  is  prone  to  roll  in,  cloaking  the  sky,  but 
never  descending  to  earth.  It  comes  some- 
times just  after  sunset,  sometimes  during  the 
first  half  of  the  night — drifting  in  with  wave 
after  wave — white  and  dark  fog  marbled  in 
together,  with  changing  spaces  of  pure  sky. 
So  transparent  is  the  veil  that  as  the  thinner 
white  parts  drift  past  the  moon,  she  seems  to 
float  almost  absolutely  unobscured  by  them 
— though  when,  for  a  moment,  the  whole 
rolls  past  and  leaves  her  alone  in  a  lake  of 
bare  sky,  the  difference  is  evident ;  the  shad- 
ows on  the  ground  under  the  trees  grow 
sharp-edged :  the  leaves,  damp  with  the 
slight  touch  of  dew  that  these  overcast  nights 
produce,  glitter,  and  a  white  polish  goes 
over  the  surface  of  pond  or  pool. 

Twelve  o'clock  is  fairly  enough  midnight, 
by  measurement  of  time  from  light  to  light 
again.  But  it  is  not  the  midnight  of  super- 
stition, the  time  for  graveyards  to  yawn  and 
powers  of  evil  to  walk  abroad ;  the  time  when 
sleepers  become  sunk  in  deepest  slumbers, 
and  when  the  nervous  waker  most  reasona- 
bly may  begin  to  listen  for  burglars ;  when 
the  watcher  by  the  sick,  or  the  student  who, 
through  some  need,  has  prolonged  his  work 
beyond  the  midnight  hour,  up  to  which,  but 
not  far  beyond  which,  many  a  student  likes 
to  work,  feels  a  deep  hush  settle  over  the 
world,  a  pause  between  late  evening  and 
early  dawn ;  when  the  blood  moves  slowest, 
and  the  vital  powers  run  low,  and  the  flicker 
of  life  goes  out  In  the  sick  and  aged.  That 
time  comes  between  one  and  three  in  the 
morning.  At  that  core  of  night,  the  Gothic 
population  of  the  darkness  sometimes  seems 
more  credible  than  the  Hellenic  :  witches 


might  ride  abroad ;  the  spirits  of  the  dead 
might  wake  ;  vampires,  were-wolves,  all  the 
blood-chilling  horrors  that  the  northern  races 
managed  to  conceive  might  be  about. 

The  dark  of  a  moonless  night  is  crammed 
with  possibilities  of  supernatural  horror,  and 
even  the  white  moonlight  holds  uncanny  sug- 
gestions of  ghost  or  witch,  of  moon-stroke, 
and  such  like  superstitions.  Moonlight  on 
a  windy  night  is  really  very  weird,  almost 
more  so  than  deep  darkness.  Even  horses 
and  dogs,  which  do  not  mind  the  darkness 
at  all,  are  cowed  by  the  writhing  dark  forms 
and  flying  shadows  and  lights. 

But  it  is  hard,  after  all,  to  find  anything 
uncanny  in  the  uncanniest  hours  of  these 
bright,  still,  midsummer  nights,  with  the 
windows  open  to  all  out-doors,  and  the  flow- 
ers shining  white  all  over  the  garden,  and 
the  fish  plashing  from  time  to  time  in  the 
carp-pond.  Probably  this  witching  hour  of 
night  is  midnight  to  the  human  frame,  be- 
cause it  comes  more  nearly  in  the  middle  of 
the  hours  of  sleep  than  the  true  midnight 
does ;  and  the  habit  of  generations,  using 
this  hour  for  mid-sleep,  has  made  it  the  time 
at  which  the  bodily  forces  tend  to  be  most 
dormant,  when  the  heart  beats  lower  and  the 
blood  moves  slower,  and  courage  in  the 
brain  lapses  with  the  supply  of  blood.  The 
deepest  chill  of  the  earth  and  air,  which  have 
been  cooling  off  ever  since  sunset,  comes 
scarcely  later  than  this  in  summer  ;  but  if  it 
were  only  this  chill  that  brought  the  vital 
forces  low,  the  creatures  that  walk  by  night 
would  feel  it  too.  Possibly  the  tropic  forests 
do  lull  a  little  in  these  mid-sleep  hours :  the 
domestic  animals  seem  to  take  a  sort  of  after- 
dinner-nap  then  ;  the  dogs  suspend  their  an- 
swering back  and  forth  from  distant  farms ; 
the  stamping  and  movement  from  the  stalls 
becomes  more  infrequent.  But  the  fish  plash 
oftener,  and  the  crickets  keep  faithfully 
on  with  their  monotonous  note — apparently 
a  single  note,  brought  from  a  fiddle  of  one 
string,  and  repeated  tirelessly,  over  and  over, 
like  the  ticking  of  a  clock — "  twee,  twee,  twee, 
twee,  twee" — with  only  just  the  least  quiver  in 
it,  giving  it  a  bit  of  trill,  while  the  number  join- 
ing in,  not  all  in  perfect  unison  of  time,  makes 


100 


A  Midsummer  Night's    Waking. 


[July, 


it  less  clock-like  in  monotony.  From  dark  till 
dawn  each  little  fiddler — unless  they  relieve 
each  other — draws  his  bow  back  and  forth 
across  his  single  string  without  an  instant's 
pause.  It  is  hard  to  conceive  how  even 
an  insect's  muscle  can  stand  it.  No 
doubt  they  do  take  turns,  but  it  must  be 
with  great  regularity,  for  there  is  no  rising 
and  falling  of  the  note,  as  if  a  greater  or  less 
number  of  fiddlers  chanced  to  be  joining  in 
it,  no  pause  or  break,  no  trace  of  answer  and 
alternation. 

Between  three  and  four  o'clock,  the  dawn- 
change  comes  over  the  light.  It  comes  just 
about  as  the  moon  sinks,  so  that  the  quan- 
tity of  light  scarcely  changes,  but  it  passes 
rapidly  from  silver  to  gray.  The  night-fog, 
dappled  and  marbled,  or  smoothly  uniform, 
still  rests  over  the  sky;  perhaps  in  the  last 
two  hours  a  wing  of  it  has  once  or  twice 
veered  a  little  lower,  and  brushed  across  the 
earth,  half  dissolving  into  drizzle,  and  half 
keeping  its  form  of  mist ;  so  that  the  pleas- 
ant smell  of  moistened  dust  has  been  added 
to  the  garden's  fragrance.  No  such  detach- 
ment has  settled  to  earth,  however  ;  the 
whole  sheet  rests  level  upon  some  elastic 
stratum  of  air,  just  clearing  the  tops  of  the 
hills.  The  result  of  this  is  a  narrow  strip  of 
clear  sky  along  the  hill-line,  with  the  fog 
hanging  close  above,  to  the  eye  a  concave 
dome.  Against  this  background  the  line  of 
crests,  clean  though  dim,  has  the  intangible 
effect  of  coming  dawn.  The  faint  light  sug- 
gests neither  moonlight,  nor  starlight,  nor 
evening  twilight.  By  day  the  hills  are  taw- 
ny, but  in  this  light  they  look  a  cool  gray  ; 
it  is  nearly  an  hour  yet  before  the  sun  can 
reach  the  horizon. 

It  creeps  on  toward  four  o'clock,  the  twi- 
light slowly  brightening.  Now  the  cocks 
begin  in  good  earnest.  They  have  devoted 
a  few  minutes,  about  once  every  hour  and  a 
half,  the  whole  night  through,  to  a  little  call- 
ing back  and  forth,  across  acre.s  of  country ; 
but  now  they  all  begin  and  go  on  tirelessly 
— now  near,  then  a  faint  echo  from  miles 
away.  The  five  "  shrill  clarion  "  notes,  sent 
out  loud  and  clear,  coming  back  fainter  and 
fainter,  and  then  taken  up  loudly  again, 


have  not  at  all  an  unmusical  effect,  all  to- 
gether :  they  ring  hack,  answering  and  re- 
answering  in  quite  an  antiphonal  fashion. 
For  a  full  half  hour  this  never  pauses. 

Meanwhile,  in  the  slowly  growing  light,  an 
occasional  bat  or  owl  goes  homeward — hur- 
rying, as  it  seems,  flying  straight,  and  evi- 
dently direct  to  a  goal.  Now,  too,  the  birds 
begin  to  waken  :  a  single  questioning  note 
comes  from  some  nest  deep  in  the  vines ; 
silence  for  a  few  minutes,  and  presently,  from 
the  midst  of  some  tree,  comes  another — a 
long,  sweet  note,  still  of  inquiry.  If  it  were 
a  perfectly  clear  dawn,  there  would  soon  be 
a  multitudinous  chorus ;  as  it  is,  now  a  note 
comes  from  one,  and  then  from  another; 
then  a  little  exchange  of  greeting  and  an- 
swer; then  a  subdued  twittering  here  and 
there.  Meanwhile,  a  faint  little  rattle  of 
sound  announces  a  waking  quail,  and  in  a 
few  minutes  the  bubbling  chuckle  which  tells 
that  the  quail  is  up  and  out  for  his  morn- 
ing stroll,  comes  from  several  directions. 
The  most  familiar  note  of  the  quail  is  his 
call  —  three  loud  and  clear  syllables ;  but 
it  is  by  no  means  the  whole  of  his  vocab- 
ulary. This  chuckling  noise  is  apparently 
for  everyday  conversation  with  his  family, 
and  no  doubt  expresses  a  great  variety  of 
meanings,  as,  in  the  course  of  their  strolls,  he 
now  and  again  addresses  it  to  them. 

At  last  the  birds  have  fairly  decided  that 
it  is  dawn.  They  do  not  leave  their  nests 
and  perches  and  begin  to  fly  about  yet ;  but 
from  within  their  coverts  they  are  all  in  an  ec- 
stasy of  twitter  and  chirp  and  whistle  and  war- 
ble. A  little  longer,  and  a  light  from  the  sun 
down  on  the  horizon  behind  will  come  across 
the  clear  strip  at  the  rim  of  the  hills  ;  the  fog 
will  begin  to  rise  and  dissolve  ;  then  one  little 
bird  will  step  out  through  the  leaves  with  a 
soft  rustle,  look  about  and  twitter  a  little; 
then  another  and  another,  thinking  of  bath 
and  breakfast.  All  the  little  lives  of  day  be- 
gin to  be  astir;  all  the  mysteries  of  night, 
the  quickening  of  emotion,  the  sense  of 
vaster  life,  have  drawn  away,  like  stars  be- 
yond the  reach  of  sight — they  seem  dreams 
and  vanished;  the  midsummer  night  is 
over. 

H.  Shewin. 


1885.] 


Reports  of  the  Bureau  of  Education. 


101 


REPORTS  OF  THE  BUREAU  OF  EDUCATION— I.1 


THE  educational  reports  of  the  national 
government  are  not,  as  a  usual  thing,  very 
technical,  and  in  some  instances  are  more 
adapted  to  general  reading  than  to  that  of 
teachers,  inasmuch  as  they  contain  reviews 
of  matters  already  well  known  to  all  actual 
teachers.  It  certainly  would  seem  that  there 
should  be  some  convenient  means  of  com- 
munication between  the  schools  and  the  pub- 
lic, by  which  something  of  the  needs  and 
condition  of  the  schools  may  be  known,  pub- 
lic co-operation  may  be  bespoken  for  needed 
reforms,  and  ill-advised  public  intermeddling 
prevented,  by  giving  that  better  knowledge 
of  danger  and  difficulties  which  teaches  cau- 
tion. The  national  reports  do  not,  in  fact, 
serve  this  purpose,  because  they  are  scarcely 
read  except  by  specialists,  nor  are  they  easi- 
ly and  conveniently  accessible.  The  educa- 
tional journals,  likewise,  are  scarcely  more 
likely  to  be  read  by  those  who  are  not  teachers 
or  school  officials,  than  medical  journals  by 
others  than  doctors.  Such  information  and 
comment  about  the  schools  as  trickles  into 
the  daily  press  is  generally  absolutely  worth- 
less, founded  on  no  real  consideration  of  the 
subject  whatever ;  while  the  more  careful 
weekly  and  monthly  press  of  the  highest 
grade  does  not  concern  itself  about  the 
schools  at  all. 

Indeed,  in  every  respect,  one  who  notices 
cannot  but  observe  a  peculiar  esoterism  about 
public  schools,  most  amazing  when  one  con- 
siders how  close  they  come  to  the  general  life. 
Not  merely  has  it  been  repeated,  even  ad 
nauseam,  that  the  common  schools  are  almost 
the  vital  point  of  our  social  framework  :  they 
are  also  an  institution  which  enters  into  the 
daily  interests  of  millions  of  our  people, 
through  the  children  of  millions  of  house- 
holds. And  yet  the  conditions  and  needs 
of  university  work  are  better  understood  and 

1  Circulars  of  Information  of  the  Bureau  of  Education, 
No.  4,  1884 — No.  i,  1885.  Pamphlets  of  the  Depart- 
ment of  the  Interior,  Bureau  of  Education :  Washing- 
ton: Government  Printing  Office.  1885. 


more  a  matter  of  interest  to  reading  people 
in  this  country,  today,  than  those  of  the  com- 
mon schools.  We  find  that  class  of  men  in 
whom  the  safety  of  the  state  rests — what 
Plato  would  call  "  the  philosophers  " — and 
the  journals  through  which  they  express 
themselves,  open  to  an  eager  interest  in  col- 
lege and  university  education,  and  in  every 
political  and  scientific  question  that  concerns 
human  improvement:  the  reform  of  the  civ- 
il service,  the  relations  of  labor  and  capital, 
prison  reform,  tenement  house  reform,  the 
Latin  and  Greek  question,  the  Indian  ques- 
tion ;  one  who  reads  the  best  journals  is  kept 
pretty  well  aware  of  the  progress  of  the  clas- 
sical school  at  Athens,  and  the  excavations 
in  Egypt,  and  the  scientific  discoveries  in 
Central  Asia.  But  common  schools  are, 
with  certain  honorable  exceptions,  left  to  a 
more  Philistine  management.  Worthy  and 
intelligent  though  the  people  are  who  organ- 
ize and  manage  public  schools,  it  cannot  be 
denied  that  men  of  the  highest  and  widest 
training,  of  excellent  rank  as  scholars  and 
recognized  weight  upon  all  subjects,  are  ex- 
ceptions among  them,  and  that  such  men 
do  not  take  that  active  interest  in  common 
school  education  which  they  take  in  other 
important  matters  outside  of  their  imme- 
diate participation.  This  should  not  be  so  ; 
it  is  not  altogether  so  in  other  countries. 
Matthew  Arnold  is  perhaps  the  most  con- 
spicuous instance  of  the  best  power  and  cul- 
ture that  England  can  afford  brought  to  the 
work  of  a  school  inspector,  but  by  no  means 
a  solitary  one.  Neither  are  such  instances 
as  Horace  Mann,  in  Massachusetts,  and  Pres- 
ident Oilman,  in  Connecticut,  unparalleled 
among  us  ;  but  they  are  apparently  only  hap- 
py accidents  here. 

These  reflections  occur  very  forcibly  to 
one  who  reads  over  these  educational  reports 
now  before  us.  They  are  not  all  valuable  re- 
ports :  they  contain  some  things  that  are  triv- 
ial, and  some  that  do  not  recommend  them- 


102 


Reports  of  the  Bureau  of  Education. 


[July, 


selves  to  the  judgment ;  many  things  that  are 
purely  technical,  and  should  interest  only 
those  whose  concern  it  is  to  know  about  regis- 
ters and  programs  and  the  practical  manipu- 
lation of  the  schoolroom ;  and  also  much  that 
ought  to  be  a  matter  of  active  interest  to 
every  sensible  person  who  concerns  himself 
for  the  good  of  society.  Why,  for  instance, 
should  it  be  a  matter  for  the  grave  considera- 
tion of  such  persons  how  factory  hours  shall 
be  regulated  with  reference  to  the  health  and 
prosperity  of  employees  and  the  best  inter- 
ests of  owners,  but  of  no  interest  whether 
recess  be  abolished  in  schools  or  not?  or 
how  the  best  method  of  appointing  clerks 
in  the  post-office  shall  be  attained,  but  not 
how  the  best  possible  teachers  for  millions 
of  our  children  shall  be  secured  ?  We  shall 
not  review  all  the  reports  before  us  with  any 
detail,  but  shall  merely  touch  on  several 
points  suggested  by  them:  and  the  first  of 
these  is  especially  apropos  to  the  point  of 
which  we  are  speaking." 

Circular  6-1884  of  the  Bureau  is  devoted 
to  the  subject  of  Rural  Schools.  It  contains 
many  points  of  detail,  but  the  general  drift 
of  it  all  is  to  urge  the  need  of  supervision 
and  system  in  this  class  of  schools.  Now 
these  are  serious  questions.  The  slovenly, 
dead-and-alive  teachingin  many  rural  schools, 
where  a  lazy  or  ignorant  teacher  consumes 
the  whole  day  in  going  through  the  merest 
forms  of  teaching,  is  ruinous.  Yet  there  is 
nothing  but  the  teacher's  own  conscience  to 
prevent  it  (nor  is  there  any  but  the  slightest 
provision  for  securing  teachers  with  con- 
science): there  is  no  test  to  which  the  work 
must  be  brought,  none  but  the  faintest 
shadow  of  supervision  from  any  higher  of- 
ficial. In  our  own  State  there  is  a  system  of 
county  examination  and  inspection  which, 
when  administered  by  an  energetic  officer, 
affords  means  of  detecting  absolutely  worth- 
less teachers,  but  not  of  applying  any  remedy 
save  that  of  quiet  diplomatic  influence  to 
oust  one  and  substitute  another.  And  where 
the  very  best  possible  with  the  means  at 
hand  is  not  thus  done,  it  is  no  uncommon 
incident  to  find  a  teacher  remaining  year 
after  year  in  a  country  school,  occupying  the 


children  from  nine  till  four  with  anything 
that  will  keep  them  still  and  sound  all  right 
if  they  tell  of  it  out  of  school,  and  nothing 
more.  Work  is  assigned,  and  never  in- 
spected; some  sort  of  nominal  progress  is 
made  from  the  first  page  to  the  last  page  of 
the  text-books ;  and  the  child's  mind  is  al- 
most hopelessly  stupefied  by  dawdling  over 
pretended  work,  with  neither  effort,  nor  com- 
prehension, nor  enjoyment.  Compare  this 
with  the  clock-work  system  of  the  German 
or  French  schools:  how  thoroughly,  under 
a  complete  system  of  supervision,  everything 
must  be  done ;  how  well  every  teacher  must 
know  his  business,  and  work  hard  at  it. 

On  the  other  hand,  consider  wisely  the 
result  of  our  now  highly  systematized  and 
supervised  city  schools.  Note  the  complaint 
of  the  wisest  teachers  that  they  paralyze  indi- 
viduality, destroy  independence  and  power 
of  real  mental  effort  in  the  child,  and  substi- 
tute aptness  at  going  through  a  sort  of  intel- 
lectual routine.  There  is  a  popular  supersti- 
tion that  the  work  of  the  schools  is  too  hard 
for  the  children,  and  is  going  to  hurt  their 
brains  by  overwork.  In  fact,  the  danger  is 
the  contrary  :  the  real,  vigorous  mental  ef- 
fort that  was  required  of  the  child  of  the  last 
generation  has  gone  out  of  fashion,  and  there 
seems  danger  that  instead  of  the  powerful 
minds  then  produced,  we  shall  have  a  gen- 
eration of  well-drilled  mediocrites,  whose 
brains  may  have  become  confused  with 
many  things,  but  whose  teachers  have  care- 
fully made  everything  easy  for  them — have 
been  compelled  to  by  public  sentiment  and 
the  clock-work  system,  even  when  against 
their  own  judgment.  In  the  country  school 
of  the  last  generation,  hard  tasks  were  set 
the  pupil ;  problems  in  "  ciphering,"  and 
"  parsing,"  such  as  would  be  considered  quite 
out  of  the  question  for  the  school  children  of 
today ;  they  were  propounded  in  books  writ- 
ten in  hard  language,  without  the  effort  to 
simplify  down  to  the  childish  vocabulary 
that  modern  text-books  make,  and  with  no 
great  amount  of  explanation  in  the  text; 
and  the  teacher  did  not  dream  of  himself 
supplementing  the  text-book  with  explana- 
tion upon  explanation,  and  visible  demon- 


1885.] 


Reports  of  the  Bureau  of  Education. 


103 


strations,  kindergarten  fashion.  The  child 
was  simply  set  at  these  things,  and  expected 
to  be  punished  if  he  did  not  masterthem ;  and 
somehow,  not  merely  the  exceptional  child, 
but  the  majority  of  the  class  did  master  them, 
and  came  out  of  the  school  with  healthy, 
active  brain  and  a  power  of  original  thought. 
Now,  the  text-book  is  simplified  to  the  ut- 
most possible,  and  fortified  with  pic  ures  and 
like  aids  ;  the  teacher  is  trained  in  Normal 
School,  and  Teachers'  Conventions,  and  by 
educational  tracts,  to  know  all  manner  of 
ingenious  ways  of  explaining  and  illustrating 
every  process  ;  and  subjects  really  requir- 
ing thought  are  no  longer  given  to  the  child 
of  eight  or  ten,  but  reserved  for  the  last  years 
of  the  eight  years'  course  into  which  the 
graded  schools  are  divided.  Moreover,  the 
hours  of  school  are  shortened,  broken  with 
exercises  and  movements  of  a  recreatory 
nature.  And  yet  the  complaint  is  always  of 
overtaxed  children. 

There  is  something  in  all  this  that  will 
bear  much  looking  into.  The  best  teachers 
say  that  not  over-work,  but  too  little  real 
work,  with  too  much  variety  of  subject,  arti- 
ficial stimulation  of  ambition,  and  the  un- 
ceasing sense  of  a  machine-like  grind  ir  the 
school  system,  wears  out  the  children,  while 
the  bulk  of  the  work  is  done  for  them  by  the 
teachers,  whom  the  modern  school  breaks 
down,  as  the  longer  hours  and  worse  grading 
of  theold  fashioned  school  did  not  break  them 
down.  This  is  partly,  they  say,  due  to  the 
incessant  pressure  of  the  public,  of  children's 
literature,  of  every  influence,  toward  keeping 
everything  severe  from  children  ;  but  partly 
to  the  necessities  of  a  working  graded  sys- 
tem of  schools. 

.Moreover,  it  is  suggested  that  though  the 
old-fashioned  country  school,  with  its  un- 
compromising demands,  did  produce  vigor- 
ous, healthy  minds  and  original  power,  the 
conditions  cannot  be  repeated  :  the  country 
was  new,  peopled  by  a  strong-brained  race, 
chosen  originally  by  a  sort  of  natural  selec- 
tion out  of  that  portion  of  the  upper  yeoman- 
ry and  plainer  gentry  of  England  in  whom 
the  tendency  to  mental  independence  wag 
strongest,  and  not  yet  seriously  modified  eith- 


er by  immigration  or  by  the  easier  life  of  a 
country  grown  prosperous.  The  teachers 
were  the  daughters  of  this  race,  sensible  and 
authoritative  by  nature,  and  its  sons,  fresh 
from  college,  embryo  ministers  and  lawyers 
and  statesmen.  The  severe  demands  to 
which  these  healthy  young  brains  responded 
so  well,  would  be  simply  crushing  to  the  mix- 
ed race  that  now  fills  our  school-rooms.  The 
children  of  educated  parents  are  to  a  great 
extent  withdrawn  from  the  lower  public 
schools,  the  boys  to  academies,  in  the  best 
of  whicn  the  vigorous  methods  of  the  older 
time  still  prevail,  and  the  girls  to  more  or 
less  fashionable  seminaries,  where  quite  the 
converse  is  true.  The  high  schools  for  the 
most  part  live  well  up  to  the  sterner  meth- 
ods, and  mental  vigor  and  independence  are 
found  in  them ;  but  by  the  time  the  high 
school  is  reached,  the  eliminations  from  the 
classes  have  restored  their  make-up  more 
nearly  to  the  old  type.  In  the  city  primary 
and  grammar  schools,  and  the  mixed  com- 
mon schools  of  the  country,  there  is  a  very 
large  per  cent,  of  the  children  of  foreigners  ; 
few  of  the  children  come  from  homes  of  as 
strenuous  mental  habits  as  their  parents  may 
very  likely  have  done.  The  relaxation  of 
theology,  the  relaxation  of  home-teaching, 
the  relaxation  of  literature,  all  send  the  chil- 
dren into  school  unprepared  for  mental  stress. 
The  laissezfaire  system  of  the  country  schools 
still  turns  out,  occasionally — as  every  observer 
knows — pupils  of  more  competent  mental 
equipment  than  the  city  machine  produces; 
high  school  and  college  teachers  will  testify  to 
this.  But  it  may  be  by  a  survival-of-the-fit- 
test  process  :  hundreds  of  mediocre  brains 
may  have  lost  such  training  as  they  were  cap- 
able of,  that  this  one  excellent  brain  might 
work  out  its  own  development  the  better  for 
having  to  do  it  almost  unhelped. 

What  then?  Between  the  dangers  of 
laissezfaire  and  the  dangers  of  system  and 
organization  (and  supervision  means  system 
and  organization),  what  can  be  done  ?  The 
question  is  not  unanswerable.  For  either 
method  works  admirably  with  ideal  teachers, 
boards,  and  inspectors.  Either  method  will 
approximate  to  admirable  working  as  these 


104 


Etc. 


[July, 


are  approximated  to.  The  one  thing  to  be 
devised  is  away  to  get  teachers  of  the  right 
sort  into  the  schools.  It  is  very  true  that  it 
is  impossible  to  man  all  the  common  schools 
of  a  country  with  teachers  like  Doctor 
Arnold  :  but  to  do  the  best  possible  in  this 
direction  with  the  available  material  is  the 
desideratum.  Then — as  the  writer  of  the 
report  under  review  wisely  suggests — the 
fairly  good  teachers,  destitute  of  originality 
or  enthusiasm  in  their  calling,  can  be  held  to 
an  imitative  higher  standard  of  work  by  effi- 
cient supervision.  But  no  system  can  be  de- 
vised that  will  secure  the  employment  of  the 
best  teachers :  nothing  will  do  this  but  the 
employment  of  a  high  quality  of  officers  in 
the  work  of  supervision.  Here  is  where  the 
secret  of  the  thorough  working  of  the  for- 
eign systems  comes  in  :  with  a  more  com- 
plete organization,  they  seem  to  suppress 
originality  less  than  we,  because  the  super- 
vision is  in  the  hands  of  more  scholarly  men. 
A  paterna'  government,  with  high  intellectu- 


al standards,  can  easily  place  it  and  keep  it 
in  such  hands.  But  with  our  government 
methods,  and  under  a  system  of  electing  most 
educational  officers  by  popular  vote,  it  is  a 
more  difficult  matter. 

It  may  be  that  the  substitution  of  appoint- 
ment for  election  in  many  cases  would  be  a 
step  toward  accomplishing  it :  it  may  be  that 
bringing  to  bear  upon  the  action  of  the  su- 
pervising officers  a  heavy  weight  of  influence 
from  competent  persons,  would  be  sufficient 
to  steadily  constrain  electors  into  choosing 
properly,  as  a  similar  stress  of  influence 
constrains  electors  more  or  less  successfully 
toward  wise  nominations  and  ballots  in  other 
directions.  This  brings  us  back  to  the  re- 
flection with  which  we  began,  as  to  the  pecu- 
liar indifference  of  the  class  who  can  most 
potently  wield  this  sort  of  influence,  to  the 
common  schools.  In  the  awakening  of  their 
interest  and  enlisting  their  efforts,  must  lie 
the  solution  of  all  difficult  questions  con- 
cerning the  schools. 


ETC. 


THERE  are  in  our  community  a  few  voices,  and 
some  of  them  not  entirely  without  influence,  which 
from  whim  or  conviction  are  rather  loud  against  our 
high  schools  and  university.  A  favorite  theme  with 
these  is  the  uselessness  of  the  education  and  the  inef- 
fectiveness of  the  graduates.  As  regards  the  high 
schools,  the  complaint  is  not  confined  to  California: 
there  is  a  prejudice  afloat  among  a  good  many 
(though  it  is  far  from  affecting  the  great  multitude  of 
our  people,  on  whose  support  the  high  school  system 
firmly  rests)  to  the  effect  that  high  school  training 
unfits  for  humble  work,  without  fitting  for  better. 
A  very  effective  antidote  to  this  prejudice  and  the 
corresponding  one  against  the  alumni  of  universities, 
can  generally  be  supplied  by  submitting  a  list  of  the 
graduates  and  their  occupations.  Indeed,  it  seems 
to  us  an  important  omission  that  record  is  not  kept, 
as  complete  as  possible,  of  the  course  of  high  school 
graduates,  from  which  reports,  with  due  estimates  of 
percentages,  may  be  made,  showing  how  far,  in  com- 
parison with  the  rest  of  the  community,  they  tend  to 
the  various  occupations,  and  what  their  proportional 
success  is  therein.  We  believe  it  would  be  found, 
"The  Breadwinners"  to  the  contrary,  that  those 
high  school  pupils  who  come  from  the  class  of  me- 


chanics remain  in  it  cheerfully,  unless,  through  their 
high  school  course,  something  better  opens  to  them 
naturally  and  properly;  that  practically  all  graduates 
enter  appropriate  callings  and  have  a  high  average 
success  in  them ;  that  they  are  a  class  of  consider- 
ably higher  respectability  in  behavior  and  serviceable- 
ness  in  the  community  than  the  graduates  of  the  low- 
er schools  alone,  and  almost  inestimably  higher  than 
those  of  no  schooling.  These  are  truisms  to  most 
people,  yet  disputed  by  many:  and  there  could  be  few 
better  services  performed  by  alumni  organizations 
than  the  collection  and  classification  of  data  of  the 
sort  we  have  indicated. 

THERE  is  only  one  high  school  class  of  whose  post- 
graduate fates  THE  OVERLAND  knows  anything. 
This  was  rather  too  small  in  numbers  to  found  gener- 
alizations upon  :  yet  it  was  in  no  respect  an  unusual 
one,  except  that  it  contained  a  somewhat  more  com- 
plete assortment  of  representatives  from  the  various 
ranks  of  the  community  than  any  other  class  that  was 
in  the  school  at  the  same  time.  It  was  favored  with 
exceptionally  good  teaching,  and  that  on  the  "cul- 
ture "  principle — everything  being  made  to  tell  rath- 
er for  the  widest  development  of  mental  power, 


1885.] 


Etc. 


105 


than  for  the  training  of  specific  abilities  or  ' '  prac- 
tical "  bents.  The  class  numbered  fifteen — eleven  girls 
and  four  boys.  A  few  years  since  it  compiled  a  rec- 
ord of  its  graduates.  The  four  boys  had  all  gone  to 
college,  and  had  all  made  there  a  creditable  record 
in  scholarship  (ranging  from  first  honors  to  fair  aver- 
age), and  the  best  possible  one  in  personal  character. 
Three  are  now,  after  proper  professional  study,  in  the 
professions  of  law  and  medicine,  and  evidently  re- 
spected and  successful  therein.  One,  whom  circum- 
stances took  from  college  before  he  had  completed 
his  course,  is  in  business  employment.  Nine  of  the 
eleven  girls  of  the  class  became  public  school  teach- 
ers for  longer  or  shorter  periods,  and  every  one  with 
success — some  with  reasonable,  some  with  excellent 
success.  Of  the  remaining  two,  one  married  at  once, 
and  one  was  competent  to  teach  in  the  less  arduous 
special  form  of  music.  In  "  The  Breadwinners,"  Miss 
Matchin  is  thrown  back  upon  her  parents1  hands, 
restless  and  discontented,  unable  to  find  occupation 
easy  and  exciting,  and  socially  creditable,  and  remun- 
erative ;  unable  to  support  her  splendor  adequately 
at  her  father's  expense  ;  and  unwilling  to  marry  a 
plain  carpenter.  These  eleven  girls  had  no  such 
trouble :  the  school-room  door  stood  wide,  and  all 
were  competent  to  enter  it.  Two  of  them  took  a 
year  or  so  at  the  State  Normal  School,  but  the  rest 
did  not  feel  even  this  farther  equipment  needed  : 
they  presented  themselves  for  examination,  took 
their  certificates,  did  not  wait  and  besiege  for  any 
city  positions,  but  scattered  to  the  corners  of  the 
State — down  the  coast,  up  in  the  mountains — wher- 
ever small  schools,  suitable  for  young  high  school 
girls  to  undertake,  could  be  had.  Only  two  of  them 
ever  entered  the  school  department  of  their  own  city. 
In  due  time  seven  of  them  were  married — each  in  the 
rank  of  life  to  which  her  own  family  belonged  ;  each, 
so  far  as  can  be  ascertained,  happily  ;  and  each  is 
now  making  the  center  of  a  good  home,  in  which, 
we  venture  to  say,  much  influence  is  visible  from  the 
high  school  course  of  the  mothers — especially  in  the 
case  of  those  whose  home  surroundings  were  not  in- 
telligent, and  who  therefore  owed  all  their  mental 
resources^  to  school.  We  cannot  recall  at  present 
writing  all  the  occupations  of  the  husbands  whom 
these  young  women  married,  but  we  believe  they 
were  all  mechanics,  clerks,  or  farmers.  Of  the  four 
unmarried  women  (the  class  is  still  not  long  enough 
out  of  school  to  have  reached  the  milestone  of  thirty 
years),  one  is  still  a  successful  teacher  in  the  public 
schools;  and  every  member  of  the  class — up  to  the  full 
one  hundred  per  cent. — is  appropriately  and  useful- 
ly engaged,  with  due  ambition  and  without  undue 
or  unhappy  striving  after  unattainable  things  in  the 
way  of  rank  and  position.  Three  of  the  girls  of  the 
class  also  went  to  college  and  two  took  first  honors  with 
the  A.  B.  degree :  but  the  percentage  of  thirty-three  and 
one-third  per  cent,  college  graduates  to  the  whole  num- 
ber of  the  class,  and  the  large  proportion  of  honors 


taken  by  it,  is  to  be  regarded  as  exceptional,  and  due 
chiefly  to  the  exceptionally  inspiring  nature  of  the 
teaching.  The  thing  that  is  not,  according  to  our  best 
observation,  exceptional,  is  the  cheerful  and  sensible 
way  in  which  any  high  school  class  can  be  expected  to 
take  hold  of  life  and  make  a  reasonable  success  of  it. 
Much  must  depend  on  whether  it  is  a  good  high 
school  or  a  poor  one;  but  for  the  average  high  school, 
we  believe  the  facts  would  be  found  to  back  up 
pretty  well  the  case  of  this  typical  class. 

THE  service  of  such  a  collection  of  graduate  rec- 
ords as  we  have  desired  has  been  in  part  done  for  the 
University,  by  the  enterprise  of  some  young  men  of 
the  junior  class.  This  class  issues  yearly  a  students' 
catalogue  —  known  as  the  "Blue  and  Gold" — in 
which  records  of  the  undergraduate  societies,  clubs, 
and  similar  matters  independent  of  the  official  organ- 
ization of  the  University,  find  place,  with  the  class 
histories  and  the  like,  and  many  local  jokes.  The 
young  men  who  this  year  managed  the  publication 
have,  with  admirable  energy,  sought  out  the  present 
whereabouts  and  occupation  of  the  whole  alumni 
list,  dating  from  '64  (the  first  class  of  the  College  of 
California),  nearly  400  in  all.  A  most  interesting 
investigation  as  to  the  occupations  these  graduates 
seek  is  thus  possible.  The  percentages  assigned  to 
the  different  occupations  are  based  on  somewhat  less 
than  the  whole  number  of  graduates,  as  seventeen 
are  dead,  and  the  dozen  married  women  among  the 
alumnae,  and  nearly  a  dozen  more  engaged  only  in 
the  indefinable  employments  of  "home,"  were  ruled 
out,  as  too  difficult  of  classification. .  With  these 
reservations,  24.12  per  cent,  of  the  University  grad- 
uates prove  to  be  engaged  in  law;  14.12  in  mercan- 
tile business;  12.06  per  cent,  in  teaching  (in  all  ranks, 
public  and  private :  one  of  the  graduates  of  the  last 
decade,  for  instance,  is  a  professor  in  Harvard  Col- 
lege, another  a  Kindergartner);  in  a  number  of  un- 
classified pursuits — agents,  post-graduate  or  art-stu- 
dents, here  or  abroad,  civil  service  officials,  wood- 
engravers,  &c.,  one  or  two  in  each  pursuit — 12.06; 
in  engineering,  civil,  mining,  and  mechanical,  H-77J 
9. 1 1  per  cent,  are  farmers;  6.47  per  cent,  physicians, 
3.82  chemists;  3.23  editors  and  publishers;  2.35 
clergymen;  and  0.89  capitalists.  These  alumni  are 
all,  of  course,  comparatively  young  men,  as  only 
twenty-one  years  have  elapsed  since  the  first  gradua- 
tion, described  by  Dr.  Willey  in  the  present  number 
of  THE  OVERLAND;  and  some  of  the  youngest  gradu- 
ates are  now  engaged  in  law  studies  who  will  not 
make  law  their  permanent  occupation.  It  is  common 
for  young  graduates,  while  seeking  their  permanent 
niche,  to  take  a  course  in  the  law  school,  as  a  thing 
that  will  come  in  handy  anywhere.  Nevertheless, 
there  can  be  no  doubt  that  law  is  the  calling  which 
attracts  our  young  college  men,  out  of  all  proportion 
beyond  others.  "  Business,"  teaching,  and  engineer- 
ing are  the  staple  callings  of  our  graduates,  after  law; 


106 


Etc. 


[July, 


and  farmers  and  doctors  are  also  in  good  numbers  ; 
outside  of  these  six  occupations,  the  number  in  each 
one  is  very  small.  Among  the  graduates  of  Eastern 
colleges,  in  like  manner,  law  is  found  to  take  preced- 
ence over  all  other  occupations.  Many  lads  go  to 
college  with  no  other  intention,  from  the  first, 
than  of  fitting  there  to  take  up  the  study  of  law. 
We  doubt  whether  the  proportion  of  lawyers,  how- 
ever, is  quite  as  large  elsewhere  as  here.  It  will  be 
seen  how  few  journalists  are  to  be  found  among  the 
graduates,  though  journalism  is  a  favorite  calling 
with  Eastern  college  men.  The  reason  of  this  is, 
doubtless,  not  so  much  disinclination  on  the  gradu- 
ates' part,  as  lack  of  sufficient  opening  for  their  work 
on  this  coast.  We  shall  hereafter  recur  to  the  "  Blue 
and  Gold "  alumni  list,  to  comment  upon  several 
other  interesting  facts  which  it  reveals. 

THE  educational  interests  of  the  Pacific  Coast  have 
suffered  a  severe  loss  by  the  death  of  Henry  B.  Nor- 
ton, of  the  State  Normal  School.  He  was  a  promi- 
nent figure  in  the  small  group  of  men  who  have  been 
natural  leaders  of  the  common  school  system  of  Cal- 
ifornia, and  he  had  to  an  unusual  degree  the  faculty 
of  interesting  and  influencing  the  teachers  of  the 
State.  He  was  a  pleasant  lecturer,  and  for  years  he 
has  spent  a  portion  of  each  year  in  taking  charge  of 
teachers'  institutes,  so  that  few  men  have  been  brought 
intocontact  with  so  many  workers  in  the  public  schools. 
Professor  Norton's  early  education  was  in  some  re- 
spects hard  and  narrow;  but  his  mind  in  manhood  was 
earnest  and  sympathetic.  The  library  he  collected, 
his  delight  in  his  orchard  and  rural  home  at  "  Sky- 
land,"  on  the  Santa  Cruz  hills,  the  varied  enterprises 
he  helped  with  power  and  voice,  are  evidence  of  his 
character.  In  the  class-room,  as  has  been  said  by 
one  who  knew  him  well,  "He  was  never  tired  nor 
tiresome";  in  the  lecture  room,  he  drew  large  audi- 
ences and  interested  them  for  hours.  He  endeav- 
ored to  popularize  the  latest  results  of  scientific  dis- 
covery, and  his  lectures  on  physics  and  astronomy, 
while  not  laying  claim  to  any  original  research,  were 
unusual  in  their  combination  of  correctness,  clear- 
ness, and  vividness  of  statement.  Of  recent  years  he 
has  become  conspicuous  for  his  knowledge  of  the  in- 
sect pests  that  afflict  the  horticultural  interests  of  the 
State.  It  may  be  years  before  any  one  can  fill  the 
place  he  occupied,  as  the  friend  and  counselor  of 
hundreds  of  young  men  and  women  throughout  Cal- 
ifornia, whose  acquaintance  he  had  made  while  in 
lecturing  tours,  or  when  botanizing  in  vacations,  or 
as  their  teacher  at  the  State  Normal  School.  The 
guest  chamber  of  his  house  was  seldom  empty,  and 
his  friendships  were  peculiarly  deep  and  lasting. 
Though  the  public  has  taken  less  notice  of  his  de- 
parture than  the  death  of  many  a  noisier  and  less 
worthy  man  might  attract,  there  are  not  wanting 
those  who  feel  that  this  high-minded  and  thoroughly 
devoted  teacher  has  left  a  wide  void  in  the  commu- 
nity. 


WHEN  we  talk  of  the  pioneers  of  '49,  we  are  in  the 
habit  of  thinking  of  them — those  that  still  live — as 
Californians  only.  But  of  the  thousands  who  came 
here  in  those  days,  expecting  to  return  East  soon, 
many  actually  did  so  ;  and  scattered  here  and  there, 
all  through  the  East,  are  genuine  '49ers,  whose  few 
years  in  California,  almost  lost  under  later  experi- 
ences, yet  stir  very  warmly  in  their  memories  on  oc- 
casion. One  of  these  writing  to  send  the  following 
verses,  adds  thus  to  the  incident  they  narrate : 

"While  on  a  business  trip  to  Milwaukee,  I  recog- 
nized one  of  my  old  mining  partners,  in  a  white-haired 
gentleman  of  portly  figure  who  passed  the  window  of 
the  hotel.  I  followed  him,  put  my  hand  on  his 
shoulder,  and  saluted  him  as  'Bill.'  You  can  im- 
agine his  surprise.  I  do  not  believe  he  had  been 
called  familiarly  by  his  Christian  name  in  twenty 
years.  His  face  flushed,  and  he  seemed  about  to  ex- 
plode with  anger,  when  I  smiled,  and  straightway  the 
clock  of  the  world  went  back  thirty  years,  and  he  rec- 
ognized me.  He  was  in  town  on  business,  and  wait- 
ing for  t  he  midnight  train  on  the  St.  Paul  road,  while 
I  was  expecting  to  leave  at  the  same  hour  on  the 
Chicago  and  Northwestern." 

After  Many  Years. 

WHO  is  that  passing  on  the  street  I  wonder? 

His  face  looks  like  a  face  I  seem  to  know. 
Can  it  be  he  ?     It  is,  it  is,  by  thunder  : 

Will  H ,  my  chum  of  thirty  years  ago  ! 

To  make  assurance  doubly  sure  I'll  hail  him. 

I'll  wager  he's  the  same  old  convive  still. 
Will  he  know  me,  or  will  his  memory  fail  him  ? 

I'll  try  it  on,  by  Jove  :    "  How  are  you,  Bill?" 

He  turned  at  this  familiar  salutation, 

With  puzzled  mien,  and  glance  equivocal, 

But  with  that  glance  took  in  the  situation, 

"  God  bless  my  soul !  "  he  said,   "  How  are  you 
Cal? 

"  Whence  come  you  now,  and  whither  are  you 

bound  ? 

How  many  years  is  it  since  last  we  met  ? 
Where  do  you  hail  from  ?  Where's  your  stamping 

ground  ? 
We'll  have  a  social  chat  tonight,  you  bet. 

"  Come,  let  us  leave  the  street ;  here  close  at  hand 

I  claim  since  yesterday  a  domicile, 
Only  a  transient  one,  you  understand, 

Within  the  cirque  of  Plankinton's  hotel.  " 

And  now,  behold  us  seated  by  the  table, 
Two  staid  old  pioneers  of  "  forty-nine  " 

With  locks  so  white,  and  beards  so  venerable, 
Recounting  escapades  of  "auld  lang  syne." 

Thus  seated  knee  by  knee,  and  cheek  by  jowl, 
Each  seems  forgetful  of  his  fifty  years. 

With  merry  jest  we  drain  and  fill  the  bowl, 
And  to  our  minds  the  past  alone  appears. 


1885.] 


Etc. 


107 


Question  on  question  follows  thick  and  fast; 

"  Do  you  remember?  "  forms  the  text  for  all, 
While  incidents,  forgotten,  of  the  past, 

Each  to  the  other's  memory  we  recall. 

"  Do  you  remember  how  I  washed  that  shirt, 
At  Hawkins  Bar  in  eighteen  forty-nine  ? 

And  having  cleansed  it  of  the  mud  and  dirt, 
The  owner  came  and  said  it  wasn't  mine  ? 

"  Do  you  remember  crossing  to  discover 
New  claims  upon  the  river's  further  side, 

How  at  your  wink  '  Steve '  turned  the  pirogue  over, 
And  laughed  to  see  me  stem  the  icy  tide  ? 

"  Do  you  remember  how  we  lost  the  trowels, 
In  that  same  accident  to  the  canoe, 

How  '  Robert '  wondered  '  that  we  had  the  bowels 
To  come  to  camp,  and  come  without  them  too  '  ? 

"  Do  you  remember,  you  mendacious  cuss, 
That    mule  we   jayhawked   down   on  Woods's 

creek  ? 

And  how,  when  that  mule's  owner  made  a  fuss, 
You   lied,    and    'Griff'   and    I    endorsed    your 
cheek  ? 

"  Alas,  poor  '  Griff,'  we'll  meet  no  more  on  earth  ; 

He's  staked  a  claim  in  Campo  Santo's  ground ; 
His  voice  no  more,  in  sadness  or  in  mirth, 

Will  greet  us  with  the  old  familiar  sound — 

"  '  Bruce,'  too,  has  journeyed  to  the  land  of  souls, 
And  '  Tribbie's '  earthly  pilgrimage  is  o'er  ; 

He  who  all  human  destinies  controls 

Has  called  them  from  us  to  the  unknown  shore. 

"And  you  and  I  who  have  been  boys  together, 
Though   now  grown  old,  will  try  and  cherish 

still' 
Those  friendly  ties,  which  through  all  winds  and 

weather, 
Have  yet  survived  ;  let's  trust  they  ever  will. 

"  Heigho,  old  boy,  it's  time  for  us  to  part, 
The  minute  hands  mark  'leven  forty-five. 

Let's  have  another  glass  before  we  start, 
And  then  together  leave  this  human  hive. 

"You  for  your  home  by  Mississippi's  stream, 
And  I  for  mine  beneath  the  northern  pine. 

Where  this  amid  past  memories  will  gleam, 
And  cast  a  halo  around  Friendship's  shrine." 

The  driver  calls,  "  You've  got  five  minutes  still 

To  reach  the  station,  and  you'll  need  'em  all." 
I  hail  him  as  he  goes  with  "  So  long  Will," 
And  he  responsive  answers,  "So  long  Cal." 

H.  C.  G. 

Literary  Training. 

EDITOR  OVERLAND:  The  present  is  emphatically 
an  age  of  technical  schools.  They  have  been  estab- 
lished for  almost  every  art,  science,  and  trade  in  the 
whole  range  of  human  effort.  It  is  the  purpose  of 
this  letter  to  call  attention  to  the  fact  that  in  one  de- 


partment of  industry  the  school  has  not  kept  pace 
with  the  times.  For  authorship,  profession  or  trade, 
there  is  offered  no  special  training.  The  classical 
and  literary  courses  in  schools  and  colleges  furnish 
excellent  general  preparation  for  the  literary  life,  but 
it  is  a  training  more  practical  and  technical  to  which 
reference  is  now  made.  Ever  since  the  days  when 
authors  starved  in  Grub  Street  garrets  (what  a  fine 
sarcasm  in  the  name!),  the  young  writer  has  floun- 
dered along  as  best  he  could,  till  he  has  become  dis- 
couraged, or  has  chanced  to  make  a  hit. 

Let  us  suppose  a  young  man  that  has  made  up  his 
mind  to  become  an  author.  His  most  obvious  course 
is  to  begin  by  writing  for  some  magazine.  He  sub- 
mits his  article,  prose  or  verse,  to  the  editor.  The 
chances  are  a  hundred  to  one  that  his  manuscript 
comes  back  to  him  with  a  courteous  form  expressing 
regret  that  it  is  "  not  available."  Here  is  a  perplex- 
ity. Why  ?  Had  the  editor  no  time  to  read  the 
manuscript  carefully,  or  was  there  an  overplus  of  ac- 
cepted matter,  so  that  the  article  was  declined  on 
general  principles  ?  Or,  supposing,  as  more  likely, 
that  the  fault  is  in  the  production  itself,  what  is  it? 
Is  the  subject  matter  unsuitable,  so  that  what  he  has 
said  was  not  worth  saying,  or  has  he  not  said  it  well  ? 
Then  there  are  the  more  practical  questions:  Is  it 
waste  of  time  for  him  to  try  again  ?  or,  if  not,  how 
shall  the  second  attempt  differ  from  the  first  ? 

It  may  be  said  that  the  young  writer  is  his  own 
best  judge  ;  for  if  he  has  the  divine  afflatus,  it  will  so 
impel  him  to  write  that  no  adverse  circumstances 
will  deter  him.  This  is  very  beautiful  in  theory,  but 
unfortunately  it  is  belied  time  and  again  in  experi- 
ence. Indeed,  there  are  so  many  things  to  warp  an 
author's  judgment — and  especially  in  the  case  of  a 
young  author — of  his  own  work,  that  the  opinion  of 
almost  any  other  person  of  intelligence  is  of  more 
value.  Instances  in  support  of  this  proposition  will 
occur  to  every  reader:  Virgil,  desiring  with  his  latest 
breath  that  the  "  ^Eneid  "  be  destroyed,  because  it 
had  not  received  his  final  polish;  Walter  Scott,  as  he 
tells  us  in  the  charmingly  confidential  introduction  to 
"The  Lay  of  the  Last  Minstrel,"  burning  the  first 
part  of  that  poem,  discouraged  by  the  silence  of  two 
friends  to  whom  he  had  read  it;  Milton,  believing 
that  his  fame  would  rest  on  "  Paradise  Regained," 
rather  than  on  its  great  predecessor;  John  Hay, 
piqued  becanse  the  public  chooses  to  recognize  him 
as  the  author  of  "Little  Breeches,"  the  trifle  of  an 
idle  .hour,  and  forgets  his  more  serious  work:  on  the 
other  hand,  Salmi  Morse,  proclaiming  that  the  "  Pas- 
sion Play  "  is  second  only  to  "  Paradise  Lost ; "  and 
the  inspired  being  of  every  neighborhood,  who  insists 
on  writing  and  publishing  his  worthless  poems,  de- 
spite the  neglect  of  an  unappreciative  world. 

Since,  then,  his  own  judgment  stands  him  in  little 
stead  as  to  the  course  to  be  pursued  in  order  to  sat- 
isfy his  craving  for  literary  fame  and  for  things  more 
substantial,  to  whom  shall  he  go  for  advice  ?  Of 
course,  his  immediate  friends  and  relatives  are  ready 


108 


Etc. 


[July, 


to  give  him  a  surfeit  of  the  article,  but,  unfortunately, 
their  opinions  are  of  hardly  more  value  than  his  own; 
they  either  think  him  and  all  he  does  perfect  in  the 
blindness  of  their  love,  or,  on  the  other  hand,  they 
think  him  an  idiot  for  attempting  literary  work, 
to  the  neglect  of  occupations  more  prosaic  in  their 
nature,  but  more  certain  in  their  returns.  But  there 
is  his  distinguished  friend,  Mr.  Blank  Blank:  why 
not  ask  the  advice  of  that  gentleman  ?  There  are 
many  reasons  to  make  the  young  author  hesitate. 
Mr.  B.  is  such  a  busy  man,  that  it  is  asking  as  much 
to  make  a  demand  upon  his  time  as  upon  his  purse. 
Then,  again,  Mr.  B.  would  hardly  consider  it  a 
pleasant  task  to  pore  over  a  crude  manuscript  and 
give  a  just  opinion,  at  the  risk  of  receiving  small 
thanks  for  his  trouble.  At  any  rate,  the  young 
writer  feels  a  delicacy  about  asking  favors  of  this 
sort. 

To  whom  shall  he  go  then  ?  The  fact  is,  there  is 
only  one  man  in  the  world  who  knows  exactly  why  the 
editor  rejected  the  first  article,  and  just  what  sort  of  an 
article  would  be  acceptable.  That  man  is,  of  course, 
the  editor  himself.  "But  you  surely  don't  say  that 
the  editor  should  take  the  time  to  examine  every  ar- 
ticle that  is  sent  in,  and  return  all  unaccepted  ones 
with  reasons  and  advice  as  to  further  writing  ? " 
Precisely  that.  "But  it  wouldn't  pay  him  to  do  it  " 
(and  here  the  objector  adds  some  remark  in  dispar- 
agement of  the  common  sense  of  a  man  that  suggests 
such  an  idea).  But  why  not  make  it  pay  ?  Let  the 
announcement  be  made  in  the  magazine  that  every 
manuscript  accompanied  by  a  certain  sum  of  money 
— one  dollar,  two  dollars,  or  five  dollars,  the  amount 
to  be  determined  by  experience — will  be  more  care- 
fully examined  than  is  possible  for  ordinary  contribu- 
tions, and  advice  sent,  as  above  stated. 

The  advantages  of  this  plan  are  many.  The 
young  writer  will  be  sure  of  obtaining  the  judgment 
and  advice  of  a  thoroughly  impartial  and  practical 
critic.  He  will  be  told  whether  or  not  his  writing 
shows  any  signs  that  he  will  ever  achieve  success. 
Me  will  be  instructed  as  to  the  department  of  litera- 
ture that  offers  the  fairest  prospect  for  him.  As  a 
result,  he  will  waste  no  time  in  hopeless  effort,  and 
will  know  just  where  to  put  his  attention  in  further 
writing.  Thus,  every  rejected  article  will  represent, 
not  lost  time,  but  a  stage  of  progress.  Should  he 
succeed,  his  profits  as  a  writer  will  soon  repay  the 
outlay  he  has  made  in  his  apprenticeship;  or  his 
money  will  be  well  spent  if  it  puts  to  rest  aspirations 
that  could  lead  only  to  loss  of  time  and  disappoint- 
ment. 

To  the  magazine  the  benefits  of  this  scheme  would 
be  no  less  signal.  It  is  not  supposed  that  it  will  add 
directly  to  the  revenue  of  the  publishers;  for,  to 
make  the  matter  a  success  at  all,  the  ^enclosure  must 
be  kept  at  the  smallest  amount  that  will  pay  for  the 
extra  work  involved,  and  the  increase  of  editorial 
staff  that  would  be  required.  But  it  would  enable 
the  editors  to  mould  the  most  promising  of  the  young 


writers  that  offer  themselves  as  the  needs  of  the  pub- 
lication may  require,  and  in  time  to  have  at  their 
command  a  body  of  contributors  trained  under  their 
care,  and  loyal  to  the  hand  that  has  guided  them  to 
success. 

It  is  true  that  this  system  demands  peculiar  sa- 
gacity and  tact  on  the  part  of  the  editor.  He  must  not 
be  in  any  sense  a  narrow  man,  but  must  be  able  to 
appreciate  any  sort  of  excellence  in  all  departments 
of  literature,  and  to  discern  the  seeds  of  ability  in 
the  crude  effort  of  the  novice.  Failing  in  these  qual- 
ities, he  would  mould  his  apprentices  into  an  insuf- 
ferable sameness  of  thought  and  style,  or  would  dis- 
courage those  who  might  otherwise  succeed.  But 
these  qualities  are  nearly  those  of  the  able  magazine 
editor  now. 

In  any  case  the  attempt  would  require  no  great  ef- 
fort; it  would  interfere  in  no  respect  with  those  who 
prefer  the  present  method.  Manuscripts  could  still 
be  sent  in  the  ordinary  way,  to  heap  the  waste  basket 
with  productions  that  have  cost  weary  hours— hours 
utterly  lost  in  comparison  with  the  good  that  would 
have  come  from  directed  work. 

But,  if  it  should  succeed,  the  plan  has  possibilities 
of  growth.  Authorship  might  become  no  longer  the 
haphazard  thing  it  now  is,  and  it  might  be  that  a  really 
sane  man  could  adopt  letters  as  a  profession,  expect- 
ing to  get  his  bread  and  butter  by  it.  The  time 
might  come,  too,  when  the  School  of  Authors' would 
take  its  place  with  the  Schools  of  Design  and  of 
Music,  as  it  would  have  good  right  to  do;  for  it  would 
teach  the  finest  of  the  fine  arts,  an  art  more  universal 
in  its  influence  and  greater  in  its  power  than  all  oth- 
ers combined.  G. 

Grave  Subjects. 

IT  was  my  fortune  to  spend  a  portion  of  the  sum- 
mer of  1884  in  a  quiet  little  New  England  village, 
away  from  the  whirl  and  bustle  of  busy  life.  There 
was  little  to  break  the  monotony.  So  one  day  I 
strolled  into  the  grave-yard,  where  lie  the  remains  of 
those  who  lived  so  long  ago  their  very  names  are  for- 
gotten by  the  present  generation.  These  old  New 
England  grave -yards  in  too  many  instances  are  sadly 
neglected.  The  battle  for  mere  existence  is  so  hardly 
won  on  its  stubborn  soil  that  many  give  it  up,  and, 
with  the  course  of  empire,  take  their  way  westward, 
leaving  no  kith  or  kin  of  those  who  sleep  under  the 
shadow  of  their  ancestral  homes.  The  new-comers 
who  take  their  places  have  no  reverence  for  the  mem- 
ory of  those  they  never  knew,  and  the  want  of  a 
modern  "  Old  Mortality"  is  plainly  seen. 

From  the  monumental  stones,  many  of  which 
were  moss-covered,  and  others  so  eaten  by  the  tooth 
of  time  as  to  leave  their  inscriptions  almost  illegible, 
I  copied  some  epitaphs,  among  which  were  the  fol- 
lowing. Some  of  them,  doubtless,  are  to  be  found 
elsewhere,  while  others  bear  the  evidence  of  entire 
originality.  For  instance,  this,  which  is  a  good  speci- 
men of  condensed  biography: 


1885.] 


JStc. 


109 


"  Sixteen  years  I  lived  a  maid, 

Two  years  I  was  a  wife, 
Five  hours  I  was  a  mother, 

And  so  I  lost  my  life. 
My  babe  lies  by  me,  as  you  see, 
To  show  no  age  from  Death  is  free." 

Several  stones  near  each  other  bear  inscriptions 
that  evidently  emanated  from  the  same  source;  some 
of  them  are  as  follows: 

"  One  day  in  health  I  did  appear, 

The  next  a  corpse  fit  for  the  bier." 
"  Friends  and   brothers,  see  where  I  lie ; 
Remember  you  are  born  to  die." 

' '  What  hidden  terror  death  doth  bring, 
It  takes  the  Peasant  and  the  King; 
Then  prepare,  both  one  and  all, 
For  to  be  ready  when  God  doth  call." 

A  stone  for  a  young  lady  of  twenty-four  years 
bears  this  couplet: 

"  Sleep  on,  sweet  babe,  till  Jesus  comes 
And  raises  all  from  sleeping  tombs." 

The  following,  although  inscribed  with  no  regard 
to'orthography  or  measure,  was  evidently  selected  by 
one  of  high  poetic  feeling: 

' '  Life's  a  journey  !  Man  the  rugged  path  with  hope 
and  fear  alternate  travels  on:  but  e'er  his  journey  half  is 
o'er,  grim  death,  like  a  villian  in  the  dark,  lets  fly  his 
quivering  dart:  the  traveller  falls. " 

Here  are  two  that  may  have  been  written  by  the 
same  hand: 

"  No.     I'll  repine  at  death  no  more, 

But  with  a  cheerful  gasp  resign 
To  the  cold  dungeon  of  the  ground 
These  dying,  withering  limbs  of  mine." 

*  My  flesh  shall  slumber  in  the  ground 
Till  the  last  Trumpet's  joyful  sound; 
Then  burst  the  Chains  of  Sweet  Surprise 
And  in  my  Savior's  image  rise." 

The  epitaph  of  a  clergyman  who  died  at  the  age 
of  twenty-seven,  which  was,  as  is  certified  on  the 
same  stone,  composed  by  himself  on  his  death-bed, 
reads  as  follows: 

"  How  short,  how  precarious,  how  uncertain  is  life  ! 
How  quick  the  transition  from  time  to  eternity.  A 
breath,  a  gasp,  a  groan,  and,  lo,  we're  seen  no  more. 
And  yet  on  this  point,  oh,  alarming  thought,  on  this 
slender  point  swings  a  vast  eternity." 

Following  the  ordinary  inscription  of  name,  date 
of  death,  age,  etc..  on  the  headstone  of  one  who 
was  found  dead  one  morning,  having  evidently  fallen 
to  the  ground  from  outside  stairs  leading  to  a  house 
door,  are  these  lines: 


"  No  cordial  to  revive  his  heart, 
No  one  to  hold  his  hea.d, 
No  friend  to  close  his  dying  eyes, 
The  ground  was  his  death-bed." 

Onetstone  is  erected  "  In  memory  of  Mr.  Timothy 
Moses  and  his  wives."  Aftei  stating  that  he  died 
August  25,  A.  D.  1787,  aged  81,  it  gives  the  names, 
dates  of  death,  and  ages  of  four  of  his  wives,  and 
states^that  "Mrs.  Mary  ye  5th  Survives.''  Stones 
for  the  first  two  wives  stand  beside  his,  but  evidently 
the  expenses  for  such  momentoes  became  after  this 
too  much  for  Timothy  to  bear. 

Not  far  away  stand  the  memorial  stones  of  a  man 
and  three  wives — one  of  which  wives  died  within  a 
year  of  a  former  one,  and  I  was  told  that  he  left  two  • 
more  survivors — one  divorced  and  one  his  widow. 

Idleness. 

ALL  the  poets  of  the  Present, 

Practical,  and  worldly-wise, 
Write  in  rhyme  of  city  customs, 

City  cares,  and  city  lies  ; 
Or  describe  a  brief  vacation, 
And  conventional  flirtation. 

What  are  these  ?     Come,  let  us  ramble 

In  the  dear  and  olden  way 
Down  the  quiet,  country  meadows, 

Bright  with  blossomed  flowers  of  May; 
In  the  pleasant  summer  weather 
Let  us  spend  an  hour  together. 

How  the  light  of  noon-day  lingers 
On  the  creamy  four  o'clocks  ! 

How  the  breeze  from  piny  forest 
Every  grass-blade  lightly  rocks  ! 

All  the  world  is  young  together 

In  this  early  summer  weather. 

Here  we'll  dally  by  the  brookside 

Where  the  sun  upon  it  lies, 
While  the  wary  trout  goes  flashing 

Past  us  as  the  lightning  flies  ; 
We'll  be  friends  with  him  together 
In  this  friendly  summer  weather. 

And  perchance,  we  may  discover, 
Idly  basking  'neath  the  brake. 

Streaked  and  striped  with  brown  and  yellow, 
Some  reposing  water-snake  ; 

We  will  pause  awhile  together 

In  this  careless  summer  weather. 

Blue  above,  serene  and  cloudless 
Spread  the  heavens  overhead  ; 

Here  we'll  lie  among  the  clover, 
Here  we'll  make  our  fragrant  bed  ; 

With  the  bees  and  birds  together 

We  will  spend  the  summer  weather. 


110 


-Book  Reviews. 


[July, 


BOOK   REVIEWS. 


Italy,  1815-1878. 

THE  greatest  constitutional  events  of  the  last  three- 
quarters  of  a  century  might  well  be  summed  up  in 
the  phrase,  "  United  Italy — United  Germany  ";  and 
as,  for  centuries,  history  linked  German  and  Latin, 
so  men  now  living  remember  when  the  struggle  of 
Italians  for  liberty  and  union  aided  to  stir  the  thoughts 
of  broken  fragments  of  States  beyond  the  Alps.    The 
courage  of  Victor  Emmanuel,  the  ardor  of  Joseph 
Mazzini,    the   cool,    philosophical   statesmanship   of 
Count  Cavour,  were  priceless  gifts  to  the  welfare  of 
Europe  at  large.     Young  Americans  should  read  the 
story  of  the  regeneration  of  Italy,  in  order  to  under- 
stand how  much  a  few  brave  and  educated  men  may 
do,  how  great  a  reform  they  can  begin.     The  field  of 
action  was  large  in  extent,  and  of  classic  interest ; 
literature,  art,  and  song,  had  made  the  land    their 
own.     It  had  given  Europe  lessons  in  manners  and 
chivalry,  and  had  protected  the  learning  of  Greece. 
In  its  Soil  was  the  dust  of  Caesars,  and  the  ruins  of 
Roman  and  Etruscan  temples.     But  at  last  the  inter- 
est taken  in  the  struggle  by  poet,  philosopher,  and 
antiquarian  paled,  as  it  ever  will  in  great  struggles, 
before  the  purely  human  interest.     Here  were  peas- 
ants and  counts,  humble  carbonari,  and  noble  diplo- 
mats, and  red-shirted  mountaineers,  and  dwellers  in 
ancient  towns,  whose  mighty  oath  was  to  set  Italy 
free.     The  people  -usually  knew  what  they  wanted, 
but  foolish  and  treacherous  leaders  often  led  them 
astray,  and  delivered  them  up  to  axe  and  dungeon. 
At  first,  indeed,  men  wanted  Naples  free,  Piedmont 
free,  Venice  free,  and  cared  little  for  their  brethren. 
Then,  when  it  was  discovered  that  their  fates  and 
fortunes  were  one  and  indivisible,  men  tried  to  shape 
the  New  Italy  according  to  certain  preconceived  no- 
tions of  what  a  State  should  be.     The  growth  of  the 
national  idea   broke   all  fetters,  until  constitutional 
freedom  arid  union  under  the  House  of  Savoy  were 
gained. 

Mr.  Probyn,  in  the  modest  volume  under  review, 
has  endeavored  to  give  a  concise  account  of  the  chief 
causes  and  events  which  transformed  Italy  from  a 
divided  into  a  united  country.  He  tells  us  that  dur- 
ing 1859  and  1871,  he  spent  a  part  of  each  year  in 
Italy,  where  he  studied  the  people  and  their  political 
affairs.  His  book  bears  every  internal  evidence  of 
thoroughness  and  accuracy  in  detail.  The  important 
change  in  the  policy  of  Pope  Pius  IX.  towards  the 
Liberals  of  1848,  the  growth  of  Piedmont  under  Ca- 
vour's  administration,  the  part  he  played  in  the  Cri- 

Italy:  from  the  fall  of  Napoleon  I.  in  1815,  to  the 
death  of  Victor  Emmanuel,  in  1878.  By  John  Webb 
Probyn.  London  &  New  York:  Cassell  &  Co.  For 
sale  in  San  Francisco  by  A.  L.  Bancroft  &  Co. 


mean  War,  the  alliance  with  France,  the  war  of  1859, 
the  fall  of  Gaeta,  and  the  first  Italian  Parliamentin  Feb- 
ruary, 1860,  are  told  with  dispassionate  carefulness. 
The  story  properly  ends  when  Italy  takes  Rome,  and  in 
November,  1871,  opens  her  parliament  there.  The 
very  important  Law  of  the  Papal  Guarantees  is  given 
in  full,  and  the  relations  of  Church  and  State  in  prac- 
tice are  described. 

As  for  the  present  condition  of  free  Italy,  statistics 
are  highly  encouraging.  The  percentage  of  illiteracy 
has  been  reduced  one-half,  and  more  than  six  million 
dollars  is  annually  ^pent  on  the  schools.  There  are 
12,700  university  students  in  Italy.  In  1861  there 
were  820  miles  of  railroad;  now  there  are  5,500 
miles,  and  2,000  miles  more  are  in  process  of  con- 
struction. The  savings  banks  in  1879  held  656,000,- 
ooo  francs,  and  there  were  925,000  investors.  Pub- 
lic securities  have  risen  from  68  to  92.  Dante's 
bitter  reproach  : 

"Alas!  enslaved  Italy,  abode  of  grief, 
Ship  without  pilot  in  a  mighty  tempest," 
is  no  longer  true. 

Coues's  Key  to  North  American  Birds.! 

THE    original    edition    of  this    well-known    work 
(which  contains  a  concise  account  of  every  species  of 
living  and  fossil  bird  at  present  known  on  the  conti- 
nent north  of  the  boundary  line  between  Mexico  and 
the  United  States,  including  Greenland)  having  be- 
come exhausted,  and   the  demand  for  it  being  very 
great,  a  revision  of  it  has  been  issued,  in  connection 
with  another  of  the  author's  old  works,  the  "Field 
Ornithology. "     Part  First  of  the  new  volume  consists 
of  the  old  "  Field  Ornithology  " — a  work  invaluable 
to  the  student,  giving  him  minute  and  complete  di- 
rections for  collecting,  studying,  and  preserving  speci- 
mens.    Even  boys   cannot   resist  the  description  of 
the  fowler's  outfit  with  which  the  book  opens,  and 
they  follow  with  avidity  into  the  haunts  of  the  birds, 
eager  to  avail  themselves  of  the  hints  about  bringing 
down  their  game,  securing  it,  and  about  the  hiding- 
places  for  nests,  the  best  way  of  preserving  the  eggs, 
and  the  art  of  taxidermy.     The  boy-fowler  is  an  en- 
thusiast on  these  points.     Had  it  been  a  stroke  of 
policy  to  entice  boys,  nothing  could  have  been  more 
masterly  than  the  opening  chapters.     But  the  work 
is  simply  the  cheery  noting  of  the  author's  own  ex- 
perience, given  to  his  younger  brothers  in  the  field, 
with  the  earnest  hope  that  ways  that  have  proved 
useful    to   him  may  be  helpful  to  them.     And,  al- 
though so  cheery,  it  teaches  the  student  how  to  study 
like  the  scientist,  how   to   examine  his   specimens, 

1 A  Key  to  North  American  Birds.     By  Elliot  Coues. 
Boston :  Estes  &  Lauriat. 


1885.] 


Book  Reviews. 


Ill 


and  how  to  record  his  most  minute  observations. 
Part  Second  is  the  introduction  to  the  old  "  Key," 
relating  to  the  technical  terms  of  the  science — revised 
and  enlarged  into  a  full  treatise  on  the  ex  ternal  and  in- 
ternal structure  of  birds,  their  classification  and  nomen- 
clature. Part  Third,  the  Key  proper,  corresponds  in  or- 
nithology to  the  well  known  Keys  of  Gray  and  Wood 
in  botany.  It  describes  over  nine  hundred  species  of 
birds  concisely,  but  fully  enough  for  great  certainty 
of  identification,  guarding  most  carefully  against 
mistakes  arising  from  changes  in  plumage  owing  to 
sex,  season,  or  age.  It  notes  carefully,  also,  the  geo- 
graphical distribution  and  differences  of  species,  and 
gives  brief  accounts  of  the  "habits,  haunts,  mi- 
grations, song,  nests,  eggs,  etc,"  of  the  birds  de- 
scribed. The  work  contains  between  five  and  six 
hundred  cuts,  and  all  so  expressive  that  the  descrip- 
tions of  the  text  are  hardly  necessary.  It  is  a  per- 
fectly complete  guide  to  the  naming  and  classifying 
of  specimens,  and  absolutely  indispensable  to  the 
teacher  of  ornithology.  Pait  Fourth  is  a  synopsis 
of  the  Fossil  Birds  of  North  America.  In  conse- 
quence of  the  wonderful  progress  of  the  science  in 
the  last  few  years,  a  revision  of  the  old  "Key  "  had 
become  desirable.  The  present  volume  contains  the 
summing  up  in  the  briefest  manner  compatible  with 
exactness  and  clearness,  the  latest  knowledge  in  or- 
nithology, resulting  either  from  the  author's  own  un- 
wearying investigations,  or  those  of  his  brother  scien- 
tists. Moreover,  through  it  all,  the  author's  natur- 
ally gay  and  poetic  vein  bubbles  over  charmingly, 
and  there  is  a  most  seductive  commingling  of  in- 
struction, sentiment,  and  fun. 

The  Lenape  Stone.1 

This  is  a  very  thorough  monograph  upon  an  interest- 
ing Indian  relic  found  in  Pennsylvania.  The  stone — 
an  ordinary  "gorget  stone" — bears  a  scratched  pic- 
ture of  a  fight  between  Indians  and  a  mammoth.  If 
genuine  and  contemporary,  it  would  be  by  all  odds  the 
most  remarkable  record  of  the  mammoth  in  existence. 
The  author  evidently  wishes  very  much  to  believe  it 
genuine,  yet  he  sums  up  the  evidence  with  commend- 
able fairness.  Unfortunately,  the  most  competent 
archaeologists  who  have  examined  it  agree  in  pro- 
nouncing the  picture  probably  a  recent  forgery, 
though  the  stone  itself  is  a  genuine  ancient  gorget. 
On  the  other  hand,  the  evidence  of  the  perfect  good 
faith  of  the  farmers  who  found  the  stone  seems  con  - 
elusive,  and  no  sufficient  motives  seem  to  have  exist- 
ed for  any  forger  to  thus  throw  away  his  work.  The 
picture  was  undoubtedly  drawn  either  by  some  an- 
cient artist  who  had  seen  the  mammoth,  or  some 
modern  one  who  had  seen  pictures  of  him.  That 
the  mammoth  did  exist  in  America  until  long  after 
the  period  of  human  occupation,  is  established  ;  it 
even  seems  probable  that  he  remained  here  until 

'The  Lenape  Stone:  or,  The  Indian  and  the  Mam- 
moth. By  H.  C.  Mercer.  New  York  and  London:  G. 
P.  Putnam's  Sons.  1885. 


within  the  period  of  Indian  tradition,  and  possible 
that  the  last  specimens  of  the  great  creature  lingered 
in  the  interior  of  the  country  after  Europeans  had 
touched  the  coasts.  Some  points  in  the  Indians'  nar- 
rations seem  to  indicate  that  they  did.  Even  if  this 
were  so,  the  animal  was  then  practically  extinct,  a 
source  of  amazement  to  the  Indians  themselves  on  the 
rare  occasions  when  they  caught  a  glimpse  of  it ;  and  it 
is  to  these  last  glimpses  of  an  animal  forgotten  by  the 
native  dwellers  on  the  soil  that  the  accounts  in  the 
legends  refer— if,  indeed,  they  refer  to  the  mammoth 
at  all.  Again,  some  attempts  to  figure  the  mam- 
moth have  been  discerned  in  pipes  from  the  mounds, 
and  in  the  shapes  of  certain  mounds  themselves  ; 
but  these  are  not  admitted  by  careful  archaeolo- 
gists to  be  at  all  certainly  mammoths,  but  possi- 
bly tapirs,  and  possibly  nothing  of  that  kindred. 
Among  these  obscure  hints  and  possibilities  of  human 
records  of  the  mammoth,  the  Lenape  stone  drawing 
would  be  of  incalculable  value,  if  genuine,  with  its 
unmistakable  mammoth ;  while,  on  the  other  hand, 
its  amazing  difference  from  all  these  others  makes  it 
look  untrustworthy.  The  archaeologists'  chief  objec- 
tions to  it  are  founded  upon  the  character  of  the  pic- 
ture, which  is  totally  un-Indian  and  suspiciously  like 
the  famous  La  Madeleine  mammoth  picture;  and  upon 
the  nature  of  the  incisions,  which  they  think  must 
have  been  made  by  steel.  These  are  certainly  very 
weighty  objections  ;  even  though  the  force  of  the  lat- 
ter is  a  little  broken  by  the  testimony  of  the  farmer 
who  owns  the  stone,  that  he  cleaned  out  the  lines 
with  a  nail. 

Briefer  Notice. 

IN  Patroclus  and  Penelope"2-  Colonel  Dodge  has 
given  a  great  deal  of  useful  and  interesting  informa- 
tion about  horses  and  horsemanship,  gaits  and  sad- 
dles, breeding  and  training,  and  all  in  a  free,  easy 
style  that  makes  it  very  readable.  He  believes  in 
careful  schooling  for  horse  and  man,  and  in  the  mo  in 
points  he  considers  the  method  of  Baucher  the  best 
ever  devised.  We  scarcely  think  he  is  right  in 
saying  that  a  cowboy  or  vaquero  in  his  big  saddle 
would  be  easily  thrown  by  a  racing  colt  on  account 
of  the  difference  in  motion  between  the  colt  and  the 
western  broncho  :  for  those  who  have  seen  much  of 
vaquero  riding  are  inclined  to  believe  that  the  best  of 
that  profession  can  "stick  "  to  anything  that  they  can 
get  the  sinch  to  stay  on.  The  big  Mexican  saddle 
would  not  be  the  proper  thing,  or  even  the  most 
comfortable  thing,  on  the  street  or  in  the  hunt ;  but 
for  the  mere  "sticking"  to  all  kinds  of  beasts  with 
all  kinds  of  gaits,  it  is  hard  to  excel.  The  book  is 
illustrated  with  fourteen  fine  photographs  taken  by 
the  instantaneous  process,  which  show  clearly,  as 
the  author  intends  them  to,  that  in  carefully  selected 
views  of  a  fine  moving  horse,  it  is  not  necessary  that 

2  Patroclus  and  Penelope  ;  A  Chat  in  the  Saddle. 
By  Theodore  Ayrault  Dodge.  Boston:  Hough  ton 
Mifflin  &  Co.  1885.  For  sale  in  San  Francisco  by  Chil- 
ion  Beach. 


112 


Book  Reviews. 


[July. 


the  animal  look  as  if  he  were  all  out  of  joint.  The 
chapter  on  this  subject  is  as  full  of  suggestions  that 
are  of  value  to  artists  as  are  the  remaining  ones  of 

points    for    the   horseman. The   beautiful    little 

books  of  the  Riverside  Aldine  Series  are  thus  far 
seven  in  number;  the  first  four  we  have  heretofore 
noticed  ;  the  three  following  are  Howells's  Venetian 
Life,1  in  two  volumes,  and  Burroughs's  Wake  Robin. * 
The  selections  for  this  series  have  been  no  less  satis- 
factory than  the  form. No  more  valuable  books 

of  reference  can  come  into  the  student's  hands  than 
the  different  Q.  P.  Indexes.  Indeed,  it  is  hard  to 
think  how  we  ever  got  along  without  them.  The 
Annual  Index  to  Periodicals^  for  1884  has  reached 
us,  making  that  year's  stores  of  magazine  articles 
available.  The  device  on  the  covers  of  these  in- 
dexes— a  hand  holding  an  eel  by  the  tail — is  very  apt. 
We  note  among  the  titles  indexed  for  the  year  some 
seventy-odd  from  THE  OVERLAND.  From  the  same 
quarter  comes  A  Directory  of  Writers  for  the  Literary 
Press,*  a  first  issue,  and  not  entirely  complete.  An- 
other excellent  index  is  The  Cooperative  Index  to 
Periodicals,^  a  quarterly  issue.  This  does  not  select 
among  articles,  like  the  Q.  P.  Index,  but  indexes  all 
prose  articles.  It  is  less  compact  than  the  Q.  P. 
Index,  and  less  specifically  of  use  to  students,  being 

1  Venetian  Life.    I.,  II.    By  W.  D.  Howells.     River- 
side Aldine  Series.     Boston:  Houghton,  Mifflin  &  Co. 
1885.     For  sale  in  San  Francisco  by  Chilion  Beach. 

2  Wake  Robin.     By  John  Burroughs.     Riverside  Al- 
dine Series.     Boston:  Houghton,  Mifflin  &  Co.     1885. 
For  sale  in  San  Francisco  by  Chilion  Beach. 

*  An  Annual  Index  to  Periodicals:  The  Q.  P.  In- 
dex Annual  for  1884.  Bangor:  Q.  P.  Index,  Publisher. 
1885. 

4  A  Directory  of  Writers  for  the  Literary  Press  in  the 
United    States.     Compiled  by  W.  M.  Griswold.     Ban- 
gor, Maine  :  Q.  P.  Index,  Publisher.     1884. 

5  The  Cooperative  Index  to  Periodicals.     Edited  by 
W.  I.  Fletcher.    Vol.  I.,  No  i.,  January-March,  1885. 
New  York.     1885. 


easier  to  find  one's  way  in.  It  indexes  by  subjects, 
not  titles,  which  is  the  only  way  to  be  really  service- 
able to  seekers. Un  Mariage  cf  Amour6  is  the 

third  of  William  R.   Jenkins's    well-selected    Conies 

Chaises. One  of  the  many  enthusiastic   admirers 

of  General  Gordon  has  compiled — literally  piled  to- 
gether— an  unassorted  medley  of  extracts  from  his 
letters,  put  them  between  card-covers,  tied  these 
together  with  a  ribbon,  and  entitled  the  result  Chi- 
nese Gordon,  the  Uncrowned  King?  There  seems 
no  particular  work  in  the  world  for  the  pamphlet, 
as  it  contains  nothing  new. The  National  Acad- 
emy Notes  and  Complete  Catalogue*  for  1885  is  a 
more  interesting  issue  than  ever  to  those  at  a  dis- 
tance, as  the  sketch-reproductions  (nearly  a  hundred 
in  number)  are  better  than  before.  These  give  some 
very  fair  hint  of  the  appearance  of  most  of  the  figure 
paintings,  but  are  in  all  but  a  few  the  merest  sugges 
tion  of  the  landscapes.  Among  them  we  notice  two 
from  pictures  of  the  Santa  Barbara  Mission,  by  Ben- 
oni  Irwin.  Biographical  notes  upon  the  artists  are 
added,  and  a  list  of  prices  attached  to  the  pictures. 
Magruder's  John  Marshall*  of  the  "Ameri- 
can Statesmen  "  series,  shows  an  appreciable  depar- 
ture from  the  high  standard  which  has  been  main- 
tained hitherto  in  the  series.  It  is  little  more  than  a 
repetition  of  the  familiar  phases  of  Marshall'^  life  and 
character.  Its  treatment  of  the  larger  questions 
which  the  career  of  the  great  Chief  Justice  suggests 
is  entirely  inadequate. 

6  Un    Mariage   d' Amour.       Par   Ludovic    Halevy. 
New  York:  William  R.  Jenkins.    1885. 

7  Chinese  Gordon,  the  Uncrowned  King.     Compiled 
by  Laura  C.  Holloway.    New  York:  Funk&  Wagnalls. 
1885. 

8  National  Academy  Notes  and  Complete  Catalogue. 
1885.     New  York,  London,  and  Paris:  Cassell  &  Com- 
pany. 

9  John    Marshall.     By    Allan    Magruder.     Boston  : 
Houghton,  Mifflin  &  Co.  1885.     For  sale  in  San  Fran- 
cisco by  Chilion  Beach. 


THE 


OVERLAND  MONTHLY. 


DEVOTED   TO 


THE  DEVELOPMENT  OF  THE   COUNTRY. 


VOL.  VI.  (SECOND  SERIES.)— AUGUST,  1885. No.  32. 


FORCE. 

THE  stars  know  a  secret 

They  do  not  tell ; 
And  morn  brings  a  message, 

Hidden  well. 

There's  a  blush  on  the  apple, 

A  tint  on  the  wing, 
And  the  bright  wind  whistles, 

And  the  pulses  sting. 

Perish  dark  memories  ! 

There's  light  ahead; 
This  world's  for  the  living, 

Not  for  the  dead. 

In  the  shining  city, 

On  the  loud  pave, 
The  life-tide  is  running 

Like  a  leaping  wave. 

How  the  stream  quickens, 

As'  noon  draws  near ! 
No  room  for  loiterers, 

No  time  for  fear. 

Out  on  the  farm-lands 

Earth  smiles  as  well : 
Gold-crusted  grain-fields, 

With  sweet,  warm  smell; 

(Copyright,  1885,  by  OVERLAND  MONTHLY  Co.     All  Rights  Reserved.) 


114  La  Santa  Indita.  [Aug. 

Whirr  of  the  reaper, 

Like  a  giant  bee ; 
Like  a  Titan  cricket, 

Thrilling  with  glee. 

On  mart,  and  meadow, 

Pavement,  or  plain  ; 
On  azure  mountain, 

Or  azure  main, — 

Heaven  bends  in  blessing; 

Lost  is  but  won ; 
Goes  the  good  rain-cloud  ? 

Comes  the  good  sun  ! 

Only  babes  whimper, 

And  sick  men  wail, 
And  faint-hearts,  and  feeble- hearts, 

And  weaklings  fail. 

Down  the  great  currents 

Let  the  boat  swing ; 
There  was  never  winter 

But  brought  the  spring. 

E.  R.  Sill. 


LA   SANTA   INDITA. 

MORE  than  three  hundred  years  ago  a  little  Christianity — where  once  arose  the  smoke 

village  of  mud-built  cottages,  thatched  with  of  heathen  sacrifice. 

long,  sharp  vacate  de  cuchillo,  or  knife  grass,        In  those  days,  when  the  village  was  one  of 

nestled  at  the  foot  of  a  mountain,  covered  the  most  unimportant  in  all  the  great  realm 

half  its  height  with  tropical  shrubs  and  trees,  of  Montezuma,  the  Aztec  king,  there  lived 

which  formed  a  sombre  and  beautiful  base  there  a  little  brown  maiden  called  "  Otzli," 

for   the  summit   of  dazzling  snow   that  re-  or  "The  Wind  Flower."    Perhaps  we  should 

fleeted  the  brilliant  sunlight,  or  was  half  lost  smile  at  such  a  comparison,  but  to  her  father 

in  fleecy  clouds.  and  mother  and  all  the  villagers  she  was  the 

There  is  a  large  town  now  where  the  hum-  most  lovely  and  delicate  creature  upon  the 

ble  village  once  stood,  and  handsome  dwell-  earth.     She  was  the  chief's  daughter,  a  prin- 

ings  overshadow  mud-built  huts,  while  for  cess,  and  was  served  with  the  tenderness  and 

both  rich  and  poor  a  massive  church  opens  deference  due  to  her  high  rank,  and  she  was 

its  large  and  heavy  portals.     How  grand  is  loved  as  only  the  gentle  and  pure  minded 

its  facade  of  dark  brown  stone,  wrought  in  can  be. 

myriad  forms  of  saints  and  angels,  prostrate        Her  days  passed  by  in  perfect  happiness, 

demons,  leaves,  and  flowers ;  how  its  dome,  She  lay  beneath  the  shade  of  flower  laden 

covered  with  polished  and  many  colored  por-  trees,  and  looked  up  at  the  silvery  mountain 

celain,  flashes  in  the  sun,  upholding  a  tower-  or  the  blue,  cloudless  sky.     Her  playfellow 

ing  cross  of  glittering  bronze— the  symbol  of  was  a  pet  fawn,  which  gamboled  at  her  side 


1885.] 


La  Santa  Indita. 


115 


wherever  she  went,  or  lay  beside  her  when 
she  slumbered,  and  shared  the  fruits  and  tor- 
tillas— thin  cakes  of  corn  freshly  toasted — 
which  she^  thought  so  delicious. 

Otzli's  father  was  stern  and  proud,  rarely 
deigning  to  speak  to  his  little  daughter,  but 
sometimes  he  laid  his  hand  on  her  head  as 
he  passed  her,  or  looked  at  her  with  a  tender 
smile;  and  Otzli  knew  that  he  loved  her, 
and  was  instructed  not  to  expect  caresses 
from  so  great  a  warrior.  But  her  mother 
petted  and  kissed  her  with  endless  affection, 
and  to  her  Otzli  poured  out  all  her  tender 
little  heart. 

At  last  the  peaceful  life  in  the  little  village 
was  abruptly  ended.  Breathless  messengers 
came  to  warn  the  chief  and  his  followers  that 
a  terrible  enemy  was  threatening  their  capital. 
"  They  were  pale  as  the  spirits  of  the  dead  !  " 
they  said;  "they  bestrode  fierce  beasts  which 
breathed  forth  smoke,  and  were  as  the  im- 
mortal gods  in  strength  and  courage  ! "  And 
worst  of  all,  they  carried  enchanted  rods, 
which,  at  the  command  of  their  masters, 
roared  with  a  loud  voice,  sent  forth  flames 
of  fire,  and  even  from  afar  struck  agony  and 
death.  In  truth,  the  Spaniards  under  Cor- 
tez,  riding  on  horses  and  using  firearms, 
were  the  formidable  enemies  the  poor  In- 
dians were  called  upon  to  encounter. 

They  marched  forth  bravely,  chanting 
war-songs  of  proud  defiance.  Even  the 
women  who  remained  at  home  did  not  suf- 
fer a  tear  or  a  sigh  to  escape  them,  lest  they 
should  dishearten  or  annoy  their  brave  de- 
fenders. But  when  these  were  all  gone, 
Otzli's  mother  bade  them  be  cheerful  and 
industrious,  and  set  them  an  example  by  un- 
wonted diligence  in  her  own  household  tasks, 
and  in  the  direction  of  public  affairs,  in  which 
she  was  assisted  by  some  grave  elders,  who 
were  too  old  and  infirm  to  go  to  the  war. 

Otzli  did  not  cry  when  her  father  went 
away,  for  she  would  have  thought  it  coward- 
ly, and  unworthy  a  chief's  daughter.  But  at 
last  there  came  a  day  when  all  women  might 
bewail  themselves  unchidden.  The  city  of 
Mexico  had  fallen  ;  its  king  was  dethroned ; 
thousands  of  his  subjects  lay  dead  in  the 
streets,  and  their  corpses  filled  the  streams. 


Not  one  of  the  men  who  had  left  the  little 
village  returned  to  tell  the  tale. 

Poor  little  Otzli !  What  a  terrible  grief 
filled  her  young  heart.  Never,  to  her  dying 
day,  could  she  forget  the  scene  that  ensued, 
when  the  dreadful  tidings  became  known. 
The  women  ran  shrieking  through  the 
streets,  tearing  their  long  hair,  and  calling 
upon  their  gods  to  help  them.  They  sur- 
rounded the  hut  in  which  Otzli  and  her 
mother  lived,  and  begged  her  to  speak  to 
them,  to  give  them  some  comfort.  But  she 
could  not  comfort  them ;  she  could  not 
speak,  nor  did  she  weep.  She  stood  mo- 
tionless, as  if  turned  to  stone,  only  her  large 
eyes  burned  like  coals. 

No  one  dared  to  go  near  her ;  even  Otzli 
crouched  at  her  feet  tremblingly,  awe-stricken 
by  her  strange  and  terrible  appearance. 
One  by  one  the  weeping  people  turned  away 
to  their  homes,  and  as  night  came  on  the 
village  grew  silent.  Otzli  lay  and  looked  up 
at  the  silver-crested  mountain,  glorious  in  a 
flood  of  moonlight.  Her  mother's  gaze  was 
fixed  there  also ;  she  seemed  to  see  some- 
thing far,  far  away.  By  and  by,  Otzli  sobbed 
herself  to  sleep,  and  late  in  the  night,  when 
the  moon  was  setting,  and  even  the  snowy 
peak  grew  dark,  her  mother  stepped  out  into 
the  gloom,  leaving  her  child  in  the  silent 
chamber,  where  she  awoke  at  sunrise  to  find 
herself  alone. 

She  was  not  alarmed  at  first,  but  waited 
patiently  for  her  mother  to  return ;  but  long 
hours  passed  and  she  did  not  make  her  ap- 
pearance. At  last  some  women  came  to 
know  why  she  had  not  come  out  to  speak  to 
them.  They  were  amazed  and  alarmed 
when  they  found  she  was  not  in  the  hut. 
They  sought  her  all  that  day,  and  for  days 
thereafter,  but  found  her  not.  At  last,  all 
but  Otzli  became  reconciled  to  her  loss ;  but 
poor  little  orphaned  Otzli,  how  could  she 
cease  to  hope?  She  would  have  died  had 
she  despaired !  Oh,  how  cruel  her  gods 
seemed  to  her.  They  had  taken  her  all 
upon  earth  ;  they  offered  her  nothing  in  the 
future  !  The  one  little  flame  that  warmed 
her  soul,  was  the  faint  hope  that  her  mother 
would  return. 


116 


La  Santa  Indita. 


[Aug. 


The  months  went  by  and  she  came  not ; 
but  one  morning  a  strange  sound  was  heard 
without  the  village  walls.  It  burst  upon  the 
ears  of  the  newly  arisen  people  like  the  tri- 
umphant music  of  the  gods ;  and  before 
they  could  recover  from  their  surprise,  a 
startling  vision  appeared.  The  terrible  white 
strangers,  riding  their  enchanted  monsters, 
swept  through  the  town,  and  gathering  in 
the  open  square  in  the  center,  unfurled  a 
glorious  banner,  and  knelt  before  some  mys- 
tic symbol,  held  in  the  hands  of  a  venerable 
man  with  gray  hair  streaming  over  his  loose 
black  robes. 

They  soon  learned  that  this  symbol  was 
the  cross,  the  sign  of  the  new  religion  to 
which,  through  force  or  conviction,  they 
were  soon  obliged  to  attach  themselves. 
The  gray-haired  man  was  the  priest,  to 
whom  they  learned  to  look  for  protection 
from  the  lawless  soldiers,  and  who  became 
the  guide  and  father  of  the  forsaken  Otzli. 
She  grew  to  love  him  dearly,  and  believed 
implicitly  all  he  told  her.  She  found  a  new 
hope  added  to  that  she  still  held  of  her 
mother's  return.  Beyond  this  world,  which 
had  been  so  sad  a  one  to  her,  she  learned 
to  look  for  another,  where  there  shall  be  no 
sorrow  nor  weeping. 

Father  Luis  was  old  and  infirm,  and  had 
come  to  the  new  country  because  he  seemed 
to  hear  a  divine  voice  calling  him  to  the 
work ;  but  he  often  asked  himself  hopelessly 
what  he  could  do,  and  his  fellow  clergymen, 
when  they  thought  of  him,  said  the  same. 
And  so  he  was  left  in  this  tiny  village,  with 
its  few  inhabitants  of  young  boys,  old  men, 
and  women,  and  made  some  sincere  con- 
verts for  whom  he  thanked  God. 

There  had  been  one  high  hope  in  Father 
Luis's  heart  when  he  entered  upon  his  mis- 
sion :  he  had  longed,  and  still  longed,  to 
raise  up  a  temple  to.  the  true  God  in  this 
land  of  idols.  But  his  hopes  grew  fainter 
and  fainter;  the  village  was  so  obscure,  so 
far  removed  from  ways  of  travel,  so  small 
and  poor,  a  church  there  seemed  as  little 
needed  as  it  was  probable  it  could  be  built. 

Poor  old  Father  Luis — as  his  hopes  faded, 
so  dearer  and  dearer  they  became  to  him, 


and  he  talked  of  them  constantly  to  his  only 
confidant,  the  child  Otzli.  As  she  became 
more  and  more  devoted  to  her  new  faith, 
she  caught  the  enthusiasm  of  her  pastor. 

"  The  dear  Jesus  will  bless  us,"  she  would 
say ;  "  before  you  die,  he  will  grant  your  de- 
sires. I  pray  to  him  without  ceasing  !  He 
will  send  my  mother  back  to  me,  and  the 
spot  on  which  I  first  see  her  shall  be  blessed." 

The  father  listened  almost  in  awe.  The 
child  spoke  with  such  simplicity,  and  yet 
with  such  assurance,  that  she  seemed  like 
one  inspired. 

For  some  time  thereafter  the  good  father 
felt  a  new  hope.  But  it  faded  when  months 
passed  by,  and  his  congregation  decreased, 
the  village  began  to  fall  in  ruins,  the  fields 
were  forsaken,  and  worse  than  all,  his  com- 
forter and  darling,  little  Otzli,  sickened  and 
seemed  about  to  die. 

She  had  not  spoken  much  of  late,  either 
of  her  mother  or  of  the  church ;  but  one 
evening,  as  the  sun  was  setting,  she  went  to 
the  little  chapel  to  pray.  She  knelt  down  at 
the  humble  altar,  and  lifted  her  heart  in 
adoration.  Father  Luis  came  softly  into  the 
tiny  yet  sacred  room,  and  with  bent  head 
watched  her,  as  the  last  long  rays  of  the  sun 
streamed  from  the  crest  of  the  snowy  moun- 
tain, and  enveloped  her  form  in  glory. 

As  he  stood  there,  a  wan  and  haggard 
creature,  so  ragged,  so  emaciated  that  it 
seemed  scarcely  human,  glided  in  at  the 
open  door.  It  was  a  woman,  a  wretched, 
elf-like  creature,  with  wild  eyes  glowing  un- 
der her  tangled  hair.  Yet  wretched  and 
wild  as  she  was,  she  bore  in  her  hand  an  ex- 
quisite wreath  of  wild  flowers — such  flowers 
as,  the  father  knew,  grew  only  upon  the 
snow-clad  mountain — lovely,  delicate  flow- 
ers, blooming  in  the  midst  of  eternal  snow. 
They  were  the  ethereal  blossoms  in  remem- 
brance of  which  the  chieftain  and  his  wife 
had  named  their  little  one  Otzli,  or  "The 
Wind  Flower." 

The  woman  stood  motionless  as  her  eyes 
fell  upon  the  kneeling  child ;  then  rushing 
forward  before  the  alarmed  priest  could  in- 
terpose, she  had  clasped  her  in  her  arms. 

It  was  Otzli's  mother.     "  My  prayer  is  an- 


1885.] 


Early  Horticulture  in   California. 


117 


swered,"  cried  the  child,  as  she  clung  to  the 
miserable  and  famine  wasted  form.  "O 
Jesus,"  she  added  in  a  voice  of  almost  agon- 
ized entreaty,  "  Thou  who  hast  answered  the 
prayer  of  a  little  child,  consider  the  desires  of 
thy  faithful  servant,  and  glorify  thy  name." 

As  she  prayed  she  dropped  upon  her 
knees  before  the  altar,  and  with  an  instinct 
of  sacrifice,  caught  from  her  mother's  hand 
the  wreath  of  ethereal  snow  flowers,  and  ex- 
tended it  towards  the  rude  image  of  the 
blessed  child  ;  and  lo  !  within  her  hands  the 
fragile  leaves  and  blossoms  were  transformed 
and  became  a  glittering  crown  of  gold  and 
silver,  sparkling  with  precious  stones. 

This  was  the  miracle  by  which  God  grant- 
ed the  prayer  of  the  good  Friar  Luis  and 
the  little  Indian  convert. 

Far  and  wide  spread  the  wonderful  tidings, 
and  hundreds  and  thousands,  both  heathen 
and  converted,  thronged  to  the  altar  whereon 
the  glittering  wreath  lay.  Every  leaf  and 
flower  were  as  perfect  in  form  as  when  they 
clung  to  the  rugged  mountain  sides;  but  oh, 
how  glorified,  how  wondrously  transformed  ! 
So  the  obscure  village  became  a  place  of 
pilgrimage,  and  from  the  gifts  of  the  faithful 
immense  sums  soon  filled  the  coffers  of  the 
wondering  Friar  Luis,  and  within  a  few 
months  he  began  the  fulfillment  of  the  dear- 
est object  of  his  life,  the  erection  of  his  church. 


But  alas  !  a  great  grief  came  upon  him. 
God  removed  from  his  sight  his  beloved  In- 
dian child.  Otzli  died  in  the  arms  of  her 
mother,  who,  once  more  restored  to  her  right 
mind,  and  a  true  convert  to  the  Christian 
faith,  soothed  the  last  days  of  the  loving  and 
saintly  child,  and  afterward  became  the 
abbess  of  the  first  nunnery  of  Indian  con- 
verts established  in  Mexico. 

Father  Luis  lived  to  see  the  completion 
of  the  church,  and  to  dedicate  it  to  the  Sav- 
ior under  the  name  "  La  Santa  Indita  "  ;  and 
for  many  years  it  was  renowned  for  its  wealth 
and  grandeur,  and  thousands  annually  flock- 
ed to  visit  the  tomb  of  the  sainted  Indian 
maiden,  and  to  worship  before  the  altar, 
where  her  effigy  of  pale  brown  stone,  most 
exquisitely  carved,  upbore  the  miraculous 
wreath  before  the  image  of  the  loving  Sav- 
ior, who  said,  "  Suffer  little  children  to  come 
unto  me." 

Such  is  the  legend  of  the  beautiful  church 
which  still  stands,  half  lost  in  tropic  verdure, 
at  the  foot  of  the  snow-clad  mountain  ;  but 
it  has  been  despoiled  of  its  wealth,  the  mir- 
aculous crown  has  been  removed  to  a  se- 
cret resting  place,  and  is  represented  by  one 
of  tinsel  and  colored  glass.  But  the  mem- 
ory of  the  trustful  child  remains,  and  awak- 
ens still  the  reverence  and  love  of  all  to 
whom  her  history  is  made  known. 

Louise  Palmer  Heaven. 


EARLY  HORTICULTURE  IN  CALIFORNIA. 


No  writer  has  yet  attempted  to  give  a  care- 
ful account  of  early  horticultural  experiments 
in  this  State,  and  if  the  work  be  not  under- 
taken before  the  last  of  the  pioneers  has 
passed  from  the  field  of  his  triumphs,  many 
personal  reminiscences  of  value  will  be  lost. 
The  generation  that  has  seen  the  transforma- 
tion of  cattle-ranges  into  wheat  fields,  and, 
within  less  than  two  decades,  the  change  of 
wheat  fields  into  orchards  and  vineyards, 
can  tell  stories  of  unequaled  horticultural 
triumphs.  Thirty  years  ago  each  planting  of 
a  vine  or  tree  was  considered  a  hazardous 


experiment  on  this  coast,  except,  indeed,  in 
those  favored  spots  where  the  Spanish  padres 
had  tested  the  fertility  of  the  soil.  It  is  al- 
most impossible  for  the  younger  men  and 
women  of  California  to  realize  how  slowly  the 
horticultural  possibilities  of  this  domain  of 
Coast  Range,  great  central  valley,  and  Sierra 
foothills,  were  at  last  revealed. 

The  discussions  that  took  place  in  the  col- 
umns of  the  early  agricultural  journals  of 
California,  show  how  little  men  knew  of  the 
soil  they  were  beginning  to  cultivate,  and  of 
the  climate  which  was  adapted  to  such  a  va- 


118 


Early  Horticulture  in  California. 


[Aug. 


riety  of  fruits  and  flowers.  For  years  the 
worthlessness  of  the  southern  counties  of  the 
State  was  considered  axiomatic,  despite  the 
beautiful  oases  of  vine  and  orange  about  the 
old  missions.  For  years  no  man  dared  to 
plant  an  orchard  anywhere  except  on  a  river- 
bottom,  and  the  necessity  of  irrigating  vine- 
yards was  widely  proclaimed  in  the  "fifties." 

The  first  series  of  the  OVERLAND  MONTH- 
LY contributed  greatly  to  enlightened  views 
upon  horticulture  in  California,  and  no  ex- 
haustive history  of  the  subject  can  ever  be 
written  without  reference  to  its  articles  upon 
vineyards,  olive-culture,  orchards,  gardens, 
orange  groves,  and  similar  topics.  The  ear- 
liest reports  of  the  State  Agricultural  and 
Horticultural  Societies,  the  earliest  files  of 
San  Francisco  newspapers  and  periodicals, 
and  some  notes  from  the  personal  recollec- 
tions of  .pioneer  nurserymen,  supply  still  far- 
ther material,  and  are  the  basis  of  the  pres- 
ent article. 

Though  its  subject  is  pioneer  American 
horticulture,  it  should  be  recalled  that  horti- 
culture in  California  properly  begins  with  the 
Franciscan  priesthood,  whose  gardens  flour- 
ished in  San  Diego,  Los  Angeles,  San  Bue- 
naventura, Santa  Barbara,  and  many  another 
beautiful  spot,  half  a  century  before  Hugo 
Reid,  the  eccentric  Scotchman  of  San  Ga- 
briel, had  begun  his  essays  on  the  history 
and  customs  of  the  Indians  ;  before  Yount, 
the  trapper,  had  built  his  log  cabin  in  upper 
Napa ;  before  Dr.  John  Marsh  had  settled 
in  his  famous  "  stone  house  "  on  his  "  Farm 
of  Pulpunes."  The  palm  trees  that  the  priests 
planted  in  San  Buenaventura  still  add  a 
charm  to  the  landscape.  A  few  of  the  olive 
trees  they  planted  near  San  Luis  Obispo 
yet  shade  the  crumbling  walls.  The  tall  pear 
and  fig  avenues  they  set  out  at  the  Mission 
San  Jose"  were  cut  down  in  their  prime. 
At  San  Gabriel,  the  celebrated  "  Mother 
Vineyard  "  contained  three  thousand  vines 
at  first,  but  this  number  was  soon  increased 
to  one  hundred  and  fifty  thousand,  in  small 
vineyards  separated  by  pomegranate  hedges, 
and  surrounded  by  a  high  fence  of  Mexican 
cactus.  Padre  Salvadea,  a  botanist  and 
classic  scholar,  had  flowering  shrubs  brought 


from  the  mountains,  roses  from  Mexico,  and 
rare  seeds  from  Spain  and  Portugal.  In  the 
midst  of  the  flower-garden  an  hour-dial  stood, 
streams  of  water  flowed  along  the  rows  of 
orange  trees,  which  had  been  planted  about 
1820.  In  gardens  like  these,  we  can  discern 
the  promise  of  colonies  such  as  Pomona, 
Pasadena,  Riverside,  and  Ontario. 

An  account  of  the  horticultural  progress 
of  the  State  might  be  written  from  either  the 
florist's  or  the  nurseryman's  standpoint.  A 
few  persons  began  the  growth  of  plants  for 
sale  very  soon  after  the  gold  rush,  and  early 
in  the  "  fifties,"  Sacramento,  San  Jose",  Brook- 
lyn, and  San  Francisco  had  small  establish- 
ments, partly  market  gardens,  partly  nurser- 
ies. Plants  were  brought  safely  overland  in 
not  a  few  instances,  and  propagated  for  sale 
in  the  mines.  An  old  lady  in  Trinity  Coun- 
ty, ten  years  ago,  showed  the  writer  geraniums, 
carnations,  and  roses,  the  lineal  descendants 
of  plants  she  had  watered  and  cared  for  during 
the  weary  weeks  of  the  journey  from  Western 
New  York  to  Weaverville,  California,  by  way 
of  "  Jim  Beckwourth's  Pass  "  and  the  town  of 
Shasta.  Many  others  must  have  done  like- 
wise, and  brought  to  their  new  homes  by  the 
Pacific  seeds,  cuttings,  bulbs,  or  plants  from 
the  gardens  of  their  childhood  in  the  Atlantic 
or  Western  States.  And  how  natural  it  was 
to  write  back  :  "  Mother,  send  me  a  head  of 
ripe  dill,  a  pinch  of  portulacca  seed,  a  poppy 
seed-case  from  the  fence  corner."  So  in 
California,  as  in  all  new  countries,  the  small 
and  homely  and  commonplace  plants  came 
with  the  pioneers,  and  found  their  way  here 
easily  and  swiftly.  The  ill-smelling  datura 
that  some  Westerner  brought  with  him  had 
escaped  to  the  hillsides,  in  some  parts  of  the 
State,  almost  before  Americans  had  begun 
to  plant  orchards.  Fennel  and  burdock 
grew  rankly  beside  California  streams,  while 
as  yet  the  miners  of  the  Feather  were  wed- 
ded to  their  "  rocker  and  long-torn  "  systems 
of  obtaining  gold.  The  really  valuable  hor- 
ticultural acquisitions  of  the  State  came — as 
such  things  always  do — from  energy  and  fore- 
thought. 

The  early  orchards  of  the  Pacific  Coast  were 
'chiefly  descended  from  importations,  over- 


1885.] 


Early  Horticulture  in   California. 


119 


land,  by  William  Meek  and  John  Lewelling. 
Mr.  Meek  left  Van  Buren  County,  Iowa,  on 
the  first  day  of  April,  1847,  witn  a  wagon 
load  of  choice  grafted  apple  and  other  fruit 
trees,  two  of  a  variety,  planted  upright  in  a 
wagon  box  of  soil,  which  he  kept  moist  all 
the  way.  Of  course,  by  close  packing,  as 
every  nurseryman  knows,  several  hundred 
trees  could  easily  be  placed  in  a  wagon,  and 
for  so  long  a  journey,  over  2,000  miles,  trees 
packed  in  bundles  would  have  perished.1 
Mr.  Lewelling's  load  of  trees,  taken  across 
the  continent  in  1848,  included  cherries, 
peaches,  and  many  other  kinds,  and  this  also 
arrived  in  good  condition.  These  gentlemen 
went  into  the  nursery  and  orchard  business, 
and  the  families  have  ever  since  held  a  very 
prominent  place  in  the  history  of  fruit  cul- 
ture on  the  Pacific  Coast,  both  in  Oregon 
and  in  California.  The  Meek  and  the  Lew- 
elling fruit  farms  at  San  Lorenzo,  Alameda 
County,  have  always  been  esteemed  as  two 
of  the  model  establishments  of  the  State; 
and  the  Lewelling  vineyards  near  St.  Hel- 
ena take  equally  high  rank  among  viticultur- 
ists. 

According  to  the  files  of  the  "  California 
Farmer"  for  1857,  William  Meek  at  that 
time  possessed  the  best  apple  orchard  on 
the  coast.  It  was  in  Clackamas  County, 
Oregon,  and  occupied  about  fifty  acres  of 
land.  The  "  California  Culturist "  for  June, 
1858,  reports  that  the  sales  from  this  orchard 
for  the  previous  season  had  been  4,000  bush- 
els, or  180,000  pounds,  which  sold  at  an 
average  price  of  twenty-five  cents  per  pound, 
making  the  gross  returns  $45,000.  He  had 
discarded  as  worthless  the  methods  of  pick- 
ing, preparing  for  market,  and  shipping,  to 
which  he  had  been  accustomed  in  his  boy- 
hood ;  and  had  adopted  the  large  fruit  houses, 
well-ventilated,  and  much  .the  present  meth- 
od of  packing  in  boxes,  at  the  proper  time 
of  maturity,  but  not  before.  This  orchard 
supplied  the  San  Francisco  market  with  its 
choicest  apples.  In  1859  Mr.  Meek  sold 
his  Oregon  property,  and  moved  to  San  Lo- 
renzo, where  he  purchased  some  2,000  acres 
of  the  Soto  grant,  and  continued  his  opera- 
tions. By  1864  he  had  260  acres  in  fruit. 


The  writer  has  heard  him  speak  of  the 
large  prices  paid  for  fruit  and  fruit  trees  in 
early  days  in  Oregon.  A  dollar  a  pound  was 
a  common  price,  and  often  more.  Five  dol- 
lars apiece  for  grafted  trees  was  not  consid- 
ered extortionate.  Men  came  for  many 
miles  to  get  them  at  that  price,  and  they 
were  taken  overland  to  the  California  mines. 
Apple  orchards  now  growing  in  the  Siskiyou, 
Trinity,  and  Klamath  region,  were  from  the 
noted  Willamette  Nurseries,  and  the  small 
trees  were  carried  on  pack  mules  across  the  . 
mountains.  Nearly  all  who  had  bearing 
orchards  before  the  mining  era  closed  made 
large  sums  of  money.  In  numbers  of  cases, 
grafts  from  the  early  Oregon  orchards  were 
set  in  wild  stocks,  cherry,  apricot,  and  plum, 
in  the  mining  camps  of  northern  California  ; 
but  few  of  these  flourished. 

The  prices  for  fruit  mentioned  above  may 
seem  extraordinary  for  1857,  but  in  May, 
1858,  a  San  Francisco  journal  said:  "The 
first  ripe  cherries  the  present  season  appeared 
May  3d.  They  were  from  the  Lee  Gardens, 
Oakland,  and  of  the  variety  known  as  the 
Van  Slyke,  medium  size,  pale  red,  inclining 
to  yellow,  .slightly  mottled,  and  of  excellent 
flavor.  To  us  they  possessed  so  strong  a 
1  taste  of  silver  '  it  was  difficult  to  distinguish 
between  them  and  the  real  shining  metal, 
selling  as  they  were  at  one  dollar  a  dozen." 
On  the  22d  of  May,  Black  Tartarians  were 
in  market,  and  sold  for  five  dollars  a  pound ; 
in  June  they  brought  two  dollars,  which  was 
considered  quite  reasonable.  May  i5th,  the 
first  blackberries  of  the  season  appeared. 
They  were  wild,  gathered  in  the  Coast  Range 
valleys  and  ravines,  "  plentifully  mingled 
with  red  ones,"  and  better  adapted  to  cook- 
ing than  for  dessert ;  but  they  commanded 
fifty  cents  a  pound.  May  22d,  watermelons 
from  the  Hawaiian  Islands  arrived,  and  were 
sold  at  two  dollars  apiece.  Seven  years  be- 
fore, in  1851,  the  late  George  G.  Briggs,  of 
the  well-known  Briggs  Orchards,  near  Marys- 
ville,  on  the  Yuba  River  bottom,  had  planted 
twenty-five  acres  of  melons,  which  he  culti- 
vated, gathered,  and  sold  at  his  own  door 
for  sixteen  thousand  dollars  above  all  ex- 
penses. This  story  seems  well  authenticated, 


120 


Early  Horticulture  in   California, 


[Aug. 


as  it  appears  in  State  reports  and  in  the 
"California  Culturist  "  for  June,  1858,  then 
edited  by  W.  Wadsworth,  the  corresponding 
secretary  of  the  State  Agricultural  Society, 
of  which  J.  C.  Fall  was  President. 

A  study  of  the  San  Francisco  berry 
markets  shows  that  Santa  Clara  County  is 
the  region  that  supplies  the  bulk  of  the 
strawberries.  But  thirty  years  ago  the  sandy 
levels  of  Oakland  and  Alameda  were  almost 
the  only  spots  in  the  State  devoted  to  this 
fruit.  Since  then  there  have  also  been  num- 
berless changes  in  the  favorite  varieties.  In 
1852,  Mr.  Lee,  of  Oakland,  succeeded  in  sav- 
ing two  plants  of  the  British  Queen  straw- 
berry, received  by  mail  from  the  East,  and 
the  variety  soon  became  the  leading  one. 
Wilson's,  and  many  of  note  elsewhere,  had 
previously  failed  to  give  satisfactory  results. 
In  1858,  of  one  hundred  and  sixty  acres  in 
Oakland  and  Alameda  planted  in  berries, 
all  but  fifteen  acres  were  British  Queen. 
Hovey's  Seedling  was  planted  to  some  ex- 
tent, also  Ajax,  Prince  of  Wales,  Jenny  Lind, 
Peabody's  Seedling,  and  a  few  others.  The 
Hovey  and  Peabody  were  extensively  planted 
in  later  years,  but  of  the  dozens  of  other 
varieties  described  in  flamboyant  terms  by 
the  horticultural  writers  of  the  time,  hardly 
one  is  to  be  found  in  any  private  collection, 
much  less  in  market  gardens. 

The  first  exhibit  of  fruits  and  flowers  held 
in  California,  so  far  as  I  can  learn,  was  that 
of  Colonel  Warren,  at  Sacramento,  in  1852. 
Another  was  held  in  San  Francisco,  in  Octo- 
ber of  the  following  year.  The  leading  coun- 
ties of  the  State  were  represented,  and  the 
displays  of  fruits,  flowers,  and  vegetables  ex- 
cited the  surprise  of  all  visitors.  It  was  ev- 
ident that  California  was  to  be  good  for  some- 
thing besides  gold  digging. 

The  first  fruit  report  ever  written  in  Cali- 
fornia was  made  at  the  fair  of  October,  1853, 
and  published  the  following  January  in  the 
"  California  Farmer."  The  committee  con-' 
sisted  of  F.  W.  Macondray,  Julius  K.  Rose, 
W.  N.  Thompson,  David  Chambers,  and  G. 
P.  Throckmorton.  Gen.  Vallejo  of  Sonoma 
exhibited  six  plates  of  grapes,  and  five  of  ap- 
ples ;  Pierre  Beccowarn,  of  San  Francisco, 


two  baskets  of  strawberries;  J.  Truebody,  of 
Napa,  five  Yellow  Newtown  Pippin  apples; 
H.  B.  Crist,  of  Sacramento,  specimens  of  Cal- 
ifornia black  walnut ;  David  Spence,  of  Mon- 
terey, first  almonds  grown  in  California  ;  L. 
B.  Benchley,  of  San  Francisco,  three  Louis 
Bon  de  Jersey,  grown  in  Rhode  Island,  and 
brought  to  California  by  the  Panama  steam  - 
er.  The  fruit  growers  of  Oregon  sent  ap- 
ples from  J.  B.  Stevens's  nurseries,  Newtown 
Pippins,  Golden  Pippins,  Spitzenbergs,  G  reen  - 
ings,  and  other  varieties.  Captain  Dodge, 
General  Holbrook,  Captain  Rowland,  Gen- 
eral M.  M.  McCarver,  J.  Pritchard,  and  oth- 
ers were  also  exhibitors  of  Oregon  fruit.  John 
Lewelling  and  E.  L.  Beard,  Mission  San 
Jose",  showed  six  varieties  of  apples,  boxes  of 
fine  grapes,  olives,  figs,  eight  Porter  apples 
from  a  one  year  old  graft,  and  four  pears  on 
one  branch,  weighing  four  pounds.  Capt. 
Isaac  Morgan,  of  Bolinas  Bay,  showed  three 
baskets  of  apples  from  trees  planted  in  1852, 
sixteen  apples  gathered  from  one  two  years  old 
tree ;  Julius  K.  Rose,  of  Sonoma,  exhibited 
White  Chasselas  grapes,  Mission  grapes,  figs, 
and  apples.  Nine  silver  medals  and  a  sil- 
ver cup  were  awarded  as  premiums  in  this 
department. 

October  i3th,  1853,  Dr.  Henry  Gibbons 
delivered  the  first  lecture  on  horticulture  of 
which  I  have  been  able  to  find  any  record 
in  San  Francisco  journals.  He  said:  "Three 
years  ago,  when  I  landed  here,  it  was  a  ques- 
tion whether  California  would  ever  produce 
a  good  crop  of  potatoes  ;  now,  the  soil  is  full 
of  them,  and  thousands  of  bushels  will  rot  in 
the  earth,  not  worth  the  digging ;  even  in 
Contra  Costa,  almost  at  the  door  of  this  great 
market,  the  farmer  will  give  half  his  crop  to 
the  laborer  who  gathers  it."  "  Oats,"  he  add- 
ed, "are  exhibited  nine  feet,  four  inches 
high,  and  one  specimen  ten  feet,  seven  inch- 
es." Mention  is  also  made  of  a  stalk  of 
oats  shown  in  San  Francisco  in  1851,  which 
measured  thirteen  feet  in  height. 

It  was  in  1853  that  Mr.  John  M.  Horner 
raised  400,000  bushels  of  potatoes  on  his 
farm  in  Alameda  County.  By  1854  E.  L. 
Beard  and  John  M.  Horner,  whose  posses- 
sions were  contiguous,  had  built  more  than 


1885.] 


Early  Horticulture  in   California. 


121 


eighty  miles  of  fencing  about  their  ranches. 
Some  of  it  cost  eight  hundred  dollars  per 
mile,  and  a  large  part,  of  imported  English 
iron,  cost  more  than  three  thousand  dollars 
per  mile.  Mr.  Beard  planted  out  one  hun- 
dred acres  of  fruit  trees  and  vines  that  win- 
ter. On  the  two  ranches  more  than  two 
thousand  five  hundred  acres  were  under  cul- 
tivation in  1854.  "Sunnyside,"  as  many 
persons  called  the  Beard  homestead  at  the 
Mission  San  Jose,  a  comfortable  old  adobe, 
became  famous  throughout  the  State. 

These  two  men  in  Alameda  County,  with 
T.  P.  Robb,  of  Sacramento,  J.  B.  Hill,  of 
Pajaro,  and  W.  Pomeroy,  of  Alviso,  were 
the  leading  vegetable  growers  of  the  time. 
Among  other  exhibitors  of  prize  vegetables 
were  James  Denman,  then  of  Petaluma,  E. 
T.  Crane,  of  San  Lorenzo,  A.  T.  McClure, 
then  of  San  Francisco,  Col.  J.  T.  Hall,  Dr. 
Samuel  Murdock,  A.  Lloyd,  and  W.  N. 
Thompson,  of  Suscol. 

The  first  steps  to  organize  a  State  Agricul- 
tural Society  were  taken  December  6,.  1853, 
in  Musical  Hall,  San  Francisco,  and  the  fol- 
lowing officers  were  elected:  President,  F. 
W.  Macondray;  Vice-Presidents,  J.  M.  Hor- 
ner,  of  Alameda  County,  Major  John  Bid- 
well,  of  Butte,  Mr.  Chipman,  of  Contra  Costa, 
Abel  Stearns,  of  Los  Angeles,  Jerome  D. 
Ford,  of  Mendocino,  General  C.  J.  Hutchin- 
son,  of  Sacramento,  C.  M.  Weber,  of  San 
Joaquin,  Dr.  J.  B.  Clements,  of  San  Luis 
Obispo,  William  F.  White,  of  Santa  Cruz, 
Major  P.  R.  Reading,  of  Shasta,  General  M. 
G.  Vallejo,  of  Sonoma,  Mr.  Ryan,  of  Trinity, 
John  A.  Sutter,  of  Yuba,  James  K.  DeLong, 
of  El  Dorado,  Captain  J.  A.  Morgan,  of 
Marin,  J.  Bryant  Hill,  of  Monterey,  J.  W. 
Osborn,  of  Napa,  Judge  J.  J.  Ames,  of  San 
Diego,  S.  R.  Throckmorton,  of  San  Fran- 
cisco, J.  F.  Kennedy,  of  Santa  Clara,  Pablo 
de  la  Guerra,  of  Santa  Barbara,  Jefferson 
Hunt,  of  San  Bernardino,  S.  Thompson,  of 
Solano,  E.  Linoberg,  of  Tuolumne.  The 
first  county  meeting  of  agriculturists  and 
fruit  growers  was  held  in  Napa  City  (then 
a  part  of  Sonoma  County),  in  March,  1854. 
About  thirty  persons  were  present ;  J.  M. 
Hamilton  presided ;  Judge  Stark,  A.  L. 


Boggs,  Wells  Kilburn,  and  other  well- 
known  men  were  members.  The  second 
county  to  organize  an  agricultural  Associa- 
tion seems  to  have  been  Santa  Clara  County. 
In  June,  1854,  a  letter  to  the  "California 
Farmer,"  from  "Sim's  Ranch,"  Alameda 
County,  urged  the  formation  of  a  similar 
association. 

Under  date  of  October  3ist,  1854,  a  docu- 
ment, called  a  "Memorial"  to  Congress,  was 
sent  from  San  Francisco  by  the  firm  of  Warren 
&  Son,  "  asking  for  the  endowment  of  an  agri- 
cultural college"  in  California  for  the  Pacific 
Coast.  It  set  forth  the  particular  horticul- 
tural needs  of  the  State,  and  the  probabilities 
of  much  being  done  with  fruits  and  semi-tropic 
products.  At  this  time,  cotton  had  been  suc- 
cessfully grown  in  Shasta  County  for  two 
seasons,  by  Major  Reading,  and  in  Sacramen- 
to by  Thomas  Selby.  Tobacco  plants  were 
on  exhibition,  and  preparations  were  being 
made  to  test  sugar-cane  as  soon  as  plants 
could  be  procured.  Yontz  &  Myers,  of  San 
Jose",  who  sunk  the  first  artesian  well  in  that 
region,  are  credited  with  having  sowed,  in 
1854,  the  first  field  of  flax  in  California. 

California  pomologists  are  beginning  to 
place  great  faith  in  the  value  of  our  native  seed- 
ling fruits,  as  often  better  adapted  to  soil  and 
climate, longer-lived,  more  prolific,  and  better 
flavored.  New  varieties  of  peaches,  apricots, 
almonds,  plums,  cherries,  apples,  and  pears 
are  becoming  widely  known  as  choice  mar- 
ket fruits.  It  should  therefore  be  of  inter- 
est to  horticulturists  that  nearly  thirty  years 
ago  valuable  new  California  fruits  were 
brought  to  public  notice  in  horticultural 
journals  ;  some  of  these  are  still  cultivated, 
others  have  been  superseded.  For  instance,, 
the  once  widely  disseminated  "  Myer's  Rare- 
ripe," originated  at  the  Pioneer  Nurseries  of 
Alameda,  took  the  lead  as  an  early  market 
peach  until  Hale's  Early  supplanted  it,  to  be 
in  time  superseded  by  Briggs's  Early  May, 
and  the  remarkable  group  of  Eastern  seed- 
lings, such  as  the  Alexander.  We  also  find 
that  a  seedling  ding-stone  grown  about  1855 
by  N.  McPherson  Hill,  of  Sonoma,  attracted 
much  attention,  and  took  premiums  at  State 
fairs  a  few  years  later.  Seedling  peaches 


122 


Early  Horticulture  in  California. 


[Aug. 


from  the  Wiemer  Gardens,  Coloma,  Eldorado 
County,  from  Colonel  Weber,  of  Stockton, 
and  from  many  other  exhibitors,  even  from 
some  dwellers  in  San  Francisco,  were  shown 
at  the  Horticultural  Fair  of  1858.  This 
fair  also  gave  a  conspicuous  place  among 
apples  to  "Skinner's  Seedling"  from  San 
Jose,  a  variety  which  has  held  a  good  rank 
ever  since,  and  to  McCarver's  Seedling,  an 
Oregon  winter  apple,  of  which  little  has  been 
heard. 

In  early  days  the  nursery  business  was 
found  very  profitable  in  California,  as  few 
men  had  the  necessary  knowledge.  The 
Pomological  Nursery  of  A.  P.  Smith,  two  and 
a  half  miles  from  Sacramento,  on  the  Amer- 
ican River,  was  on  land  purchased  from  Gen- 
eral Sutter  in  1849.  I"  ^^5°  and  1851,  the 
tract  was  devoted  to  growing  vegetables,  but 
by  1852  peach  pits  and  trees  in  dormant 
bud  had  been  obtained  from  the  Eastern 
States,  and  the  nursery  was  fairly  begun.  By 
1854,  a  small  orchard,  set  out  in  1850,  was 
in  bearing,  but  suffered  greatly  from  the 
grasshopper  visitation  of  that  year.  By  1856, 
the  nursery  was  well  stocked  with  fruit  trees, 
shade  trees,  shrubs,  vines,  and  green-house 
plants.  Two  thousand  choice  camellias  were 
grown  for  outdoor  culture — one  of  the  first 
extensive  experiments  with  the  camellia  in 
this  State.  We  have  been  informed  that 
the  gross  sales  of  stock  from  this  nursery  for 
the  two  seasons  of  r856-'57  and  185  7-^58, 
were  upwards  of  one  hundred  and  fifty  thous- 
and dollars.  The  land  it  occupied  was  long 
ago  washed  away  by  the  Sacramento  river. 
In  1854  Cort  &  Beals,  of  San  Francisco, 
advertised  roses  "only  27  days  from  eastern 
nurseries,  via  Nicaragua." 

The  first  nurserymen's  convention  ever 
held  in  the  State  took  place  November  gth, 
1858,  in  San  Francisco,  and  its  object  was  to 
regulate  prices,  and  to  drive  out  the  tree- 
peddlers,  there  being  inferior  imported  trees 
in  market.  By  advertisements  a  few  days 
later,  we  observe  that  the  following  nurseries 
formed  the  combination  "  to  protect  home- 
grown trees " :  A.  P.  Smith,  Pomological 
Garden,  Sacramento ;  J.  Aram,  Railroad  Nur- 
sery, San  Jos£  ;  J.  Lewelling,  San  Lorenzo 


Garden,  San  Lorenzo ;  L.  A.  Gould,  Santa 
Clara  Nursery  ;  China  Smith,  Pacific  Nurse- 
ry, San  Jose;  B.  S.  Fox,  Valley  Nursery, 
San  Jos<§ ;  R.  W.  Washburn,  Shell  Mound 
Nursery,  San  Francisco  ;  G.  H.  Beech,  New 
England  Nursery,  Marysville ;  and  A.  Lew- 
elling, Fruit  Vale  Nursery,  San  Antonio- 
A  glance  at  this  list  will  show  how  great 
have  been  the  changes  since  ;  most  of  the 
leading  nurserymen  of  California  have  en- 
tered the  business  since  the  days  of  this  con- 
vention. 

The  prices  fixed  upon  by  the  nurseryman 
of  1858,  though  a  great  reduction  upon  for- 
mer schedules,  would  strike  the  fruit  grow- 
ers of  the  present  time  as  remarkably  stiff. 
We  quote:  "Apple,  i  yr.,  .50,  2  yr.,  $i ; 
cherry,  2  yr.,  $i  to  $2  ;  fig,  foreign,  $3  ;  ap- 
ricot, i  yr.,  .75  to  $i  ;  grapes,  California, 
$10  per  hundred  ;  foreign,  .50  to  $i  apiece. 

The  first  California  State  Horticultural 
Society  was  organized  by  fifteen  persons  at 
San  Josd,  October  roth,  1856.  Its  first 
annual  meeting  was  held  in  San  Francis- 
co, in  April,  1857,  and  in  September  of  the 
same  year  its  first  annual  fair  took  place 
in  connection  with  the  Mechanics'  Insti- 
tute. 

Among  the  prominent  florists  of  the  time 
were  Messrs.  Sontag,  Prevost,  O'Donnell, 
Smith  and  Walker.  The  Honorable  Wilson 
Flint  delivered  the  annual  address  in  1858, 
at  which  time  the  State  Horticultural  Society 
numbered  more  than  a  hundred  members. 
F.  W.  Macondray  was  President,  and  J.  W. 
Osborn,  Vice-President.  Mr.  Wilson's  ad- 
dress was  largely  devoted  to  the  desirability 
of -planting  extensive  orchards,  and  drying 
the  fruit  for  export ;  and  to  the  future  value 
of  the  wine-making  and  raisin  producing  in- 
dustries. The  list  of  awards  shows  among 
the  exhibition  many  names  long  prominent 
in  the  horticultural  history  of  California,  such 
as  John  Lewelling,  of  San  Lorenzo  ;  Dr.  H. 
Haile,  of  Alameda;  L.  A.  Gould,  of  San 
Jose ;  E.  W.  Case,  of  Santa  Clara;  S.  Thomp- 
son, of  Suscol ;  B.  S.  Fox,  of  San  Jose ; 
D.  L.  Perkins,  of  Alameda ;  G.  W.  Fountain, 
of  Oakland ;  Colonel  A.  Haraszthy,  of  So- 
noma. 


1885.] 


Early  Horticulture  in  California. 


123 


The  "  Edinburgh  Review,"  which  had  giv- 
en unquestioned  currency  to  many  "  travel- 
ers' tales  "  concerning  the  large  gold  yield  of 
California  placers,  happened  to  find  an  agri- 
cultural report  of  1855,  and  said:  "At  the 
State  Fair  held  at  Sacramento,  California, 
were  exhibited  among  other  prodigies,  a  beet 
weighing  seventy-three  pounds,  a  carrot 
weighing  ten  pounds,  and  three  feet,  three 
inches  in  length  (there  were  fifty  in  the  same 
bed  of  equal  size) ;  a  corn-stalk  measuring 
twenty-one  feet,  nine  inches  in  length  ;  an 
apple  measuring  fifteen  and  a  half  inches 
each  way.  But  we  cannot  tell  how  much 
may  be  owing  to  that  Cyclopean  grandeur  of 
description  in  which  American  fancy  is  apt 
to  indulge." 

The  State  Fairs  of  1857  and  1858  brought 
to  the  front  a  beet  that  weighed  one  hundred 
and  twenty-five  pounds ;  a  turnip  that  sur- 
passed thirty  pounds  in  weight ;  a  cornstalk 
that  was  twenty-five  feet  in  height,  and  pears 
that  weighed  four  pounds  apiece.  The  not- 
ed pear  that  was  grown  in  1858  on  a  three- 
year-old  tree  in  the  garden  of  Mr.  E.  L. 
Beard,  at  the  Mission  San  Jose,  weighed  two 
and  a  quarter  pounds ;  and  although  speci- 
mens of  this  variety  (the  Pound  or  Winter 
Bell)  have  since  been  grown  of  equal  or  even 
greater  size,  yet  this  one  became  known 
abroad  as  none  since,  a  life-size  engraving 
being  made,  arid  published  in  several  jour- 
nals. 

Everywhere  in  the  early  horticultural  lit- 
erature of  the  Pacific  Coast,  we  find  efforts 
to  map  out  the  climatic  zones,  and  a  full  rec- 
ognition of  the  broader  problems  that  have 
perplexed  the  planters  of  orchards  and  gar- 
dens to  the  present  day.  Mr.  Wadsworth, 
in  establishing  the  "  California  Culturist,"  in 
1858,  wrote :  "  So  peculiar  and  so  strongly 
marked  are  our  climates  that  a  new  system 
of  cultivating  the  soil  seems  almost  indispen- 
sable." Dr.  Horace  Bushnell,  in  an  article 
upon  the  "  Characteristics  and  Prospects  of 
California,"  which  appeared  in  the  "  New 
Englander,"  gave  the  ablest  account  of  the 
subject  that  had  up  to  that  time  appeared 
in  any  journal.  The  following  extracts-  are 
worth  permanent  place  in  the  history  of  hor- 


ticulture, for  they  define  with  skill  and  sci- 
ence the  conditions  which  prevail  here  : 

"  Conceive  that  middle  California,  the  region  of 
which  we  now  speak"  lying  between  the  headwaters 
of  the  two  great  rivers,  and  about  four  hundred  and 
fifty  or  five  hundred  miles  long  from  north  to  south, 
is  divided  lengthwise,  parallel  to  the  coast,  into  three 
strips,  or  ribands  of  about  equal  width.  First,  the 
coast-wise  region,  comprising  two,  three,  and  some- 
times four  parallel  tiers  of  mountains,  from  five  hun- 
dred to  four  thousand,  five  thousand,  or  even  ten 
thousand  feet  high.  Next,  advancing  inward,  we 
have  a  middle  strip,  from  fifty  to  seventy  miles 
wide,  of  almost  dead  plain,  which  is  called  the 
great  valley  ;  down  the  scarely  perceptible  slopes 
of  which,  from  north  and  south,  run  the  two  great 
rivers,  the  Sacramento  and  the  San  Joaquin,  to  join 
their  waters  at  the  middle  of  the  basin,  and  pass  off 
into  the  sea.  The  third  long  strip,  or  riband,  is  the 
slope  of  the  Sierra  Nevada  chain,  which  bounds  the 
great  valley  on  the  east,  and  contains  in  its  foot-hills, 
or  rather  in  its  lower  half,  all  the  gold  mines.  The 
upper  half  is,  to  a  great  extent,  bare  granite  rock, 
and  is  crowned  at  the  summit  with  snow  about  eight 
months  of  the  year. 

"Now  the  climate  of  these  parallel  strips  will  be 
different,  almost  of  course  ;  and  subordinate,  local 
differences,  quite  as  remarkable,  will  result  from  sub- 
ordinate features  in  the  local  configurations,  particu- 
larly of  the  seaward  strip  or  portion.  For  all  the  va- 
rieties of  climate,  distinct  as  they  become,  are  made 
by  variations  wrought  in  the  rates  of  motion,  £he 
courses,  the  temperature,  and  the  dryness  of  a  single 
wind,  viz:  the  trade  wind  of  the  summer  months, 
which  blows  directly  inward  all  the  time,  only  with 
much  greater  power  during  that  part  of  the  day  when 
the  rarefaction  of  the  great  central  valley  comes  to  its 
aid  ;  that  is  from  ten  o'clock  in  the  morning  until  the 
setting  of  the  sun.  Conceive  such  a  wind,  chilled  by 
the  cold  waters  which  have  come  down  from  the 
Northern  Pacific,  perhaps  from  Behring  Straits, 
combing  the  tops  and  wheeling  through  the  valleys 
of  the  coast-wise  mountains,  crossing  the  great  valley 
at  a  much  retarded  rate,  and  growing  hot  and  dry, 
fanning  gently  the  foot-hills  and  sides  of  the  Sierra, 
still  more  retarded  by  the  piling  necessary  to  break 
over  into  Utah ;  and  the  conditions  of  the  California 
climate,  or  climates,  will  be  understood  with  general 
accuracy.  Greater  simplicity  in  the  matter  of  climate 
is  impossible,  and  greater  variety  is  hardly  to  be  im- 
agined. .  .  . 

"We  return  now  to  the  coast- wise  mountain  re- 
gion, where  the  multiplicity  and  confusion  of  climates 
is  most  remarkable.  Their  variety,  we  shall  find,  de- 
pends on  the  courses  of  the  wind  currents,  turned 
hither  and  thither  by  the  mountains  ;  partly  also  on 
the  side'  any  given  place  occupies  of  its  valley  or 
mountain,  and  partly  on  the  proximity  of  the  sea. 
Sprinkled  in  among  these  mountains,  and  more  or 


124 


Early  Horticulture  in  California. 


[Aug. 


less  enclosed  by  them,  are  valleys,  large  and  small, 
of  the  highest  beauty.  But  a  valley  in  California 
means  something  more  than  a  scoop  or  depression. 
It  means  a  rich  land-lake,  leveled  between  the  moun- 
tains, with  a  sharply-defined,  picturesque  shore, 
where  it  meets  the  sides  and  runs  into  the  indenta- 
tions of  the  mountains.  What  is  called  the  Bay  of 
San  Francisco  is  a  large,  salt-water  lake  in  the  mid- 
dle of  a  much  larger  land-lake,  sometimes  called  the 
San  Jose  valley.  It  extends  south  of  the  city  forty 
miles,  and  northward  among  islands  and  mountains 
twenty-five  more,  if  we  include  what  is  called  the 
San  Pablo  Bay.  Three  beautiful  valleys  of  agricul- 
tural country,  the  Petaluma,  Sonoma,  and  Napa  val- 
leys, open  into  this  larger  valley  of  the  Bay  on  the 
north  end  of  it,  between  four  mountain  barriers,  hav- 
ing each  a  short  navigable  creek  or  inlet.  Still  far- 
ther north  is  the  Russian  River  valley,  opening  to- 
wards the  sea,  and  the  Clear  Lake  valley  and  region, 
which  is  the  Switzerland  of  California.  East  of  the 
San  Jose  valley,  too,  at  the  foot  of  Diablo,  and  up 
among  the  mountains,  are  the  large  Amador  and  San 
Ramon  valleys ;  also  the  little  gem  of  the  Simol. 
Now  these  valleys,  if  we  except  the  great  valleys  of 
the  two  rivers,  comprise  the  plow-land  of  middle  Cal- 
ifornia, have  each  a  climate  of  their  own,  and  pro- 
ductions that  correspond.  We  have  only  to  observe 
further,  that  the  east  side  of  any  valley  will  com- 
monly be  much  warmer  than  the  west ;  for  the  very 
paradoxical  reason  that  the  cold  coast-wind  always 
blows  much  harder  on  the  side  or  steep  slope,  even, 
of  a  mountain,  opposite  or  away  from  the  wind,  than 
it  does  on  the  side  towards  it,  reversing  all  our 
notions  of  the  sheltering  effects  of  the  mountain 
ridges. 

"  Nothing  will  so  fatally  puzzle  a  stranger  as  the  ob- 
serving of  this  fact ;  for  he  will  doubt  for  a  long  time, 
first,  whether  it  be  a  fact,  and  then,  what  possible 
account  to  make  of  it.  Crossing  the  Golden  Gate  in 
a  small  steamer,  for  example,  to  Saucelito,  whence 
the  water  is  brought  for  the  city,  he  will  look  for  a 
quiet  shelter  to  the  little  craft,  apparently  in  danger 
of  foundering,  when  it  comes  under  the  lee  of  that 
grand  mountain  wall  that  overhangs  the  water  on  the 
west.  But  he  is  surprised,  when  he. arrives,  to  find 
the  wind  blowing  straight  down  the  face  of  it,  harder 
even  than  elsewhere,  gouging  into  the  water  by  a 
visible  depression,  and  actually  raising  caps  of  white 
within  a  rod  of  the  shore.  In  San  Francisco  itself, 
he  will  find  the  cold  coast  wind  pouring  down  over 
the  western  barrier  with  uncomfortable  rawness, 
when  returning  from  a  ride  at  Point  Lobos,  on  the 
very  beach  of  the  sea,  where  the  air  was  compara- 
tively soft  and  quiet.  So,  crossing  the  Sonoma  val- 
ley, he  will  come  out  into  it  from  the  west,  through 
a  cold,  windy  gorge,  to  find  orange  trees  growing  in 
General  Vallejo's  garden,  close  under  the  eastern 
valley  wall,  as  finely  as  in  Cuba.  In  multitudes  of 
places,  too,  on  the  eastern  slopes  of  the  mountains, 
he  will  notice  that  the  trees,  which  have  all  their 


growth  in  the  coast-wind  season,  have  their  tops 
thrown  over,  like  cocks'  tails  turned  away  from  the 
wind.  After  he  has  been  sufficiently  perplexed  and 
stumbled  by  these  facts,  he  will  finally  strike  upon 
the  reasop,  viz :  that  this  cold  trade  wind,  being  once 
lifted  or  driven  over  the  sea-wall  mountains,  and 
being  specifically  heavier  than  the  atmosphere  into 
which  it  is  going,  no  sooner  reaches  the  summit  than 
it  pitches 'down  as  a  cold  cataract,  with  the  uniformly 
accelerated  motion  of  falling  bodies. 

"Having  gotten  over  the  understanding  of  this 
fact,  many  things  are  made  plain.  For  example,  in 
traveling  down  the  western  side  of  the  bay  from  San 
Francisco  to  San  Jose,  and  passing  directly  under 
the  mountain  range  just  referred  to,  he  has  found 
himself  passing  through  as  many  as  four  or  five  dis- 
tinct climates ;  for,  when  abreast  of  some  gap  or 
depression  in  the  western  wall,  the  heavy  wind 
has  poured  down  with  a  chilling  coldness,  making 
even  an  qvercoat  desirable,  though  it  be  a  clear  sum- 
mer day;  and  then,  when  he  is  abreast  of  some  high 
summit,  which  the  fog- wind  sweeps  by,  and  therefore 
need  not  pass  over,  a  sweltering  and  burning  heat  is 
felt,  in  which  the  lightest  summer  clothing  is  more 
than  enough.  He  has  also  observed  that  directly 
opposite  the  Golden  Gate,  at  Oakland,  and  the  Ala- 
meda  point,  where  the  central  column  of  this  wind 
might  be  supposed  to  press  most  uncomfortably,  the 
land  is  covered  with  growths  of  evergreen  oak,  stand- 
ing fresh  and  erect;  while  north  and  south,  on  either 
side,  scarcely  a  tree  is  to  be  seen  for  many  miles  :  a 
mystery  that  is  now  explained  by  the  fact  that  the 
wind,  driving  here  square  against  the  Contra  Costa 
or  second  range,  is  piled,  and  gets  no  current,  till  it 
slides  off  north  and  south  from  the  point  of  quiet  here 
made;  which  is  also  confirmed  by  the  fact  that,  in 
riding  down  from  San  Pablo  on  the  north,  he  has 
the  wind  in  his  face,  finds  it  slacker*  as  he  approaches 
Oakland,  and  passing  on,  still  southward  to  San  Le- 
andro,  has  it  blowing  at  his  back. 

"The  varieties,  and  even  what  appeared  to  be  the 
incredible  anomalies  of  California  climates,  begin 
at  last  to  be  intelligible.  The  remarkable  contrast, 
for  example,  between  the  climates  of  Benicia  and 
Martinez,  is  clearly  accounted  for.  These  two  places, 
only  a  mile  and  a  half  apart,  on  opposite  sides  of  the 
Straits  of  Carquinez,  and  connected  by  a  ferry,  like 
two  points  on  a  river,  are  yet  more  strikingly  con- 
trasted in  their  summer  climates  than  Charleston  and 
Quebec.  Thus  the  Golden  Gate  column,  wheeling  up- 
on Oakland  and  just  now  described,  sweeps  along  the 
face  of  the  Contra  Costa  chain  in  its  northward  course, 
setting  the  few  tree-tops  of  San  Pablo  aslant,  as  weath- 
er vanes  stuck  fast  by  rust,  and  drives  its  cold  sea- 
dust  full  in  the  face  of  Benicia.  Meanwhile,  at 
Martinez,  close  under  the  end  of  the  mountain  which 
has  turned  the  wind  directly  by,  and  is  itself  cloven 
dow.n  here  to  let  the  Straits  of  Carquinez  pass 
through,  the  sun  shines  hot  and  with  an  almost  daz- 
zling clearness,  and  all  the  characters  of  the  climate 


1885.] 


Early  Horticulture  in  California. 


125 


belong  rather  to  the  great  valley  cauldron,  whose  rim, 
it  may  be  said,  is  here. 

"  Equally  plain  now  is  the  solution  of  those  appar- 
ent inversions  of  latitude,  which  at  first  perplex  the 
stranger.  In  the  region  about  Marysville,  for  ex- 
ample, he  is  overtaken  by  a  fierce,  sweltering  heat  in 
April,  and  scarcely  hears,  perhaps,  in  the  travel  of  a 
day,  a  single  bird  sing  as  if  meaning  it  for  a  song. 
He  descends  by  steamer  to  San  Francisco,  and  thence 
to  San  Jose,  making  a  distance  in  all  of  more  than 
two  hundred  miles,  where  he  finds  a  cool,  spring-like 
freshness  in  the  air,  and  hears  the  birds  screaming 
with  song  even  more  vehement  than  in  New  England. 
It  is  as  if  he  has  passed  out  of  a  tropical  into  a  tem- 
perate climate,  when,  in  fact,  he  is  due  south  of 
Marysville  by  the  whole  distance  passed  over.  But 
the  mystery  is  all  removed  by  the  discovery  that  in- 
stead of  keeping  in  the  great  valley,  he  broke  out  of 
it,  through  the  Straits  of  Carquinez,  into  the  Bay  val- 
ley, and  the  cold  bath  atmosphere  of  the  coastwise 
mountains." 

In  these  early  horticultural  journals  we  dis- 
cover little,  if  any,  effort  to  study  soils  and  to 
analyze  their  properties.  This  all-important 
work  was  left  to  the  intelligent  labors  of  the 
agricultural  department  of  the  State  Univer- 
sity, whose  able  reports  easily  rank  with  the 
best  that  any  State  in  the  Union  has  yet  sent 
out.  We  find  a  wide-spread  opinion  about 
1858,  that  the  soil  of  California  would  sel- 
dom produce  without  irrigation,  and  many 
crude  theories  in  regard  to  cultivation  were 
promulgated.  Men  are  gravely  advised  "  not 
to  plant  grapes  on  the  hillsides."  The 
editor  of  one  horticultural  journal  states  that 
he  has  grown  thousands  of  apple,  pear,  cherry, 
and  plum  trees  from  cuttings,  a  perform- 
ance which  certainly  has  never  been  repeated 
in  this  State.  The  "  tap-root "  discussion 
raged  for  the  better  part  of  two  years ;  writ- 
ers, as  early  as  1854,  advocated  the  utility  of 
summer-fallowing,  and  few  or  none  realized 
the  great  importance  of  stirring  the  surface 
and  keeping  it  mellow.  The  leaf-roller  was  in 
the  grape  vines,  and  the  apple-borer  in  the 
apple  trees,  by  1858. 

Alfalfa  was  a  novelty,  to  be  tested  in  gar- 
dens, and  slowly  recognized  as  one  of  the 
most  valuable  of  forage  plants,  almost  revolu- 
tionizing the  system  of  stock-raising  in  whole 
counties  of  California.  Alfalfa  plants  grown 
on  the  Brophy  ranch,  near  Marysville,  were 
shown  at  the  State  Fair  of  1858,  and  a  writer 


in  the  San  Andreas  "Independent,"  during 
the  same  year,  speaks  of  several  profitable 
alfalfa  fields  in  the  San  Joaquin  Valley.  Cal- 
ifornia-grown hops  were  on  exhibition  at  the 
State  Horticultural  Fair  of  1858,  and  receiv- 
ed the  Society's  highest  premium.  Two  hun- 
dred pounds  which  were  grown  in  that  year 
by  Mr.  Bushnell,  of  Green  Valley,  Bodega, 
sold  for  one  dollar  a  pound. 

We  have  spoken  of  the  early  Mission  gar- 
dens. Prior  to  1852,  there  were  found  about 
these  gardens,  and  around  Los  Angeles,  a 
native  seedling  peach,  of  small  size,  white  or 
yellow  flesh,  shape  globular,  with  a  deep  su- 
ture, the  trees  much  liable  to  curl  .leaf.  The 
Spanish  pear  was  much  earlier  than  the 
Madeleine,  a  good  bearer,  but  fruit  of  poor 
quality.  The  "Spanish  prune,"  grown  by 
the  padres,  was  like  the  German  prune,  and 
was  propagated  in  many  cases  from  seeds. 

The  first  stock  of  gooseberries  in  the 
State  came  from  Hovey,  of  Boston,  and  were 
imported  by  W.  B.  West,  of  Stockton.  With 
currants  the  story  of  beginnings  is  quite  re- 
markable. In  December,  1853,  Jesse  and 
Lyman  Beard,  of  Mission  San  Jose',  and 
John  Lewelling  and  E.  T.  Crane,  of  San  Lo- 
renzo, made  up  a  fund,  and  sent  Dr.  Whaley 
to  the  Eastern  States  to  buy  plants  and  fruit 
trees.  The  business  relations  of  the  Beards 
and  Mr.  Lewelling  were  at  this  time  very 
close.  Mr.  Henry  Ellsworth,  of  Niles,  in- 
forms the  writer  that  Mr.  John  Lewelling 
had  reached  the  Mission  San  Jose-  after  a 
hard  Oregon  experience,  and  his  horticul- 
tural knowledge  attracting  Mr.  Beard's  atten- 
tion, the  latter  offered  to  let  Mr.  Lewelling 
plant  an  orchard  of  peaches,  apples,  and 
other  fruits,  on  shares.  Mr.  Beard  advanced 
all  the  funds,  over  sixty  thousand  dollars, 
and  in  its  time  there  was  no  better  orchard 
in  California.  Mr.  Lewelling  went  to  Ore- 
gon in  1852,  and  bought  trees,  which  were 
planted  the  following  winter.  For  seven 
years  he  was  to  have  a  half  interest  in  the 
orchard,  and  it  proved  so  profitable  for  all 
concerned,  that  his  share  enabled  him  to  es- 
tablish himself  at  San  Lorenzo.  But  to  re- 
turn to  the  subject  of  currants.  The  Beards 
and  their  friends  sent  Dr.  Whaley  to  visit 


126 


Early  Horticulture  in   California. 


[Aug. 


Eastern  nurseries.  At  Elwanger  &  Barry's, 
in  Rochester,  he  was  shown  some  plants  of 
the  cherry  currant,  then  highly  spoken  of  in 
France,  but  a  decided  failure  in  the  United 
States.  Mr.  Elwanger  wished  Dr.  Whaley  to 
try  it  in  California,  and  a  few  plants  were 
shipped.  In  the  division  Mr.  Crane  had  four 
plants,  Mr.  Lewelling  twelve,  and  Mr.  Beard 
"  the  largest  number."  At  this  time  the  Red 
Dutch  currant,  the  White  Dutch,  the  Ver- 
saillaise,  and  other  kinds,  had  been  planted 
and  proved  worthless  in  this  climate.  Hor- 
ticulturists despaired  of  ever  having  Califor- 
nia currants.  But  in  a  few  years  the  cherry 
currants  at  San  Lorenzo  began  to  bear  fruit. 
Mr.  Beard's  plants  had  mostly  died,  and  the 
discovery  of  the  great  value  of  the  variety 
came  from  Mr.  E.  T.  Crane,  who  by  1858 
had  one-fourth  of  an  acre,  and  paid  Mr. 
Lewelling  $100  for  enough  cuttings  to  plant 
as  much  more.  Rooted  plants  were  soon 
sold  by  the  thousand,  propagated  from  sin- 
gle joints,  but  the  San  Lorenzo  and  Hay- 
wards  region  proved  the  best  for  their  growth. 
In  1865  Mr.  Crane  sold  6,000  pounds  of 
fruit^  at  prices  ranging  from  thirty  to  fifty 
cents  a  pound.  The  sales  for  some  years 
averaged  from  $2,000  to  $4,000  per  acre. 
Over-production  then  followed,  and  about 
1878  currants  were  a  drug  in  the  markets, 
were  given  to  whoever  would  gather  them, 
until  no  more  could  possibly  be  utilized,  and 
many  tons  rotted  on  the  bushes.  The  nom- 
inal price  was  $1.50  per  chest,  or  about  one 
and  a  fourth  cents  a  pound,  which  did  not 
cover  the  expense  of  gathering  and  shipping. 
Since  that  time,  currants,  although  often 
low,  have  never  again  reached  so  small  a 
price. 

One  of  the  most  interesting  of  early  exper- 
iments in  irrigation  was  by  John  M.  Homer, 
a  prominent  pioneer  in  the  southern  part  of 
Alameda  County.  A  letter  from  his  pen  ap- 
peared in  a  San  Francisco  journal,  under 
date  of  September  26th,  1856.  He  says  that 
in  December,  1855,  he  began  to  irrigate  lands 
he  wished  to  crop  in  1856.  Upon  eighty 
acres  thus  irrigated,  the  wheat  was  forty 
inches  high,  plump  and  good  ;  the  unirrigat- 
ed  was  twenty-five  inches  high,  and  much 


shrunken.  Mr.  Horner,  a  few  years  later, 
rented  a  large  tract  west  of  Niles  on  the 
north  side  of  the  Alameda  creek,  and  irrigat- 
ed it  with  water  from  the  millrace.  The  State 
Agricultural  Society  in  1859  offered  prizes 
for  the  best  essays  on  irrigation,  and  the  first 
one  was  taken  by  William  Thompson,  of  Mil- 
lerton.  Practical  experience  in  irrigation 
was  so  lacking  at  this  time,  that  the  articles 
which  appeared  in  horticultural  journals  pre- 
vious to  1860  were  chiefly  compiled  from 
foreign  sources.  It  was  not  until  the  ample 
State  reports  of  recent  years  that  California 
contributed  much  to  the  literature  of  the  sub- 
ject. Meanwhile,  the  people  of  the  mining 
counties  had  been  constructing  an  elaborate 
and  costly  system  of  ditches  and  flumes, 
many  of  which  were  equally  available  for  irri- 
gation purposes.  Between  1850  and  1872, 
upwards  of  five  thousand  miles  of  such  ditch- 
es had  been  made  by  the  miners  of  the  State, 
and  some  of  them  have  become  sources  of 
horticultural  wealth  to  mountain  and  foot- 
hill communities. 

The  grape  interests  of  the  State,  as  is  well 
known,  attracted  much  attention,  and  at  an 
early  date.  Almost  every  pioneer  soon  be- 
came aware  of  the  extent  to  which  grapes 
were  grown  in  the  prosperous  Mission  gar- 
dens, and  cuttings  were  widely  distributed. 
Essays  upon  wine-making,  varieties  to  plant, 
choice  of  soil  for  vineyards,  and  similar  top- 
ics, form  a  noteworthy  part  of  early  agricul- 
tural reports.  An  article  in  the  "  California 
Culturist,"  for  January,  1859,  describes  a 
visit  to  the  vineyard  of  Mr.  M.  K.  Barber, 
two  miles  from  Martinez,  where  some  four 
thousand  three-year-old  vines  of  the  Mission 
variety  were  to  be  found  on  "  bottom  land." 
Near  by  was  the  vineyard  of  Mr.  John  Strent- 
zel,  of  ten  thousand  vines.  Hundreds  of 
experiments  with  grapes  were  going  on 
throughout  the  State,  and  by  a  process  of 
selection,  the  best  viticultural  districts  were 
brought  to  the  front.  Far  too  great  stress 
was  long  laid  upon  the  value  of  rich  bottom 
lands  for  grapevines.  The  few  writers  who 
held  that  the  barren  hillsides  of  California 
would  ultimately  produce  the  finest  grapes, 
were  often  laughed  at  as  harmless  enthusiasts. 


1885.] 


Early  Horticulture  in   California. 


127 


It  would  seem,  from  the  correspondence 
published  in  local  journals  during  i855-'59, 
that  too  much  irrigation  was  often  practiced 
on  vineyards,  and  the  quality  of  the  fruit 
was  much  impaired.  The  1858  report  of 
the  State  Agricultural  Society  marked  an 
era  in  the  progress  of  the  grape  industry. 
This  report  incidentally  states  that  the  first 
grape  vines  planted  in  California  were  set 
about  the  year  1740,  and  at  or  near  the 
Mission  San  Diego  and  the  Mission  Viecho, 
the  latter  sixty  miles  from  San  Diego.  I 
notice  an  account  of  experiments  made  dur- 
ing 1856,  in  grafting  the  Mission  grape  on 
the  wild  vine  (Vitis  Californica).  In  1854 
a  writer  in  the  "Pioneer  Magazine,"  in 
discussing  diseases  of  the  vine,  advises  prop- 
agating new  California  seedlings.  By  1861, 
there  were  10,592,688  grape  vines  in  the 
State,  and  Los  Angeles  and  Sonoma  took 
the  lead.  In  1862  the  product  of  wine  was 
343,47  7  gallons. 

The  present  State  Horticultural  Society, 
which  so  admirably  fulfills  its  mission,  and 
whose  reports  have  contained  many  and  able 
papers  on  horticulture,  was  organized  in  1879. 
Butthegardeners  and  horticulturists  of  Santa 
Clara  County  organized,  as  early  as  Septem- 
ber 1 7th,  1855,  a  Horticultural  Association. 
Colonel  Grayson,  Mayor  Belden,  and  other 
prominent  persons  were  members.  Alame- 
da  County  had  a  floral  exhibition  June  i4th, 
1859,  the  first  attempted  in  the  State.  E.  S. 
Chipman,  of  San  Leandro,  was  Secretary. 
F.  K.  Shattuck,  Frank  R.  Fargo,  Robert 
Blacow  and  Dr.  H.  Gibbons  were  among 
the  directors.  The  State  Agricultural  Soci- 
ety, incorporated  under  an  act  of  1853, 
amended  in  1854,  published  its  first  report 
in  1858.  The  peculiar  value  of  the  now 
rare  volumes  of  these  reports  for  1858,  1859, 
and  1860,  consists  in  the  letters  they  con- 
tain from  a  traveling  committee,  which  vis- 
ited all  the  agricultural  districts  of  the ' 
State,  and  described  the  crops,  gardens  and 
orchards.  If  space  permitted,  I  should  be 
glad  to  print  copious  extracts  from  these 
chapters.  The  change  from  a  mining  to  a 
farming  community,  the  mining  camps  of 
the  Sierra  foothills,  the  beginnings  of  the 


large  ranches  of  the  valley,  the  unfenced 
plains,  the  healthy  pioneer  life  of  1858,  the 
"  first  transition  era,"  are  all  illustrated  with 
unconscious  force  in  the  unpretending  re- 
ports of  this  traveling  committee.  Here,  for 
instance,  is  a  story  of  a  washerwoman,  in  a 
mining  camp,  who  sent  to  Oregon,  in  1853,  for 
one  year  old  apple  trees  at  five  dollars  apiece, 
and  sold  the  fruit  in  1857  for  ahundred  dol- 
lars a  tree.  There  is  also  a  story  from  Ophir, 
Placer  County,  of  a  man  who  in  1851  bought 
two  cows  at  Sacramento  for  $400,  and  in 
two  months  had  sold  $720  worth  of  milk  at 
.50  a  quart.  Hay  was  $80  per  ton,  and 
meal  was  $800  per  hundred  ;  so  it  cost  him 
$100  per  month  to  keep  them.  He  paid  $4. 
apiece  for  his  hens,  and  sold  the  eggs  at  $5 
per  dozen.  When  thanksgiving  day  came, 
his  turkey  for  dinner  cost  him  $12. 

Early  files  of  the  "  Alta  California"  con- 
tain much  that  throws  light  on  the  horti- 
cultural events  of  the  time.  The  spread  of 
innumerable  vegetable  gardens  "  at  the  Mis- 
sion" and  beyond  ;  the  orchards  of  Santa 
Clara,  Mission  San  Jose,  and  Sonoma,  are 
revealed  in  rapid  glimpses.  Under  date  of 
August  3d,  1850,  a  writer  in  the  "Alta  Cali- 
fornia" describes  the  Mission  Dolores  fields, 
"  with  gentle  streams  irrigating  the  sarce  gar- 
dens," and  the  dusty  highway  stretching  off 
into  the  sand  hills.  Fourteen  miles  north  of 
San  Jose",  in  San  Mateo,  was  the  fine  ranch  of 
Capt.  Wyman.  About  the  Mission  of  Santa 
Clara  were  dozens  of  squatters'  huts  on  the 
lands  claimed  by  the  Church.  The  spacious 
pueblo  of  San  Jose  contained  thrifty  pear, 
apple,  quince,  and  other  fruit  trees,  break- 
ing down  with  the  weight  of  the  crop. 
About  it,  far  over  the  valley,  were  the  be- 
ginnings of  farms.  Artesian  wells  had  been 
sunk,  in  one  or  two  instances.  The  labor 
was  chiefly  Indian,  paid  six  or  seven  dollars 
a  week.  Governor  Barrett  had  just  founded 
the  town  of  Alviso,  in  the  salt  marshes  along 
the  shore  of  the  Bay.  In  1850,  the  sugges- 
tion that  a  State  Fair  should  be  held  was 
first  made  in  a  San  Francisco  paper. 

In  1860  General  John  Bidwell,  of  Chico, 
delivered  the  annual  address  before  the 
State  Agricultural  Society,  and  in  the  course 


128 


Early  Horticulture  in  California. 


[Aug. 


of  that  address,  he  said:  "From  1848  to 
1853  we  were  dependent  upon  importation 
from  abroad  for  almost  everything,  even  the 
staff  of  life.  In  1853  we  imported  498,740 
barrels  of  flour.  How  stands  the  case  now  ? 
We  are  able  to  export  half  a  million  barrels 
ourselves.  In  1853  we  imported  80,186 
bags  of  wheat;  now  the  scales  have  turned, 
and  we  are  able  to  export.  In  1853  we  im- 
ported 16,281  barrels  of  beef;  in  1859  only 
4,807  barrels.  In  1853  we  imported  294,- 
065  bags  of  barley ;  in  1859  were  able  to 
export  295,852  bags."  Of  oats,  the  impor- 
tations in  1853  were  104,914  bags;  but  in 
1859  the  exportations  were  218,648  bags. 
Pork  was  imported  in  1853  to  the  amount 
of  51,169  barrels,  but  in  1850  to  only  29,- 
444  barrels.  What  new  country  ever  took 
hold  of  the  cultivation  of  the  soil  with  great- 
er zeal  ?  " 

In  1 86 1  the  wheat  area  of  the  State  was 
361,351  acres,  and  the  total  yield  was  8,805,- 
411  bushels,  of  which  6,008,336  bushels 
came  from  the  seven  counties  of  Alameda, 
Contra  Costa,  Santa  Clara,  Napa,  San  Joa- 
quin,  Solano,  and  Yolo.  The  California 
Club,  or  Old  Russian,  the  Sonora,  the  White 
Australian,  the  Egyptian,  the  Oregon  White, 
and  the  Red  Turkey,  were  extensively  plant- 
ed, the  Club  and  Australian  taking  the  lead. 
Too  many  farmers  depended  upon  the  vol- 
unteer crops,  and  the  burning  of  the  straw 
in  the  fields  immediately  after  the  first  rains 
was  well-nigh  universal.  In  the  earlier  years 
of  grain-growing  the  average  product  of 
wheat  was  between  60  and  70  bushels  to  the 
acre  in  favorable  seasons.  In  1854  a  field 
of  100  acres  of  barley  in  Pajaro  Valley  av- 
eraged 133  2/5  bushels  per  acre  of  clean 
grain  for  the  whole  tract.  Fifty  centals  of 
wheat  have  been  grown  to  the  acre.  Con- 
tinuous cropping  has  greatly  impaired  the 


fertility  of  the  soil,  and  the  average  wheat- 
yield  has  decreased ;  but  summer  fallowing, 
the  use  of  fertilizers,  and  rotation  of  crops — 
in  brief,  the  adoption  of  better  methods  of 
farming — is  checking  the  evil. 

It  is  difficult,  if  not  impossible,  to  give  a 
complete  list  of  the  horticultural  and  agri- 
cultural journals  that  have  thriven  and  failed 
to  thrive  in  this  State  of  California.  The 
pioneer  was  the  well-known  "  California 
Farmer,"  established  by  Col.  Warren  in  Jan- 
uary, 1854.  The  "California  Culturist,"  a 
monthly  magazine  of  forty-eight  pages,  lasted 
from  1858  to  1860  inclusive.  At  a  later  date, 
1875,  the  "California  Horticulturist  "  began, 
and  continued  for  five  years.  About  1864, 
the  "  California  Rural  Home  Journal "  was 
established  by  Thomas  Hart  Hyatt,  a  noted 
writer  on  grape  culture,  and  continued  pub- 
lication for  about  two  years.  The  "  Rural 
Press"  began  January  ist,  1876,  developing 
from  a  special  farm-edition  of  the  "  Mining 
Press."  Several  journals  entitled  "  Agricul- 
turist "  at  various  times  occupied  the  field. 
The  "Hesperian,"  "Pioneer's Magazine,"  and 
"  Hutchings's  Magazine  "contained  a  few  hor- 
ticultural items.  The  "  United  States  Agri- 
cultural Reports"  of  1851  and  1862  have 
notes  from  California  writers.  The  "  State 
Agricultural  Reports"  have  already  received 
attention.  Works  of  travel  in  California 
during  the  fifties,  in  nearly  every  case,  con- 
tain mention  of  the  gardens,  the  orchards, 
the  pioneer  farms,  the  old  Mission  tracts  of 
land.  The  works  of  John  S.  Hittell,  Cronise, 
and  others  deal  extensively  with  the  horti- 
cultural advances  of  the  State  since  the  "days 
of  '49."  But  there  is  hardly  a  better  way  to 
obtain  a  glimpse  of  the  subject  than  in  the 
files  of  the  daily  and  weekly  newspapers  of 
San  Francisco,  Sacramento,  and  leading  in- 
terior towns  prior  to  1860. 

Charles  Howard  Shinn, 


1885.! 


In  the  Summer-house. 


129 


IN  THE  SUMMER-HOUSE. 

[  Translated  from  the  German  of  Karl  Neumann  Strela.  ] 


IN  the  year  of  our  Lord  1 783,  the  delicious 
spring  arrived  so  suddenly  that  Winter,  the 
old  grumbler,  was  obliged  to  take  leave  in 
headlong  haste.  Everywhere  was  verdure 
and  bloom,  and  the  innumerable  birds  gave 
in  their  best  manner  the  songs  they  had  been 
studying  through  the  winter. 

One  afternoon,  in  the  city  of  Leipzig,  a 
company  of  students  passed  through  one  of 
the  city  gates  on  their  way  to  the  neighbor- 
ing village  of  Reutnitz,  where  the  landlord 
of  the  "  Golden  Lamb "  sold  a  renowned 
and  favorite  beer.  Rollicking,  insolent  fel- 
lows were  these  students ;  they  threw  their 
caps  in  the  air,  swung  their  pipes  and  canes, 
and  set  their  gigantic  dogs  on  every  stone  in 
the  road.  If  a  maid  passed,  she  was  greeted 
and  kissed,  and  if  a  Polish  Jew  appeared  in 
black  kaftan,  with  his  love-locks  behind  his 
ears,  there  arose  from  a  dozen  throats  the 
cry,  "  Noting  to  trade." 

A  little  later,  a  student  about  twenty  years 
old  left  the  city  by  the  same  gateway.  He 
did  not  .follow  his  companions.  When  he 
reached  the  open  field,  he  paused  for  a  mo- 
ment, and  then  took  another  road  ;  he  in- 
tended to  go  around  the  city.  This  young 
collegian  had  a  powerful  body,  a  kindly, 
honest  face,  and — a  new  brown  coat  with 
steel  buttons. 

Whoever  met  this  student,  whose  name  was 
Jean  Paul  Friedrich  Richter,  could  not  have 
failed  to  notice  the  joy  that  beamed  from  his 
eyes,  or  to  be  surprised  by  the  costume  in 
which  our  young  Richter  took  pleasure  in 
arraying  himself.  He  disdained  the  laws  of 
the  prevailing  fashion,  and  wore  neither  frill 
nor  neckerchief,  powder  nor  cue.  His  shin- 
ing hair  fell  unconfined  in  long  locks  on  his 
shoulders,  and  his  breast,  covered  only  by  a 
shirt,  was  exposed  to  wind  and  weather. 
When  he  was  laughed  at,  he  shrugged  his 
shoulders  ;  when  he  was  scolded,  he  replied 
VOL.  VI.— 9. 


that  he  could  surely  clothe  himself  to  his 
own  liking. 

There  was  joy  in  his  eyes  and  happiness 
in  his  heart,  as  he  strode  on  past  gardens 
and  fields.  When  a  bird  caroled  he  sang 
with  him,  and  when  a  lark  mounted  straight 
into  the  blue  heavens,  he  leaped  for  gladness. 
Past  was  the  time  of  anxiety,  forever  past 
the  days  in  which  he  had  vainly  struggled 
for  daily  bread !  How  often  had  a  crust 
soaked  in  water  been  his  onjy  food  !  How 
often  had  he  thrown  himself  hungry  upon 
his  bed  !  Very  young  and  very  poor,  he 
came  two  years  before  to  Leipzig,  to  study 
the  sciences  in  the  University.  He  had  no 
recommendations.  He  did  not  understand 
how  to  defer  submissively  to  all  he  met.  His 
maxim  was,  "  Ever  forward,  and  everything 
through  one's  own  endeavor."  He  wished 
to  teach,  but  he  found  few  scholars,  and  was 
glad  to  receive  two  groschen  for  a  lesson. 
Even  that  was  much  for  a  hungry  man. 

After  this  torture  had  lasted  about  eigh- 
teen months,  he  had  an  idea :  he  would 
teach  no  longer.  No  sooner  thought  than 
done.  He  felt  that  something  burned  in 
his  head  and  heart,  and  that  something  he 
must  put  on  paper.  He  wrote  day  and 
night,  and  soon  the  first  volume  of  his  "Die 
Gronlandischen  Processe  "  was  finished.  He 
took  it  under  his  arm,  and  with  a  beating 
heart  knocked  at  the  door  of  the  distinguish- 
ed bookseller,  Herr  Voss.  Eight  days  later  a 
young  man  walked  through  Leipzig,  who  be- 
lieved that  with  the  fifteen  Louis  d'or  in  his 
pocket  he  could  buy  at  least  one  half  the 
city.  This  happy  fellow  was  Jean  Paul 
Friedrich  Richter,  and  Herr  Voss  had  paid 
him  the  shining  gold  pieces.  Gone  was 
need,  gone  anxiety.  "  Ever  forward,  and 
everything  through  one's  own  endeavor." 
The  first  step  was  taken,  and  was  successful ; 
now  on  in  the  path  to  immortality! 


130 


In  the  Summer-house. 


[Aug. 


His  debts  and  his  room  rent  for  the  next 
three  months  were  paid,  the  brown  coat 
bought,  and  five  gold  pieces  remained. 
These  would  suffice  until  the  second  part  of 
the  "  Gronlandischen  Processe"  was  written, 
and  this  our  Richter  intended  now  to  begin. 

As  this  sunny  afternoon  he  went  on  and 
on  through  the  fields,  and  by  the  gardens, 
he  thought  of  his  work,  and  of  the  gold  piec- 
es lying,  each  wrapped  separately  in  paper, 
securely  in  his  pocket,  for  the  coat  was  new, 
and  therefore  the  pocket  was  whole.  Sud- 
denly he  stood  before  a  small,  carefully  tend- 
ed garden,  separated  from  the  road  by  a 
lath  fence.  The  principal  gate  led  to  a  dwell- 
ing house  with  a  steep  roof,  and  a  small, 
round  house,  shaped  like  a  tower,  stood 
among  fruit  tre.es  directly  behind  the  fence. 
This  summer-house,  with  its  green  door, 
and  windows  extending  to  the  ground,  cap- 
tivated our  student.  How  one  could  live, 
and  work,  and  dream  here  in  the  midst  of 
this  verdure,  and  the  songs  of  the  birds  ! 
"Rich  and  fortunate  people!"  sighed  the 
student,  as  his  eyes  roamed  over  the  garden ; 
but  as  he  grasped  his  pocket,  "  am  I  not  also 
rich  and  fortunate  ?  therefore  boldly  enter 
and  enquire.  A  modest  question  about  this 
little  paradise  can  provoke  no  one." 

As  he  was  about  to  open  the  garden-gate, 
a  young  girl  stepped  from  the  house — a  pret- 
ty vision,  with  blue  eyes  and  magnificent 
blonde  hair  under  a  red  kerchief.  Her 
green  gown  was  short,  with  a  black  border  ; 
her  bodice  white;  and  around  her  neck  a 
chain,  on  which  hung  a  silver  coin.  Her 
feet  were  encased  in  black  leather  boots  with 
red  heels.  She  came  down  the  path,  laid 
her  hoe  and  shovel  on  a  mossy  bank,  took 
out  a  handkerchief,  and  dried  her  forehead. 
The  student  drew  her  attention  by  a  slight 
cough,  and  the  girl,  astonished,  looked  up, 
then  rapidly  approached  the  gate. 

At  the  first  glance  she  started ;  a  young 
man  of  the  better  class  without  powder  and 
cue,  without  frill  and  neckerchief!  She  nod- 
ded, however,  and  asked  what  he  wished. 
A  burning  red  flamed  in  his  cheeks.  When 
he  took  off  his  cap,  he  did  it  very  awkward- 
ly, and  as  he  put  the  question  whether  the 


summer-house  was  for  rent,  he  actually  stam- 
mered. 

She  shrugged  her  shoulders.  "My  moth- 
er has  never  thought  of  that.  If  one  might 
ask,  what  had  the  gentleman  thought  of  do- 
ing in  the  little  house  ?  " 

"  I  should  like  to  write  and  study  there." 

"  Well,"  she  continued,  resting  her  elbows 
on  the  gate,  "  there  is  certainly  room  enough 
for  that.  Table,  chair,  and  bed — you  would 
not  need  more.  Pardon  me,  are  you  a  schol- 
ar? My  mother,  to  be  sure,  cannot  be  spoken 
to  immediately  ;  she  is  at  Aunt  Jettchen's, 
in  the  Petersstrasse,  for  her  birthday,  but  I 
am  quite  certain  she  will  have  nothing 
against  it,  if  you  wish  to  come  to  us.  Come 
in,  and  first  of  all,  look  at  the  summer-house 
for  yourself. 

"  That  is  not  necessary,  my  dear  Frauhin. 
You  are  very  good."  With  these  words  he 
entered  the  garden,  and  went  slowly  by  her 
side  up  the  path. 

"  It  is  beautiful  here,"  said  the  girl,  "  and 
at  evening,  especially,  it  is  so  quiet,  we  can 
hear  our  own  hearts  beat.  My  father  was  a 
gardener;  he  has  sat  here  evening  after  even- 
ing, enjoying  every  blossom  like  a  child.  It 
is  three  years  since  my  father  died,"  she  add- 
ed sorrowfully,  "  and  Peter  Wilm,  who  was 
his  assistant,  has  since  then  taken  the  land 
ori  lease." 

"  Does  the  garden  house  belong  to  Peter 
Wilm  ?  "  he  asked  quickly. 

"  No,"  she  said,  "  my  mother  has  used  it 
to  store  old  lumber,  which  could  be  put  on 
the  ground." 

"  And  what  about  the  rent,  if  I  may  en- 
quire ?  " 

"That  I  really  do  not  know.  Wait  until 
my  mother  comes,  or  come  again  tomorrow." 

"  The  birthday  festival  may  last  long,"  he 
answered.  "  And  to  wait  until  tomorrow — 
oh,  no  !  The  evening  is  so  beautiful !  I  beg 
you,  my  dear  Fraulein,  make  your  demands, 
and  if  I  can  afford  it,  I  will  hasten  back,  hud- 
dle my  baggage  together,  and  be  here  again, 
that  I  may  feel  this  very  evening  like  a  king 
of  a  new  kingdom." 

She  opened  her  eyes.  "  How  beautifully 
you  know  how  to  say  that !  Are  you  a  poet?" 


1885.] 


In  the  Summer-house. 


131 


He  smiled ;  "  I  hope  one  day  to  become 
a  poet,  but — the  rent;  let  me  entreat  you  !" 

"  Would  you  like  to  remain  until  autumn  ?" 

"  So  long  as  the  heavens  are  blue  and  the 
birds  sing." 

"  Well,  then,  twelve  groschen  a  month ;  or 
is  that  too  much?" 

"  That  is  too  little  ! "  he  exclaimed,  and 
thought  of  his  five  shining  gold  pieces. 

"No  more,  on  any  account!"  she  cried 
quickly. 

There  was  a  short  pause.  The  young  girl 
walked  to  and  fro,  and  Richter  examined  his 
fingers  ;  then  he  looked  in  her  face,  extend- 
ed his  hand,  and  said  :  "  If  you  positively 
will  not  have  it  otherwise — it  is  settled  ! " 

"Settled ! "  she  said,  and  laid  her  hand  in 
his. 

He  struck  his  breast,  and  with  a  comical 
pathos  exclaimed  :  "  Thus  in  a  good  hour, 
the  king  will  enter  his  kingdom  to  the  sound 
of  drums  and  trumpets." 

She  laughed,  and  added  quickly:  "We 
will  have  the  honor,  your  majesty,  to  receive 
you  at  the  gate." 

"  Subject,  farewell !  "  He  nodded  and 
went  forward  a  few  steps;  she  bowed  low 
and  turned. 

"One  question  more,  daughter  of  my 
realm,"  he  suddenly  cried. 

She  turned  like  a  whirlwind :  "  Your  maj- 
esty commands  ?  " 

"  The  king  would  know  the  name  of  his 
faithful  subject." 

"  My  name  is  Hannchen  Lerche." 

"  Hannchen  Lerche  may  always  be  assured 
of  my  favor.  Farewell  ! " 

They  bowed,  they  laughed,  and  as  he 
stood  before  the  fence,  he  threw  his  hat  high 
into  the  air  for  pure  happiness. 

Hannchen  flew  to  the  gate,  and  looked 
after  him  until  he  disappeared  in  a  curve  of 
the  road.  "  Those  honest  eyes !  that  bright 
waving  hair  !  and — what  was  his  name  ?  " 
She  had  not  once  thought  of  asking — to  for- 
get a  thing  so  important ! 

But  now  quickly  to  work ;  that  must  go 
like  the  wind.  With  the  help  of  the  garden- 
er's man  the  lumber  was  removed  from  the 
house.  Then  with  broom  over  walls,  ceil- 


ing and  floor,  a  table  at  the  window,  a  chair 
before  it,  and  a  bed  set  up,  "  Ready ! " 
cried  Hannchen,  and  clapped  her  hands. 

At  this  moment  Madame  Lerche  returned 
from  Aunt  Jettchen's  in  the  Petersstrasse. 
The  "  Lerchin,"  as  she  was  called  by  the 
neighbors,  was  a  tall,  thin  woman,  with  a 
winged  cap,  and  a  sea-green  parasol.  She 
was  usually  seen  with  her  eyebrows  drawn 
together,  and  a  stern  expression  about  her 
blue  lips ;  but  today  she  looked  cheerful — 
she  was  in  a  birthday  humor.  Aunt  Jettchen 
had  regaled  her  with  plenty  of  coffee,  cake, 
and  more  than  all,  with  some  sweet  wine. 

At  the  first  moment  Dame  Lerche  stared 
when  she  saw  the  change  in  the  summer 
house,  and  she  stared  still  more  when  she 
heard  of  the  arrangement.  "  Twelve  gros- 
chen a  month ! " — but  the  birthday  mood  re- 
pressed the  blame  that  was  at  her  tongue's 
end.  "  She  must  say  she  had  never  thought 
of  renting  the  little  box,  but  twelve  groschen 
might  be  better  than  nothing  at  all,"  and 
after  this  consideration  had  taken  possession 
of  her,  she  laughed,  nodded,  and  called  ev- 
erything good. 

At  this  instant  our  student  appeared,  with 
books  under  his  right  arm,  and  over  his  left 
his  dressing  gown  and  clean  linen.  So  lad- 
en he  stood  before  the  garden  gate. 

"  Is  that  he  ? "  whispered  Dame  Lerche 
to  her  daughter.  "  Good  heavens  !  how  he 
looks !  No  cue,  no  powder,  no  neckerchief ! 
Of  what  country  can  he  be  ?  Hm !  all  the 
same,  his  face  pleases  me,  and  that  is  the 
chief  thing." 

"  Good  evening,  your  Majesty !  "  cried 
Hannchen,  and  courtesied. 

"  What  are  you  raving  about  there  ?  "  call- 
ed her  mother,  in  the  greatest  astonishment. 

"We  were  joking  before,"  answered  her 
daughter. 

"  I  salute  you,  daughter  of  my  kingdom," 
cried  the  student.  "  Madame,  your  obedient 
servant;  here  I  am,  bag  and  baggage." 

"Young  man,"  said  the  Lerchin,  while 
she  drew  herself  bolt  upright,  and  flopped 
the  sea  green  parasol  noisily,  "  young  man, 
the  room  has  been  put  in  order,  and  I  will 
conduct  you  to  it,  if  you  please.  Hannchen, 


132 


In  the  Summer-house. 


[Aug. 


you  can,  in  the  meantime,  go  into  the  cellar 
and  look  after  the  milk." 

The  girl's  face  fell,  and  she  withdrew 
slowly.  The  others  disappeared  in  the  sum- 
mer house,  and  after  Richter  had  glanced 
about  him,  he  exclaimed :  "  My  boldest  ex- 
pectations are  far  exceeded;  this  is  the  ante- 
room of  Paradise ! " 

Dame  Lerche  smiled ;  asked  him  to  re- 
lieve himself  of  his  baggage,  and  helped  him 
dispose  of  his  few  possessions. 

"Well,  young  man,"  she  then  began,  while 
she  untied  the  white  ribbons  of  her  cap,  and 
took  her  place  on  the  edge  of  the  bed; 
"  now  we  will,  for  the  first  time,  speak  seri- 
ously. Seat  yourself  on  that  chair;  now, 
your  name  ?  " 

"  Richter." 

"And  what  is  your  occupation  ?  " 

"  I  am  a  student  and  write  books." 

"  And,  if  I  may  enquire,  where  are  you 
from  ?  " 

"From  Wunsiedel,  in  the  Fichtelgebirge." 

"  And  that  is  in  what  portion  of  the  earth, 
if  I  may  ask  ?  " 

He  laughed.  "  Do  I  look  like  a  Hotten- 
tot, then?  Wunsiedel  is  a  German  city." 

"What  do  you  say?  I  thought,  indeed — 
because  you  had  no  frill,  no  cue,  and  no  pow- 
der— it 's  of  no  consequence,"  interrupting 
herself;  "that  is  not  necessary  now.  I  only 
wanted  to  talk  with  you  in  an  orderly  way." 

He  looked  out  of  the  window  at  the  trees 
and  the  evening  sky,  and  nodded. 

"  First,  then,  take  good  care  that  the  gate 
is  always  locked;  no  one  ever  has  slipped  in, 
it  is  true,  but  it  might  happen,  and  mankind 
gets  worse  every  day.  And  in  the  second 
place,  do  not  burn  any  light  in  the  evening : 
you  might  be  reading  or  writing,  and  get 
tired  and  nod  over  it,  and  ho !  there  are  the 
flames  up  to  the  roof?  And  third,  it  will  be 
best  for  you  to  close  the  window  punctually 
at  seven  o'clock,  for  the  evenings  are  still 
cool  and  damp,  and  such  air  is  hurtful.  And 
fourth — did  I  have  something  more  to  re- 
mark ?  No ;  I  have  finished." 

He  breathed  again,  and  an  inaudible 
"  God  be  praised ! "  escaped  his  lips.  She 
pushed  her  cap  further  over  her  forehead, 


drew  her  kerchief  closer  around  her  shoul- 
ders, and  arose.  He  offered  his  hand,  and 
they  bade  each  other  good-night. 

Hannchen  sat  at  the  window  when  her 
mother  entered.  Dame  Lerche  yawned, 
and  said  it  would  be  best  to  go  to  bed: 
Hardly  thirty  minutes  later,  Dame  Lerche 
was  lost  in  a  charming  dream  :  she  smiled  in 
her  sleep,  for  she  dreamed  that  from  this 
time  Aunt  Jettchen  was  to  celebrate  her 
birthday  daily.  Oh !  the  cakes,  and  the  cof- 
fee, and  the  sweet  wine  ! 

Hannchen  threw  herself  restlessly  to  and 
fro  on  the  bed.  She  could  not  help  think- 
ing over  arid  over  again  of  the  earnest,  hon- 
est eyes,  and  the  shining  hair. 

Through  the  garden,  with  his  arms  crossed, 
walked  the  poet.  The  trees  rustled  myste- 
riously; the  stars  glittered;  the  moon  threw 
her  gentle  light  over  leaves  and  blossoms. 
The  poet  lay  down  upon  the  mossy  bank ; 
glowworms  came  flying  and  dancing  around 
him  ;  beetles,  glistening  like  gold,  crept  out 
of  the  moss;  silvery  threads  waved  in  the  air, 
and  clung  to  his  forehead.  Then  heart  and 
tongue  rejoiced — it  was  "a  summer  night's 
dream." 

IN  a  garden  close  by  stood  a  gloomy  house, 
and  under  this  roof  lived  the  school-master, 
Timotheus  Baumgarten.  Herr  Timotheus 
was  a  tolerable  teacher,  and  a  prodigious 
pedant,  who  looked  as  morose  as  a  gouty  old 
man  of  eighty,  though  hardly  fifty  years  had 
passed  over  his  head.  Nothing  gave  him 
pleasure ;  his  ossified  soul  no  longer  glowed 
for  anything.  He  had  neither  wife,  child, 
nor  friend.  With  his  talkative  landlady  he 
did  not  exchange  three  words  from  morning 
until  night.  He  stood  every  day  at  his  win- 
dow for  about  ten  minutes  before  going  to 
school ;  not,  however,  to  refresh  himself  with 
the  verdure  and  the  fragrance — he  firmly 
believed  that  the  colors  acted  beneficially  on 
his  eyes ;  and  while  in  this  position  he  was 
accustomed,  that  he  might  not  be  quite  idle, 
to  count  from  one  to  three  hundred.  Then 
he  dressed  himself,  and  betook  himself  to 
his  scholars,  who  feared  him  as  they  would 
the  pestilence. 


L885.] 


In  the  Summer-house. 


133 


But  today  when  in  his  counting  he  had 
reached  eighty-four,  the  eighty-five  stuck  in 
his  throat.  His  glance  fell  on  his  neighbor's 
garden,  his  look  grew  black.  What  was 
going  on  next  door?  Under  the  trees  the 
student  Richter  was  walking  to  and  fro  ;  he 
was  thinking  of  his  book,  which  he  was  to 
begin  this  morning. 

The  Master  sighed  deeply,  "  Oh !  the  de- 
pravity of  youth  ! "  Then  he  drew  on  his 
long,  black  coat,  wound  the  white  band  three 
times  around  his  neck,  seized  hat  and  cane, 
and  was  off  to  his  pupils.  On  the  way  he 
shook  his  head  many  times.  By  the  time 
the  school  was  closed  he  had  also  concluded 
his  deliberations.  He  set  off  promptly  and 
knocked  at  Dame  Lerche's  door.  "  Neigh- 
bor," he  cried,  when  the  door  had  hardly 
closed  behind  him,  "  who  is  that  fellow  out 
there?  Oh !  youth  !  youth  ! " 

"Well,  Master, towhat  do  I  owe  this  honor? 
I  pray  you  be  seated.  How  can  I  serve  you  ?  " 

She  was  alone  in  the  room.  Hannchen 
sat  in  the  kitchen  by  the  hearth,  scraping 
beets.  Timotheus  Baumgarten  remained 
standing  between  the  door  and  the  window, 
and  continued  to  shake  his  head,  while  he 
pressed  the  knob  of  his  walking  stick  against 
his  chin.  "  Neighbor,  I  firmly  believed  that 
you  were  a  woman  who  endeavored  to  be- 
have yourself  in  the  most  decorous  manner  ; 
but  now  I  must  confess  that  I  have  been 
mistaken,  and  that  my —  " 

A  glance  shot  from  her  eyes,  her  tall,  thin 
figure  seemed  to  become  taller  and  thinner, 
she  lifted  her  arm  ;  she  had  intended  to  make 
a  withering  speech,  but  after  the  first  words 
— "What  have  you  to  say  to  it?" — she 
stopped 

The  Master  pointed  with  his  stick  to  the 
window,  frowned,  and  inquired  in  a  raised 
voice :  "  Does  that  fellow  out  there  live  with 
you  ?  " 

"  The  young  man's  name  is  Richter ;  he 
is  a  student ;  he  writes  books,  and  he  lives 
with  us,"  she  said  shortly,  and  set  her  arms 
akimbo. 

He  drew  his  eyes  together  and  said  in  an 
impressive  voice  :  "  This  fellow,  Richter,  will 
do  you  much  harm." 


"No,"  she  said  decidedly,  "he  would  not 
hurt  a  fly." 

"  And  yet  he  offends  daily,  hourly,  every 
moment,  he  offends  decorum.  Neighbor, 
where  are  your  eyes  ?  " 

She  laughed  aloud.  "  Now  I  see  you 
wish  to  joke  with  me." 

"  I  never  joke,"  he  answered  in  icy  tones. 
"  Is  that  the  clothing  of  a  respectable  man  ? 
Does  not  this  fellow,  Richter,  go  about,  the 
horror  of  decent  people,  without  necker- 
chief, without  cue,  without  powder?  That 
is  the  dress  of  a  vagrant,  and  consequently 
you  have  the  best  proof  that  you  have  a 
vagrant  living  with  you." 

"  He  has  a  good,  honest  face,  and  conse- 
quently I  have  the  best  proof  that  he  is  no 
vagrant." 

"  A  mask  ;  only  a  mask  !  If  the  author- 
ities should  learn  your  attachment  to  this 
swaggerer !  He  must  leave  the  summer- 
house  and  be  off  from  the  place." 

Dame  Lerche  set  her  teeth  together  and 
turned  her  back  on  the  school-teacher ;  then 
she  suddenly  screamed  : 

"  And  if  I  say  he  remains,  then  he  shall 
remain!  Do  you  understand?  I,  and  I 
alone,  will  concern  myself  about  this  Richter; 
and  as  for  you,  Master,  do  you  concern 
yourself  about  your  boys,  that  they  learn 
something.  Bah  ! " 

"  That,  then,  is  your  last  word  on  this 
highly-important  matter  ?  You  will  bitterly 
repent  it.  Farewell ! "  He  threw  his  walk- 
ing-stick over  his  shoulder,  and  left  the 
room,  sighing  deeply. 

Two  minutes  later  there  was  a  clatter  in 
the  kitchen.  Hannchen  let  fall  two  earthen 
plates.  Dame  Lerche  rushed  to  the  door 
like  a  bird  of  prey,  and  called  out :  "  The 
like  has  never  happened  before.  What 
could  crazy  Mam'selle  have  got  in  her  head  ?" 

Hannchen  said  not  a  word,  and  her  moth- 
er went  back  muttering  to  herself. 

During  the  dinner  Dame  Lerche  made 
some  observations.  First,  Hannchen  had 
no  appetite  ;  second,  Hannchen's  disturbed 
looks  betrayed  the  fact  that  her  thoughts 
were  not  on  her  food  ;  and  third,  Hannchen 
began  to  ask  inconsiderate  questions.  Half 


134 


In  the  Summer-house. 


[Aug. 


of  the  beets  were  left ;  should  she  not  carry 
a  part  of  them  to  Herr  Richter  ?  Then  her 
mother  was  completely  terrified.  A  part  for 
the  student,  but  none  for  Peter  Wilm,  the 
successor  of  her  sainted  husband!  And  to 
this  Peter  Wilm,  Hannchen  was  to  be  be- 
trothed in  the  autumn — that  was  a  settled 
thing. 

The  mother  trembled  in  every  limb.. 
Hannchen  had  no  appetite;  she  was  dis- 
turbed; she  had  let  the  plates  fall.  Why? 
She  loved  the  student !  and  if  he  returned 
her  love  !  if  both  should  agree  !  if  agitating, 
despairing  scenes  should  occur,  or  a  diffi- 
culty between  Richter  and  Peter  Wilm  !  or, 
perhaps,  an  elopement!  The  poor  Dame 
became  so  agitated  that  she  was  attacked  by 
pains  in  the  chest,  and  by  her  old  asthmatic 
complaint.  She  was  obliged  to  lie  on  the 
sofa,  to  be  rubbed,  and  she  also  took  a  great 
spoonful  of  rhubarb. 

In  the  meantime,  Timotheus  Baumgarten 
was  seated  at  his  little  table,  but  he  did  not 
feel  the  least  appetite.  This  "vagrant "  gave 
him  too  much  to  do.  So  long  as  this  dis- 
turber walked  in  his  neighbor's  garden,  Mas- 
ter Baumgarten  was  not  in  a  condition  to 
stand  at  the  window  for  his  accustomed  pur- 
pose. For  this  creature,  who  scorned  all 
propriety,  became  more  and  more  vexatious 
to  him.  and  to  such  a  degree  that  his  entire 
rest  and  composure  was  destroyed.  Poor 
Timotheus  rose  from  his  table.  In  his  an- 
ger he  forgot  his  pinch  of  snuff.  The  va- 
grant must,  he  must  leave !  Baumgarten 
sank  into  deep  thought ;  but  he  suddenly 
rose  ;  he  had  found  the  means ;  he  nodded 
his  head,  snapped  his  fingers,  and  went — no, 
ran — to  his  neighbor's. 

Hannchen  was  mixing  a  cooling  drink  for 
her  mother.  Timotheus  threw  a  significant 
look  at  Hannchen,  and  Dame  Lerche  under- 
stood the  look ;  Hannchen  was  sent  out  of 
the  room.  The  mother  threw  back  cushion 
and  cover,  rose  from  the  sofa,  and  looked 
enquiringly  and  anxiously  at  the  Master ;  but 
as  Timotheus  still  remained  dumb,  she  could 
no  longer  keep  silence  ;  she  seized  his  arm, 
and  asked  in  a  trembling  tone  :  "  Have  you 
come  back  on  account  of  my  daughter  ?  " 


Timotheus  cleared  his  throat  three  times 
before  he  began  :  "  Quite  right,  neighbor ;  in 
spite  of  your  rude  behavior,  I  stand  here 
again.  I  have  come  once  more  to  warn  and 
to—" 

"  For  heaven's  sake !  has  anything  hap- 
pened already  ?  Master,  have  you  noticed 
anything?  Oh  !  unfortunate  woman  !" 

"  Aha !  you  know  then  what  I  wish  to  say. 
Well,  I  am  glad  that  you  think  and  speak  dif- 
ferently; but  compose  yourself;  so  far  as  I 
know,  nothing  has  yet  happened.  I,  at  least, 
have  noticed  nothing.  But  what  has  not 
yet  happened  may  happen  on  any  day — to- 
morrow, or  the  day  after,  and  on  that  ac- 
count, my  worthy  neighbor,  we  must  do  what 
duty  requires  of  us.  If  a  volcano  is  about 
to  vomit  fire,  then  water  is  poured  in  with 
the  greatest  haste,  that  the  flame  may  be  ex- 
tinguished before  an  eruption.  Do  you  un- 
derstand my  figure  ?  " 

"Perfectly:  you  mean  that  the  student 
must  leave  as  soon  as  possible." 

"  Right !  I  have  always  said  that  Dame 
Lerche  was  a  wise  woman.  My  landlady 
told  me  once  that  your  Hannchen  and  Peter 
Wilm  would  make  a  match;  that  is  a  choice 
that  I  can  approve,  and  is  additional  evi- 
dence of  your  wisdom.  But  there  is  this 
fellow  Richter.  A  young  man,  and  a  stu- 
dent above  all,  is  never  at  a  loss  for  amorous 
looks  and  amorous  speeches.  Besides,  this 
fellow  delights  in  an  unusual  dress,  and  I 
could  prove  to  you  by  a  hundred  examples 
that  that  very  singularity  attracts  young  wo- 
men :  consequently,  who  can  answer  for  a  day 
so  long  as  this  Richter  is  here?  and  conse- 
quently, he  must  leave— he  must  leave  !" 

"  I  see  it,"  she  said  softly ;  then  stepping 
to  the  windows,  she  added,  in  a  compassion- 
ate tone,  "  Heaven  help  us  !  I  am  very 
sorry;  he  is  so  happy  in  the  little  place.  It 
will  be  very  hard  for  me  to  tell  him." 

Timotheus  frowned.  "  What !  you  are 
already  vacillating !  Neighbor,  think  of 
your  child,  of  Peter  Wilm,  of  the  future,  and 
take  a  bold  step.  Moreover,  if  your  heart 
is  in  the  business,  I  am  ready  to  undertake 
to  give  him  notice  to  quit — are  you  agreed?" 

She  nodded.     He  gave  her  his  hand,  and 


J85.J 


In  the  Summer-house. 


135 


left.  If  it  had  been  suitable  for  a  school 
master,  Timotheus  could  have  laughed 
and  sung  on  his  way  to  the  summer-house. 
Tomorrow  he  could  stand  at  his  window, 
without  being  obliged  to  endure  the  sight  of 
this  stroller. 

But  he  would  not  merely  give  him  notice 
to  leave  :  no — by  virtue  of  his  position,  he 
would  warn  him  no  longer  to  offend  against 
decency,  and  once  for  all  to  give  up  the  silly 
business  of  writing. 

Dame  Lerche  found  Hannchen  in  the 
kitchen.  She  coughed  three  times  and  said : 
"Richter  is  going  away  this  very  evening." 

All  the  color  left  Hannchen's  cheeks  ;  she 
tried  to  speak,  but  only  a  confused  sound 
escaped  her  lips.  Her  mother  left  the 
kitchen  and  thought,  "  Heaven  help  us ! 
She  really  loves  him.  What  a  mercy  that 
it  is  as  it  is  !  That  would  have  been  a  hor- 
rible story ;  that  would  indeed  have  been  a 
nail  in  my  coffin  ! " 

In  the  kitchen  Hannchen  sank  on  her 
knees  ;  she  clasped  her  hands  over  her  eyes, 
and  hot  tears  rolled  through  her  cold  fingers. 

The  master  knocked  at  the  door  of  the 
little  room  where  the  student  sat  at  work. 
He  arose  and  politely  enquired,  "  How  can 
I  serve  you,  sir?" 

"  I  am  Master  Timotheus  Baumgarten, 
and  I  suppose  you  have  already  heard  of  me." 

"  No,"  was  the  candid  answer. 

The  master  twisted  his  mouth.  "  Well ! 
Yes,  to  people  of  your  sort,  our  sort,  it  is 
true,  is  not  often  known." 

"What  am  I  to  understand  by  that,  sir?" 

"  In  short,  you  desire  to  be  something  ex- 
traordinary ;  but  I,  in  virtue  of  my  position 
as  Master,  I  tell  you  that  you  are  a  good-for- 
nothing  ;  for — 

"  Sir  !  "  roared  the  student. 

"For  a  person  who  dresses  like  you,  who 
runs  around  as  you  do,  to  the  extreme  an- 
noyance of  respectable  people,  is  precisely  a 
good-for-nothing.  Young  man,  you  should 
be  ashamed  of  yourself !  I — in  virtue  of 
my  position — I  advise  you  to  reflect.  Think 
of  the  consequences,  and  from  this  time 
forth  clothe  yourself  as  becomes  a  decent 
man." 


Richter  laughed.  "  If  you  had  nothing 
more  to  say  to  me,  you  might  have  spared 
yourself  the  walk." 

"  Oh  !  I  have  not  yet  concluded ;  the 
most  important  is  yet  to  come.  You  write 
books  :  what  kind  of  books  are  they  ?  /do 
not  know  them.  7  will  never  read  them ; 
but  that  your  books  are  wretched  stuff,  that 
is  bomb-proof.  Monsieur  Richter,  desist ! 
Listen  diligently  to  your  instructors,  that 
you  may  receive  some  knowledge,  and  make 
your  parents  and  fellow  beings  glad.  For  I 
tell  you,  if  you  continue,  you  will  bring  down 
sorrow  upon  the  heads  of  your  unfortunate 
parents,  and  reputable  men  will  avoid  you 
as  they  would  a  pestilence." 

"  And  I  tell  you,"  said  the  student,  who 
could  contain  himself  no  longer,  "  that  you 
may  pack  yourself  off  this  moment,  or  I  will 
show  you  !"  He  lifted  his  clenched  hand. 

"  As  soon  as  I  have  imparted  to  you  the 
matter  of  importance,  I  will  go,"  answered 
the  master,  retreating  to  the  door,  for  the 
clenched  hand  looked  formidable.  "I  have 
come  with  a  message  from  Madame  Lerche. 
Madame  Lerche  insists  that  you  leave  this 
place  instantly — instantly  !  "And  if  you  are 
seen  here  after  fifteen  minutes,  Peter  Wilm 
will  come  and  throw  you  head  over  heels. 
Do  you  understand  ?  Dixi!" 

Richter  trembled  and  staggered  :  it  was 
an  evil  dream.  When  he  lifted  his  eyes 
again,  the  school-master  had  disappeared. 
Then  everything  was  clear  to  him.  Disgust- 
ing truth !  What  can  he  do  against  the 
wishes  of  Madame  Lerche  ?  Nothing  !  He 
went  to  the  window,  and  took  leave  of  the 
trees,  the  flowers,  and  the  mossy  bank. 
Then  gathering  together  his  books,  his  clothes, 
his  pipe,  with  one  last  look,  he  left  his  para- 
dise, thrust  out  by  ignorance  and  misappre- 
hension. 

He  returned  to  his  gloomy  little  room  in 
the  city,  and  wrote  and  wrote;  and  when 
the  second  part  of  his  "  Gronldndischen  Pro- 
cesse"  was  finished,  Herr  Voss  paid  him 
one  hundred  and  twenty-five  shining  dol- 
lars. Fortunate  Jean  Paul  Friedrich  Rich- 
ter !  If  all  went  well,  he  would  surely  be  a 
rich  man  !  The  first  use  he  made  of  his 


136 


In  the  Summer-house. 


[Aug. 


wealth  was  to  send  one  hundred  dollars  to 
the  home  at  Hof,  where  his  mother,  sisters, 
and  brothers  lived  in  bitter  poverty. 

Soon  after  this  a  new  book  was  finished, 
but  Herr  Voss  shook  his  head.  The  second 
volume  had  done  nothing.  Richter  applied 
to  ten  other  publishers,  but  all  ten  shook 
their  heads.  That  was  a  frightful  fall  from 
the  heavens  ! 

The  twenty-five  dollars  were  consumed. 
More  debts  were  contracted;  his  creditors 
pressed;  they  became  uncivil;  at  last,  rude; 
— and  one  lovely  day  the  poet  disappeared 
from  Leipzig,  or,  as  they  say  in  Germany,  he 
was  regularly  burned  through.  He  returned 
to  his  mother  at  Hof.  There  he  lived  day 
after  day  on  bread  and  salad.  He  could  not 
visit  a  friend,  because  he  had  no  shoes.  Still 
hope  did  not  desert  him.  He  still  wrote : 
thick  manuscripts  traveled  in  every  direc- 
tion; but  they  regularly  returned  to  him.  At 
last  distress  reached  it's  climax,  and  he  sought 
a  livelihood  in  a  new  life.  He  became  tutor 
to  a  nobleman,  and  afterward  teacher  of 
children  in  Schwarzenbach.  When,  weary 
with  this  uncongenial  labor,  he  returned  to 
his  pen,  the  voice  in  his  breast  would  have 
its  way,  and  at  last  the  flower  of  fortune 
blossomed  for  him.  He  found  in  Gera  a 
publisher  for  his  romance.  The  shadows 
gave  way,  and  he  saw  once  more,  clear  and 
bright,  the  azure  vault  of  Heaven. 

How  our  fathers  and  mothers  loved  the 
books  which  the  poet  Jean  Paul  gave  to  the 
world !  Jean  Paul !  under  this  title  he  wrote 
work  after  work.  Young  men  and  maidens 
adored  him,  and  the  old  became  young  again 
when  they  lost  themselves  in  his  poems. 
They  were  like  a  splendid  fountain,  from 
which  all  drank  wonder  and  rapture. 

Naturally,  the  Leipzig  public  worshiped 
Jean  Paul.  And  the  pedagogue  and  pedant, 
the  man  with  the  callous  soul,  there  he  sits 
over  the  "  Hesperus."  Now  he  laughs,  and 
now  he  weeps.  His  heart  has  become  young 
again  :  even  into  the  Master's  heart  sunshine 
and  springtime  have  come  since  Jean  Paul 
has  thrown  the  fresh  blossoms  of  his  soul 
into  the  lap  of  the  world.  When  everything 


rejoiced,  when  everything  cried,  "  This  is  a 
genius  ! "  then  even  Timotheus  Baumgarten 
could  no  longer  resist.  He  read,  and  was 
caught  and  carried  away  like  an  eighteen- 
year-old  boy.  He  ran  almost  every  day  to 
the  book  stores,  and  asked  whether  anything 
new  had  appeared  by  "this  unparalleled  Jean 
Paul."  His  income  was  very  small,  but  he 
gladly  fasted  that  he  might  read  the  books 
of  the  "incomparable  Jean  Paul." 

Every  day  he  ran  over  to  Dame  Lerche's 
to  read  aloud  to  her  from  his  favorite  book, 
the  "  Hesperus."  Dame  Lerche  had  grown 
thinner.  m  She  looked  now  like  a  veritable 
toothpick  ;  but  she  still  wore  the  winged  cap, 
and  carried  the  sea-green  parasol. 

The  Master  often  exclaimed  :  "  If  I  could 
only  press  this  glorious  Jean  Paul  to  my 
breast ! "  and  Dame  Lerche  often  cried, 
"  How  I  would  like  to  embrace  him  ! " 

Occasionally  Hannchen  Wiltn  also  appear- 
ed. She  had  grown  stout,  had  a  colossal 
appetite,  and  five  unmannerly  children.  For 
the  rest,  she  was  a  contented  woman,  for  her 
husband  treated  her  well.  She  could  laugh 
now  over  her  girlish  fancy  for  the  student 
Richter,  that  youthful  stupidity,  and  wonder 
what  had  become  of  the  lad. 

"Yes,"  said  Madame  Lerche,  "what  can 
have  become  of  that  Richter  ?  " 

"In. any  case,  a  complete  ragamuffin,  and 
a  good-for-nothing  of  the  worst  sort,"  said 
Timotheus.  "  But  we  will  think  no  more  of 
that  blot  on  human  society.  Madame  Wilm, 
listen ;  the  fourth  chapter  in  '  Hesperus '  is 
wonderfully  beautiful!" 

Year  after  year  went  by;  fourteen  years 
had  flown  since  the  student  Richter  left  the 
summer  house.  Dame  Lerche  was  now  as 
thin  as  a  thread,  and  had  the  gout.  Master 
Timotheus,  too,  complained  of  gout,  and 
hobbled  on  a  stick.  Hannchen  Wilm  was 
as  round  as  a  ball,  and  had  nine  frightfully 
rude  children. 

One  day  the  door  of  the  Lerche  dwelling 
was  suddenly  thrown  open,  and  so  violently 
that  Madame  Lerche  lost  her  balance  for 
terror. 

"  Heavens  !  Master  !  What  is  the  mat- 
ter ?  Where  is  the  fire  ?  " 


L885.] 


In  the  Summer-house. 


137 


"  Neighbor,"  he  cried,  hobbling  in,  "  all 
Leipzig  is  in  a  commotion  ;  the  divine  Jean 
Paul  is  on  the  way  ;  he  arrives  tomorrow, 
and  will  put  up  at  the  Richter  Kaffeehaus. 
Oh!  my  old  eyes  will  behold  him!  I  ask 
but  one  favor — that  I  may  press  this  unpar- 
alleled being  to  my  breast." 

Dame  Lerche  clasped  her  hands  over  her 
head.  "  Master,  I  will  go  with  you.  My 
parasol  is,  it  is  true,  a  little  damaged,  but  I 
hope  this  great  mind  will  not  notice  it.  Still 
one  thought  weighs  on  me.  He  will  be 
surrounded  and  regularly  besieged ;  will 
they  admit  us  ?  " 

"If  I  should  force  a  way  with  my  stick,  I 
must,  I  must  see  him  !  Only  come  with  me ; 
I  will  be  your  guide  and  protector." 

Jean  Paul  arrived ;  he  took  lodging  in  the 
world-renowned  Richter  Kaffeehaus.  He 
occupied  two  rooms  on  the  first  floor,  and 
the  host  and  hostess  received  him  with  the 
respect  they  were  accustomed  to  keep  in  re- 
serve for  crowned  heads.  Fortunate,  and 
yet  unfortunate,  Jean  Paul !  He  could 
neither  eat  nor  sleep  in  peace ;  he  was  be- 
sieged like  a  fortress.  Publishers  came  to 
beg  for  his  latest  manuscript ;  young  girls  in 
white  to  bestow  a  wreath ;  students  to  cheer 
him  ;  servants  in  livery  with  invitations  from 
the  merchant  princes  ;  old  maids  with  their 
albums ;  tender  souls  who  prayed  for  a  lock 
of  his  hair ;  and  one  day  the  servant  ap- 
peared and  announced  an  old  man  and  an 
old  woman. 

On  the  threshold  stood  Master  Timotheus 
Baumgarten  and  Dame  Lerche.  He  bowed 
himself  to  the  ground ;  she  courtesied  at 
least  three  times  in  a  second.  Slowly  the 
poet,  who  was  standing  at  the  window,  turned, 
and  the  Master  became  rigid ;  still  more 
rigid  grew  the  Dame.  The  god-like,  the 
"  unparalleled  Jean  Paul,"  without  necker- 
chief, without  frill,  without  powder,  without 
cue  !  With  another  look  at  the  poet,  their 
faces  grew  longer,  as  with  one  voice  they 
stammered,  "  Rich — Richter  ! " 

"My  dear  people,  what  ails  you?"  asked 
the  astonished  poet.  "  Yes,  my  name  is 
Richter." 

"  I  think,"  stammered  Timotheus  again, 


"  we  are — we  are  in  the  presence  of  the  poet, 
Jean  Paul?" 

"  This  resemblance  ! "  cried  the  Dame. 

The  poet  laughed.  "  My  name  is  Jean 
Paul  Friedrich  Richter,  and  my  nom  de 
plume  is  Jean  Paul." 

"  Merciful  heavens !  it  is  really  he," 
screamed  Dame  Lerche,  and  let  fall  the  sea- 
green  parasol. 

"  Horrible  !  Unfortunate  beings  ! "  cried 
Timotheus,  and  sank  upon  his  knees.  "Sir, 
forgive  us  ! " 

The  poet  became  more  and  more  aston- 
ished. "  My  friend,  stand  up !  Forgive  you  ? 
Can  you  ever  have  inflicted  any  injury  upon 
me  ?  " 

Then  both  cried  out  together,  so  that  it 
was  like  listening  to  a  mill  clapper.  "  This 
noble  spirit !" — "Sir,  recollect,  I  am  Master 
Baumgarten,  who  once  in  the  summer-house 
— oh,  heavens  !  I  thought  otherwise  then — 
but  since  your  works — "  and,  "  I  am  Dame 
Lerche,  with  whom  you  once  lived ;  and  on 
my  daughter's  account  I  was  worn  out  with 
anxiety ;  but  as  truly  as  my  name  is  Lerche 
if  I  had  six  daughters,  and  the  gentleman 
wanted  all  six — "  "Most  respected  Herr 
Richter,  most  renowned  Jean  Paul,  command 
me,  a  poor  teacher  ;  I  will  serve  you,  where 
and  as  you  will,  I  will," — and,  "  My  whole 
being,  too,  is  at  your  service." 

Richter  explored  the  chambers  of  his 
memory,  and  gradually  became  conscious 
of  the  day  in  the  summer-house  ;  then  he 
extended  his  hand  to  both,  and  said  in  the 
heartiest  tone  :  "  My  friends,  old  grievances 
should  rest ;  your  presence  here  proves  that 
you  are  now  of  another  mind,  and  I  thank 
you." 

Then  both  breathed  as  if  three  thousand 
pounds  had  been  lifted  from  their  breasts. 
"  Master,"  sobbed  the  old  woman,  "  he  is  our 
friend  ;  he  says  so  himself "  ;  and  the  quak- 
ing master  cried,  "  Neighbor,  so  long  as  we 
live  we  will  remember  this  day  !  " 

Once  more  Dame  Lerche  turned  to  the 
poet.  "  Would  he  do  them  the  favor  to 
come  into  the  summer-house  again  ?  " 

He  accepted  the  invitation,  and  the  old 
people  left  the  Kaffeehaus  highly  blest.  He 


138 


Battles  of  Lookout  Mountain  and  Missionary  Ridge. 


[Aug. 


had  promised  at  ten  o'clock  the  next  morn- 
ing to  enter  once  more  that  room  from  which 
the  "fellow  "  and  the  incorrigible  vagrant  had 
been  driven. 

Wreaths  were  made,  and  yellow  sand  and 
flowers  adorned  the  room.  Garlands  were 
hung  around  the  fence,  the  windows,  the 
door.  The  master  and  Dame  Lerche  had 
not  closed  their  eyes  during  the  whole  night, 
and  at  the  first  sunbeam  they  had  cleaned 
the  little  house,  replaced  the  table  at  the 
window,  and  set  up  the  bed  ;  he  should  find 
everything  again  as  it  had  been  then.  The 
clock  in  the  Nicolas  gate  pointed  only  to 
nine,  but  Timotheus  and  Madame  Lerche, 
decked  and  bedizened,  were  already  standing 
like  two  sentinels  on  either  side  of  the 
gate,  while  the  eldest  son  of  Madame  Wilm 
was  perched  outside  the  fence,  to  signal  the 
appearance  of  the  "  unparalleled." 

At  last,  as  the  bell  struck  ten,  Jean  Paul 
entered  the  garden.  The  old  man  and  wo- 
man vied  with  each  other  in  bowing  and 
courtesying,  and  the  boy  screamed  "  Viva  !  " 
with  all  the  strength  in  his  body.  With  a 
gracious  wave  of  his  hand,  the  Master  invit- 
ed the  poet  to  enter  the  summer-house, 
while  the  old  people  followed  him  like  a 
body-guard. 

"  This  singular  dress  becomes  him  finely," 
she  whispered. 

"  A  genius  ought  not  to  dress  otherwise," 
he  whispered  back;  "if  I  had  only  known 
his  genius  then." 

Jean    Paul  looked   around    him,    and   a 


shadow  of  melancholy  for  a  moment  crossed 
his  face ;  his  eyes  fell  on  the  table  ;  there, 
surrounded  by  a  wreath,  lay  his  Hesperus. 
Madame  Wilm  appeared  at  the  window  and 
leaned  in.  Her  expression  did  not  change, 
her  heart  did  not  even  beat  fast ;  she  had 
grown  too  stout ;  she  ate  too  much.  She  soon 
disappeared  from  the  window,  for  near  the 
dwelling  house  were  scuffling  her  nine  un- 
ruly children. 

"Yes,  it  was  here,"  said  the  poet,  "  at  this 
table  I  sat,  and  there,  my  worthy  Master,  you 
stood  and  read  me  a  lecture,  and  there — 

"Oh!  Herr  Jean  Paul  Richter  !  If  I 
could  take  back  that  hour,"  cried  Timothe- 
us. "  Will  you  not  punish  me  ?  Even 
chastisement  from  you  would  be  enjoyment!'' 

The  poet  laughed,  and  putting  one  arm 
around  the  old  man,  the  other  around  the 
old  woman,  he  kissed  them  both.  "  Let 
this  be  your  punishment,"  and  before  they, 
overcome  with  surprise,  had  recovered  their 
senses,  he  was  gone. 

"  Neighbor,"  rejoiced  the  Master,  "  I  have 
reposed  on  his  breast !  " 

"  Master,"  rejoiced  Dame  Lerche,  "  I  too! 
I  too  ! " 

"  Now  the  summer-house  is  immortal!'' 

"We  too !  we  too !  immortal  through  him." 

"  This  is  the  happiest  day  of  my  life  !  " 

"  Now  I  shall  die  gladly  ! " 

So  they  triumphed,  and  laughed,  and  wept 
for  a  long,  long  time. 

And  now,  what  remains  of  them  all  ? 

Dust — dust ! 

Harriet  D.  Palmer. 


BATTLES  OF  LOOKOUT  MOUNTAIN  AND  MISSIONARY  RIDGE. 


EARLY  one  morning,  towards  the  end  of 
July,  1884,  the  "Lightning  Express"  was 
rapidly  approaching  Chattanooga,  on  its  way 
from  New  Orleans  to  Cincinnati,  at  its  sched- 
ule rate  of  thirty  miles  or  more  an  hour,  on 
one  of  the  best  road-beds  in  the  South. 
Among  its  many  passengers  was  the  writer 
of  this  sketch,  who  had  agreed  with  his  trav- 
eling companion  that  whichever  waked  first 


should  call  the  other,  soon  after  daybreak,  if 
possible.  Their  purpose  was  that  they  might 
together,  and  with  other  friends  on  the  train, 
have  a  good  view,  before  reaching  Chattanoo- 
ga at  5.30  A.M.,  of  the  now  historical  Look- 
out Mountain  and  its  surroundings,  where, 
twenty  years  ago  and  more,  huge  armies  met 
in  deadly  strife,  and  made  a  bloody  history. 
At  the  time  appointed,  a  gentle  touch  was 


1885.] 


Battles  of  Lookout  Mountain  and  Missionary  Ridge. 


139 


felt,  and  a  gentle  voice  said  :  "  Wake  up.  It 
is  daylight."  How  different  that  call  from 
the  shrill  reveille  we  had  heard,  on  many  a 
morning  near  the  same  spot,  in  those  days 
of  blood  twenty-one  years  ago  !  By  the  time 
one  could  rub  his  eyes  and  get  them  fairly 
open  for  sight-seeing,  our  train  stopped  a  mo- 
ment at  Rising  Fawn,  a  station  twenty- 
five  miles,  or  less  than  an  hour's  run,  from 
Chattanooga.  To  our  right  lay  the  long, 
dark,  high,  tree-clad  ridge — with  fogs  along 
its  sides  and  clouds  resting  on  its  crest — 
which  culminates,  twenty  miles  farther  north- 
east, in  the  craggy  "  Point "  of  Lookout 
Mountain,  or,  as  it  was  called  in  former 
times,  "  Pulpit  Rock."  To  the  left  we  could 
see  distinctly,  in  spite  of  a  slight  morning 
haze,  the  long,  rough  ranges  and  spurs  of 
Walden's  Ridge  and  the  Cumberland  Moun- 
tains, across  the  Tennessee  River  north  of 
us,  and  stretching  in  a  high  bluish  line  to  the 
northeast  as  far  as  the  eye  could  reach. 

Soon  we  were  whirling  through  the  beau- 
tifully undulating  foot-hills  of  the  upper  part 
of  Will's  Valley,  and  then  in  the  Wauhatchie 
region,  past  many  a  neat  farm-house,  perched 
on  well-shaded  hillsides  and  nestling  in  cosy 
dells.  On  each  side  of  us  were  well-fenced 
fields  of  waving  corn,  in  tassel  and  silk; 
meadows  covered  with  windrows  and  ricks 
of  new  mown-hay;  wheat  fields  and  oat  fields, 
thickly  dotted  with  their  ungarnered  sheaves. 

Here,  amid  these  present  scenes  of  rural 
abundance  and  thrift,  in  the  little  picturesque 
valleys  and  along  the  gentler  slopes  which 
the  traveler  now  admires,  Bragg's  army 
camped  for  a  time  after  crossing  the  Ten- 
nessee at  Brown's  Ferry,  the  first  week  in 
July,  1 863,  when  retreating  before  Rosecrans. 
Here  part  of  Rosecrans's  army  camped  prior 
to  the  marches  and  countermarches  through 
McLemore's  Cove,  preparatory  to  the  three 
days  of  desperate  carnage  along  Chickamau- 
ga  and  Peavine  Creeks,  September  i8th, 
igth,  and  2oth,  1863.'  Here,  the  following 
November,  the  reinforcements  under  Grant 
and  Sherman  lay  encamped,  when  they  came 
from  Mississippi  after  the  close  of  the  Vicks- 
burg  campaign  to  loosen  Bragg's  iron  grip  on 
Chattanooga,  the  key  to  Georgia  and  to  all 


the  southern  seaboard  of  the  Atlantic  and 
the  Gulf.  By  that  time,  scarred  and  de- 
pleted by  the  necessary  ravages  of  immense 
armies  of  friend  and  foe,  it  presented  a  scene 
of  complete  ruin  and  desolation,  in  strong 
contrast  with  its  pleasing  appearance  today. 

As  our  train  wound  its  way  swiftly  among 
these  old  camping  grounds  of  our  war's  his- 
tory, and  while  such  reminiscences  were 
welling  up  from  the  reservoirs  of  memory  as 
must  come  unbidden  to  every  old  soldier  of 
either  side  who  now  revisits  these  scenes, 
the  black  point  of  old  Lookout  gradually 
came  into  view,  partly  veiled  with  its  morn- 
ing fogs,  yet  dark,  and  fixed,  and  sharply  de- 
fined, far  up  among  those  misty  clouds, 
looking  for  all  the  world  as  it  did  on  that 
memorable  November  morning  before  Joe 
Hooker's  men  scaled  its  steep  and  rugged 
western  slopes,  and  achieved  what  was  un- 
questionably one  of  the  most  daring  and 
brilliant  successes  of  the  war.  Yes,  there,  as 
we  gazed,  was  a  superb  view  of  Lookout 
Mountain,  with  its  gradual  slope  southward 
in  almost  a  straight  line,  and  its  bold,  sharp 
northern  front,  perpendicular  above  and  then 
descending  in  an  abrupt,  precipitous  curve  to 
the  very  banks  of  the  turbid  Tennessee — its 
whole  outline  like  the  giant  style  of  a  mam- 
moth sun-dial,  wrought  there  in  the  rocks  by 
the  skillful  hand  of  Nature. 

A  few  moments  more,  and  we  dashed  on 
under  the  mountain's  brow,  along  the  narrow 
road-bed  cut  in  its  rocky  base,  just  above 
the  river's  edge.  As  we  passed  we  caught  a 
glimpse,  in  the  rocky  bluff  on  our  right,  of 
the  yawning  mouth  of  Nickajack  cave,  now 
closed  by  a  strong  wooden  wall  and  door,  a 
huge  cavern,  noted  in  war-times  for  the  salt- 
petre it  furnished  to  manufacture  Confeder- 
ate powder,  before  it  became  necessary  to 
establish  the  celebrated  "  Nitre  Bureau  "  at 
Selma,  Alabama.  With  scarcely  time  to  ad- 
mire the  tortuous  course  of  the  broad  Ten- 
nessee, and  its  picturesque  surroundings  at 
this  well-known  point,  we  crossed  the  fine 
iron  bridge  over  Chattanooga  Creek,  and 
sped  rapidly,  in  the  quiet  of  the  early  morn- 
ing, to  the  elegant  railroad  depot,  through 
two  miles  of  that  temporary  home  of  so 


140 


Battles  of  Lookout  Mountain  and  Missionary  Ridge. 


[Aug. 


many  soldiers — the  final  home  of  thousands 
of  them — Chattanooga,  now  a  busy  mart  of 
trade  and  manufacture,  which,  though  a  town 
of  scarcely  2,000  inhabitants  in  the  days  of 
its  battles,  attained,  according  to  the  census 
of  1880,  a  population  of  13,000,  and  now 
claims  some  5,000  more. 

The  passing  view  of  these  once  familiar 
scenes,  the  first  time  for  more  than  twenty 
years,  and  the  memories  they  vividly  recalled, 
inspired  a  yearning  to  examine  once  more 
in  detail  this  truly  grand  arena  of  war's  ter- 
rible work.  As  this  desire  was  gratified  a 
few  weeks  later,  some  results  of  this  late  visit 
to  these  old  battle-fields  will  be  here  record- 
ed, with  the  hope  that  the  reminiscences 
presented,  and  their  associations,  may  prove 
acceptable  to  those  of  my  surviving  comrades 
of  the  gray  and  of  the  blue,  into  whose 
hands  this  sketch  may  chance  to  fall — and 
to  their  friends,  who  were  spared  those  thrill- 
ing and  harrowing  experiences  through  which, 
as  soldiers  on  the  one  side  or  on  the  other, 
we  were  called  to  pass. 

The  interval  before  this  return  to  Chat- 
tanooga was  spent  in  parts  of  Tennessee  and 
Kentucky,  among  other  scenes  of  the  war.  At 
Tullahoma,  at  Wartrace,  at  Murfreesboro,  at 
Nashville — how  many  recollections  of  hard 
and  perilous  service  in  i863~'64  were  brought 
to  mind  !  Yet  now,  except  to  the  actors  in 
the  intense  life  of  that  period,  there  are  few 
visible  marks  and  reminders  of  grim  war's 
doings — only  now  and  then  a  dim  trench  or 
well-worn  earth-work,  on  some  untilled  slope 
or  hill-top,  beaten  down  and  almost  obliter- 
ated in  places  by  the  storms  and  changes  of 
nearly  a  quarter  of  a  century.  But  above 
all  are  those  imperishable  evidences  of  the 
carnival  of  death,  the  "  National  Cemeteries  " 
— the  one  at  Murfreesboro  especially  con- 
spicuous to  the  left  of  the  railroad  as  you 
pass  out  towards  Nashville,  a  scene  of  calm 
serenity  now,  with  its  beautifully  kept  grounds 
and  thousands  of  white  stones,  each  mark- 
ing the  last  resting  place  of  some  Union  .sol- 
dier— and  so  many  "Unknown"!  In  the 
outskirts  of  Nashville  are  more  remains  of 
elaborate  old  entrenchments  than  anywhere 
else  in  Tennessee,  the  special  relics  of  Hood's 


investment  in  December,  '64.  As  you  go 
out  of  the  handsome  buildings  and  beauti- 
fully-improved grounds  of  Vanderbilt  Uni- 
versity, occupying  seventy-five  acres  a  mile 
and  a  half  southwest  of  the  State  Capitol, 
you  see  distinctly  the  familiar  outlines  of  the 
strong  earth-works  of  old  Fort  Negley  with 
its  embrasures,  still  occupying  in  sullen  soli- 
tude the  high,  conical  knoll  on  the  left  of 
the  University,  while  on  the  right  are  still 
visible  the  remains  of  other  formidable  forti- 
fications, the  mute  monuments  of  the  genu- 
ine folly  as  well  as  the  destructive  conse- 
quences of  that  gigantic  strife. 

In  Nashville  I  visited,  for  old  acquaint- 
ance sake,  the  State's  Prison,  where  so  many 
of  us  captured  "  rebs  "  boarded  with  Uncle 
Sam  for  a  few  days  or  weeks,  before  we  were 
sent  farther  north  for  safe-keeping. 

The  battles  of  Lookout  Mountain  and 
Missionary  Ridge,  the  Atlanta  Campaign, 
and  Hood's  Tennessee  Campaign,  filled  this 
old  prison  and  its  spare  grounds  to  over- 
flowing. Many,  many  a  Southern  soldier 
can  recall  this  old  "  boarding  house  "  and  its 
discomforts.  There  its  grim,  uninviting  old 
stone  walls  and  iron  bars  stand  to-day,  the 
main  building  just  as  it  was  twenty-one 
years  ago.  There  is  the  same  large  arched 
wagon-way  in  front,  the  entrance  to  the  in- 
ner buildings  and  cells,  where  the  striped 
convicts  were  kept  in  those  days,  while  we 
prisoners  of  war  were  held  in  the  front 
building  and  yard.  There  is  the  same  high 
stone  wall  on  the  right  of  the  main  entrance 
that  enclosed  the  yard,  where  we  were  so 
often  drawn  up  in  line  to  receive  our  ration 
of  pickled  pork  or  boiled  beef  with  "  hard 
tack,"  and  sometimes  coffee.  There  you  see 
the  same  little,  round,  open  belfry  or  cupola, 
with  its  red  dome  supported  by  its  small, 
white  columns,  and  on  its  broad,  white 
facings  the  cheering  inscription  which  used 
to  greet  our  eyes  when  its  strong  doors 
swung  open  to  receive  us  :  PENITENTIARY, 
ERECTED  A.  D.  1828.  I  told  those  in 
charge  my  reason  for  revisiting  this  old 
prison,  and  I  was  kindly  welcomed  and 
shown  around  by  the  present  State  Su- 
perintendent, Col.  J.  E.  Carter.  He  was 


L885.] 


Battles  of  Lookout  Mountain  and  Missionary  Ridge. 


141 


Colonel  of  the  First  Tennessee  Cavalry  of 
the  Confederate  Army,  and  served  during 
the  war  in  Virginia,  Kentucky,  and  Tennes- 
see. 

How  different  this  from  the  condition 
when  I  made  my  home  there  for  six  weeks, 
a  wounded  prisoner,  after  the  battle  of  Mis- 
sionary Ridge  !  Had  the  Colonel  and  our 
crowd  been  there  together  in  1864,  he  would 
have  occupied  one  of  those  well-filled  cells 
with  us.  Now  he  is  "  boss  "  there.  How 
times  change  ! 

We  walked  together  through  those  prison 
halls  and  rooms,  where  so  many  Southern 
soldiers  were  crowded  together  in  those  days 
— as  many  as  could  sleep  together  on  the 
floor  at  once — some  of  whom  have  since 
been  members  of  our  Legislature,  and  even 
of  Congress  ;  and  so  many  of  whom  have 
now  finished  their  life's  work.  Colonel  Car- 
ter pointed  out  the  spot  in  the  prison  yard 
where  Champ  Ferguson  was  hung,  in  1865, 
on  the  charge  of  murdering  one  or  more  Fed- 
eral soldiers. 

Leaving  Nashville  and  its  war  memories 
August  1 5th,  I  spent  Saturday,  the  i6th,  in 
and  around  Chattanooga,  living  over  again 
the  battle  scenes  of  November  23d,  24th, 
25th,  1863,  and  recalling  the  events  that  im- 
mediately preceded  and  followed  those  truly 
momentous  days  of  our  great  civil  war. 

There  could  be  no  more  charming  and 
suitable  day  than  was  August  i6th,  '84,  for 
observations  in  a  mountain  region.  The 
sun  rose  brightly  over  Missionary  Ridge  in 
a  calm,  cloudless,  blue  atmosphere,  remark- 
ably transparent  for  a  summer  sky.  The 
justly  noted  view  from  Cameron  Hill,  be- 
tween the  city  and  the  river,  was  superb. 
Southward,  and  to  right  and  left,  at  our  feet, 
lay  the  now  large  and  handsome  city  of  Chat- 
tanooga, basking  in  the  most  glorious  sun- 
light. 

On  its  eastern  boundary  was  the  gently- 
sloping  knoll,  still  crowned  by  the  old  red 
earth-works  of  Fort  Wood,  one  of  the  strong- 
est defensive  points  in  the  formidable  Federal 
line.  Three  quarters  of  a  mile  beyond  rose 
Orchard  Knob,  about  one  hundred  feet  above 
the  general  level,  one  of  the  chief  positions 


along  the  right  of  Bragg's  line  of  investment. 
Next  came  the  long  familiar  outline  of  Mis- 
sionary Ridge,  between  three  and  four  miles 
distant  at  its  nearest  point,  extending  from 
southeast  to  northeast  along  the  southeast- 
ern horizon  of  the  narrow  valley,  across 
which  Bragg's  siege  line  stretched  westward 
to  its  left,  near  the  summit  of  Lookout 
Mountain. 

Then,  most  conspicuous  of  all,  old  Look- 
out towered  into  the  blue  air,  fully  three 
miles  in  a  straight  line  southwest  of  us,  clear- 
cut  and  grand,  with  its  height  above  the 
river  surface  of  full  1,600  feet,  and  its  alti- 
tude above  sea-level  of  more  than  2,200  feet, 
not  a  cloud  or  mist  obscuring  its  bold  out- 
lines. How  calm  and  peaceful  now  is  this 
magnificent  panorama,  which,  twenty-one 
years  ago,  in  a  campaign  of  nearly  two 
months,  was  bristling  with  murderous  batter- 
ies at  every  salient  point  along  the  two  hos- 
tile lines. 

Soon,  for  a  nearer  view  of  those  old  battle- 
fields, and  mounted  on  a  good,  bridle-wise 
traveler,  I  wended  my  way  through  the  busy 
streets,  past  the  handsome  Stanton  House 
and  grounds,  on  the  road  to  Rossville,  five 
miles  distant,  without  a  guide.  For  one  of 
Bragg's  "  foot-cavalry  "  needs  no  guide  to 
show  him  the  roads  and  by-ways  between  the 
various  strategic  points,  on  every  part  of 
which  we  marched  and  counter-marched,  in 
those  days  of  "tramp,  tramp,  tramp,"  when 
we  lived,  and  so  many  of  us  died,  by  march- 
ing. 

No  one  general  principle  was  more  fully 
illustrated  by  our  gigantic  struggle,  than  that 
"Large  bodies  move  slowly."  This  was  es- 
pecially true  in  the  movements  of  our  West- 
ern armies.  After  the  termination  of  the 
Perryville  campaign  by  the  fierce  battle  of 
Stone  River,  or  Murfreesboro,  ending  Janu- 
ary 2nd,  1863,  the  armies  of  Bragg  and 
Rosecrans  did  not  again  meet  in  pitched 
battle  for  nearly  nine  months,  or  at  Chicka- 
mauga,  September  i8th  to  2oth.  More  than 
two  months  then  elapsed  before  the  mountain 
fights  around  Chattanooga,  November  23rd 
to  26th.  Five  months  of  comparative  inaction 
ensued,  before  the  opening  of  the  prolonged 


142 


Battles  of  Lookout  Mountain  and  Missionary  Ridge. 


[Aug. 


campaign  from  Dalton  to  Atlanta  and  Jones- 
boro,  May  to  September  ist,  1864.  After 
this,  three  months  were  consumed  in  maneu- 
vering and  marching,  before  the  bloody  clash 
of  arms  at  Franklin,  Tennessee,  November 
3oth,  the  prelude  to  Hood's  investment  of 
Nashville,  his  defeat,  and  his  retreat  into 
Mississippi,  which  ended  at  Tupelo,  January 
loth,  1865. 

Thinking  of  such  things,  while  riding  to- 
wards the  old  battle  grounds,  one  was 
brought  to  a  realizing  sense  of  the  greatly 
changed  present,  by  passing  a  well-guarded 
set  of  about  fifty  State  convicts,  white  and 
black,  who  were  hard  at  work  macadamiz- 
ing the  Rossville  pike.  Most  of  the  South- 
ern States  now  utilize  their  convicts  in  labor 
on  public  works,  as  well  as  in  mines  and  on 
plantations.  Just  to  their  right,  a  mower 
was  cutting  German  millet  for  hay,  along  the 
edge  of  a  small  ravine,  where  the  line  of  our 
picket-pits  had  extended  during  Bragg's  siege 
of  Chattanooga.  Far  to  the  left,  towards 
Orchard  Knob  and  eastward  of  it,  lay  that 
portion  of  the  valley — now  thickly  dotted 
with  farm-houses,  and  checked  off  by  fences 
into  pastures  and  corn-fields—where  at  2 
p.  M.  Monday,  November  23rd,  the  line  two 
miles  long,  composed  of  25,000  Union 
troops  of  Sherman's  wing,  under  Granger, 
Sheridan,  Wood,  Howard,  and  Schurz,  stead- 
ily moved  forward,  while  the  batteries  on 
both  sides  were  thundering  away,  and  carried 
Bragg's  rifle-pits  and  advanced  line  not  only 
on  Orchard  Knob,  but  to  its  right  and  left. 

Half  a  mile  further  on  the  broad  lane, 
and  about  three  miles  distant  from  the  rail- 
road depot,  the  noted  Watkins  house  is 
reached.  With  its  surroundings,  it  looks 
just  as  it  did  in  war-times,  except  that  the 
fences  have  been  restored,  and  in  August 
last  there  were  waving  fields  of  rankly-grow- 
ing  corn  near  by  on  its  well-tilled  lands, 
which  I  am  told  are  now  valued  at  one  hun- 
dred dollars  per  acre.  Some  three  hundred 
yards  to  the  right  of  the  Rossville  Road,  and 
two  miles  from  that  village,  crowning  a  broad- 
topped  knoll,  gently  sloping  in  all  directions, 
there  stands  that  old  family  mansion  of  ante- 
bellum days — a  large,  white,  two-story  frame 


building,  fronting  east,  with  its  tall  portico 
and  four  huge  white  columns,  one-story 
wings  with  smaller  porticos  flanking  it  to 
right  and  left.  Here  was  the  central  posi- 
tion of  Bragg's  crescent  line  of  siege,  which 
extended  between  five  and  six  miles  in  length. 
His  right  was  near  the  Dalton  railroad,  and 
his  left  at  the  Craven  house,  near  the  summit 
of  Lookout  Mountain,  the  extreme  left  of 
his  picket  pits  extending  to  the  palisades 
which  form  the  base  of  "  Pulpit  Rock." 

This  line  he  occupied  early  in  October, 
after  resting  and  recruiting  his  army  for  ten 
days,  shattered  and  worn  out  as  it  was  by 
the  terrible  shock  during  the  three  days  of 
deadly  conflict  at  Chickamauga,  where  our 
forces  had  been  lessened  by  at  least  sixteen 
thousand  killed,  wounded,  and  missing,  and 
had  inflicted  on  Rosecrans's  army  a  loss  of 
twelve  thousand  killed  and  wounded,  eight 
thousand  prisoners  and  thirty-six  cannon. 
Here  we  remained  quietly  awaiting  and  pre- 
paring for  the  coming  struggle,  while  Grant 
and  Sherman,  after  Rosecrans  was  super- 
seded by  Thomas,  October  iQth,  were  bring- 
ing up  their  formidable  reinforcements. 
During  all  this  time  scarcely  a  movement  of 
our  troops  occurred,  only  an  occasional 
shifting  of  a  brigade  or  division  from  one 
wing  to  the  other,  except  Bragg's  fatal  mis- 
take of  sending  Longstreet's  command,  five 
thousand  strong,  to  Knoxville,  thus  materi- 
ally weakening  his  line,  while  the  Federals 
were  constantly  gaining  strength.  While  the 
two  armies  were  so  closely  confronting  each 
other,  little  or  no  fighting  occurred.  There 
was  occasional  picket-firing,  and  now  and 
then  an  artillery  duel  between  the  Federal 
batteries  on  Moccasin  Point  and  our  heavy 
guns  on  Lookout,  or  between  Forts  Wood 
and  Negley  and  Bragg's  batteries  on  Orchard 
Knob  and  Missionary  Ridge. 

The  final  positions  of  the  forces  on  both 
sides  before  the  heavy  fighting  began,  No- 
vember 23d,  was  as  follows:  On  Bragg's 
line,  Breckenridge's  corps  occupied  his  left, 
Hardee  his  center,  while  Buckner's  corps 
and  the  Georgia  State  troops  held  his  right. 
Opposed  to  these,  Grant's  corps  command- 
ers, in  order  from  his  right  to"  left,  were 


L885.] 


laities  of  Lookout  Mountain  and  Missionary  Ridge. 


143 


Hooker,  Palmer,  Granger,  Howard,  and 
Sherman,  their  effective  forces  full  80,000 
strong,  to  Bragg's  45,000. 

The  position  near  Bragg's  center,  at  the 
Watkins  House,  as  just  described,  was  held 
continuously  till  the  afternoon  of  November 
24th  by  Clayton's  Brigade  of  Alabamians  of 
General  A.  T.  Stewart's  division,  to  which 
the  regiment  of  the  writer  belonged.  From 
this  prominent  point  in  the.  narrow  valley, 
the  view  afforded  of  the  entire  scene  of  the 
Herculean  struggle  which  was  destined  to 
completely  raise  the  siege  of  Chattanooga, 
was  one  of  the  very  best.  The  knoll  on 
which  the  house  stood  was  from  sixty  to 
eighty  feet  above  different  parts  of  the  sur- 
rounding plains.  On  its  left,  or  westward, 
as  we  faced  the  town,  Lookout  was  in  full 
view,  with  its  sloping  sides  mostly  wooded, 
but  partly  cleared  where  Bragg's  line  of  in- 
trenchments  stretched  like  a  broad  seam  to- 
wards Pulpit  Rock,  or  "  The  Point,"  the  latter 
lying  nearly  three  miles  in  a  direct  line 
slightly  north  of  west  from  us.  To  our  right, 
or  eastward,  Missionary  Ridge,  with  its  steep, 
tree-clad  slopes,  was  visible  for  its  entire 
length,  from  where  it  disappeared  in  the  dis- 
tance four  or  rive  miles  northeast  of  us,  to 
the  depression  at  Rossville,  two  miles  south- 
east, through  whose  gap  passes  the  road  to 
the  battle-field  of  Chickamauga  and  to  La 
Fayette,  the  latter  twenty-one  miles  from 
Rossville.  Immediately  in  our  front  Chatta- 
nooga was  distinctly  seen,  as  well  as  Forts 
Wood,  Negley,  King,  and  the  commanding 
summit  of  Cameron  Hill,  the  greater  eleva- 
tions of  the  Cumberland  Mountains  stretch- 
ing far  away  in  the  background. 

How  vividly  were  all  the  scenes  of  '63  re- 
called to  mind  on  this  bright  August  day  ! 
Except  the  absence  of  the  125,000  actors  in 
that  grand  drama;  except  that  the  stillness  of 
the  air  was  not  broken  by  the  heavy  boom  of 
artillery,  the  whistle  of  shells,  the  crack  of 
rifles,  or  an  occasional  drum-beat  or  a  bugle- 
call  ;  except  that  Chattanooga,  with  its  many 
larger  and  handsomer  buildings — its  Court 
House  due  north  of  us — covered  much  more 
ground  than  when,  with  its  narrow  valley, 
it  was  the  stage  in  the  great  theater  of  war, — 


the  entire  scene  is  but  little  changed.  'The 
old  earthworks  for  our  battery,  sixty  yards 
north  of  the  house,  and  the  old  trenches  ex- 
tending east  and  west  of  it,  still  remain. 

Immediately  around  the  Watkins  house 
is  a  beautiful  grove  of  large  oaks,  which  were 
but  little  injured  by  the  ravages  of  war.  On 
every  side  of  this  the  valley  is  generally  an 
open  country,  with  narrow  lines  of  timber 
along  ravines  to  northward,  and  along  Chat- 
tanooga Creek  west  and  northwest.  Here, 
on  the  southern  slopes  of  its  broad,  high 
knoll,  well  protected  from  all  deadly  missiles, 
our  regiments  were  just  finishing  very  com- 
fortable winter-quarters  of  pine  slabs  and 
clapboards  split  for  the  purpose — having, 
with  all  of  Bragg's  army,  destroyed  our  tents 
the  preceding  June,  at  the  beginning  of  our 
retreat  from  War-trace  to  Chattanooga  before 
Rosecrans — when  the  scenes  of  our  monot- 
onous camp-life  began  suddenly  to  change, 
on  Sunday,  November  22d.  Reliable  infor- 
mation had  come  that  a  large  part  of  Grant's 
army  was  in  motion  from  his  right  to  his  left 
— Sherman  moving  to  take  his  position  above 
indicated — and  that  three  days'  rations  and 
eighty  rounds  of  ammunition  had  been  issued 
to  all  the  "  Yanks."  These  latter  facts  in 
army  life  always  meant  business.  Hence 
.the  stir  and  change;  two  of  our  divisions 
marching  to  our  right,  and  minor  movements 
occurring  along  our  lines. 

Since  the  war  we  have  learned  that  Sher- 
man was  to  have  begun  the  attack  on  Bragg's 
right,  Friday,  the  2oth,  but  the  heavy  rains 
and  bad  roads  of  that  Friday  and  Saturday 
delayed  Sherman's  march  via  Brown  Ferry 
and  along  the  north  side  of  the  Tennessee 
River,  to  the  point  where  he  recrossed,  at 
the  mouth  of  Cilico  Creek.  This  delayed 
Grant's  opening  attack  till  Monday,  the  23d. 
To  aid  in  a  clear  conception  of  this  Chatta- 
nooga campaign,  the  reader  must  bear  in 
mind  that  it  consisted  of  four  distinct  en- 
gagements, on  as  many  successive  days,  or, 
in  fact,  four  separate  battles.  First  :  On 
Monday,  the  23d,  Sherman  forced  back 
Bragg's  right  center  from  Orchard  Knob  to 
Missionary  Ridge,  as  described  above.  Sec- 
ond :  Tuesday,  the  24th,  Hooker's  men 


144 


Battles  of  Lookout  Mountain  and  Missionary  Ridge. 


scaled  and  carried  Lookout  Mountain,  driv- 
ing back  Bragg's  left  wing.  Third  :  Wed- 
nesday, the  25th,  the  entire  Federal  line  as- 
saulted Bragg's  whole  position,  then  with- 
drawn to  the  sides  and  crest  of  Missionary 
Ridge,  and  dislodged  his  army.  Fourth  : 
Thursday,  the  26th,  Grant's  pursuing  forces 
attacked  Bragg's  rearguard,  strongly  posted 
at  Ringgold,  and  were  repulsed  with  heavy 
loss.  There  the  hot  pursuit  ceased,  and  the 
campaign  ended. 

To  chronicle  the  movements  of  our  brig- 
ade at  this  time,  as  a  type  of  army  life  : 
Sunday  and  Monday  nights  we  slept  on  our 
arms  in  the  trenches,  remaining  in  them 
closely  Monday  and  Tuesday,  under  consid- 
erable shelling,  though  no  assault  was  made 
on  our  part  of  the  line.  Tuesday  night  we 
fought — and  slept  an  hour,  or  two — among 
the  rocks  at  the  foot  of  the  palisades  of  Look- 
out Mountain,  on  Bragg's. extreme  left.  Wed- 
nesday we  fought  on  the  top  of  Missionary 
Ridge,  four  miles  farther  east,  and  the  re- 
maining fourth  of  the  brigade,  who  were  not 
placed  hors  du  combat ',  camped  that  night 
near  Chickamauga  Creek,  and  next  night 
south  of  Ringgold  ;  many  sleeping  their  last 
sleep  upon  the  battle-fields,  while  hundreds 
were  prisoners  and  numbers  wounded  with- 
in the  Federal  lines  at  Rossville. 

The  Sunday  morning  before  all  this  stir 
and  din  and  carnage,  was  as  calm  and  placid 
as  could  be  along  our  entire  lines,  dis- 
turbed now  and  then  only  by  random  picket 
shots.  I,  myself,  being  off  duty  that  day, 
visited  our  brigade  picket  pits  with  a  brother 
officer,  and  ventured  upon  a  transaction 
which  I  never  indulged  in  but  that  once  dur- 
ing three  years  of  service.  Having  a  late 
Atlanta  paper,  I  concluded  to  try  an  ex- 
change of  it  with  a  confronting  picket.  Our 
orders  were  strict  that  those  on  picket  duty 
should  not  communicate  with  the  enemy. 
But  being  off  duty,  I  did  not  violate  the  rule. 
Just  then,  all  was  quiet.  So,  notifying  our 
men  of  my  intention,  I  mounted  the  earth- 
workof  an  advanced  pit  and  waved  the  paper. 
Instantly  a  Federal  officer  mounted  one  of 
his  pits  and  did  the  same.  I  waved  to  the 
left,  towards  an  open  depression  that  extend- 


ed between  our  picket  lines,  which  were 
here  about  four  hundred  yards  apart.  He 
evidently  understood  the  signal,  and  as  I  ad- 
vanced from  our  pits  towards  the  depression, 
he  did  the  same.  In  this  way  we  advanced 
towards  each  other,  papers  in  hand,  each  at 
a  brisk  walk.  Reader,  you  ought  to  have 
seen  how  the  boys  in  blue  and  the  boys  in 
gray  crowded  out  of  their  long  lines  of  rifle- 
pits  on  both  sides  like  ants,  on  that  bright 
sunny  morning,  and  anxiously,  eagerly  watch- 
ed their  impromptu  representativesapproach- 
ing  each  other.  Not  only  was  no  gun  fired, 
but  not  a  loud  word  or  shout  was  uttered.  A 
deep  silence  prevailed.  We  soon  met  about 
midway.  We  shook  hands,  exchanged 
names  and  regiments,  and  as  we  exchanged 
papers  merely  remarked  that  we  supposed 
each  would  like  a  late  paper  from  the  oppo- 
site side.  Then  shaking  hands  again,  we 
each  wished  the  other  a  safe  issue  from  the 
hazards  of  war,  and  returned  to  our  respec- 
tive lines.  Soon  the  hostile  pickets  were  hid- 
den in  their  pits  again,  and  as  we  walked 
back  to  camp,  they  were  popping  away  at 
each  other  occasionally  on  parts  of  the  line. 
In  the  lapse  of  time,  the  name  and  command 
of  this  officer  have  faded  from  memory.  But 
he  was  a  Lieutenant  in  an  Illinois  regiment 
— the  Tenth,  as  well  as  I  can  remember.  I 
should  like  to  know  if  he  is  living,  and 
should  be  pleased  to  meet  him  in  these  days 
of  peace. 

Differences  of  elevation  are  always  items 
of  interest  in  connection  with  the  topogra- 
phy of  a  battle-field.  As  these  differences 
were  more  remarkable  in  the  very  grand  bat- 
tle-scenes around  Chattanooga  than  in  any 
other  of  the  numerous  battles  of  the  war,  I 
made  special  efforts  during  my  late  visit  to 
learn  them  accurately  from  former  records, 
and  from  my  own  observations,  at  each  point, 
with  a  trusty  pocket  aneroid.  According  to 
the  engineers'  "  bench-mark  "  at  the  Chatta- 
nooga depot,  the  elevation  of  the  surface 
there  above  sea-level  is  665  feet,  while  some 
later  observations  make  it  about  15  feet  high- 
er. The  altitude  at  which  the  United  States 
Signal  Service  instruments  are  placed,  in  the 
upper  story  of  the  Court  House,  is  783  feet, 


1885.] 


Battles  of  Lookout  Mountain  and  Missionary  Ridge. 


145 


according  to  observations  made  by  Sergeant 
Goulding,  now  in  charge,  and  others.  This 
shows  the  Court  House  ridge  to  be  about 
750  feet  above  sea-level,  while  Orchard 
Knob  is  some  850  feet.  Taking  the  record 
of  the  Signal  Service  barometer  as  the  stan- 
dard, I  found,  as  the  altitude  of  the  knoll  of 
the  Watkins  house,  830  feet;  the  top  of 
Missionary  Ridge,  where  the  Brundage 
house  now  stands  near  Rossville,  1230  feet; 
and  the  summit  of  Lookout  Mountain, 
where  the  upper  toll  house  is,  2240  feet, 
"The  Point "  being  about  65  feet  lower.  It 
follows,  that  the  higher  parts  of  Missionary 
Ridge,  where  it  trends  northeast  of  Ross- 
ville, and  where  the  most  desperate  fighting 
for  the  possession  of  that  ridge  occurred, 
ranges  between  1400  and  1500  feet  above 
sea-level,  or  some  800  feet  higher  than  the 
site"  of  the  Chattanooga  railroad  depot. 

The  prelude  to  the  storming  of  Lookout 
Mountain  by  Hooker's  Corps  was  Sherman's 
advance  on  Orchard  Knob  and  Bragg's 
right  wing  the  evening  before,  or  November 
23d,  as  already  described.  This  was  itself 
a  heavy  movement  and  a  severe  battle,  and 
was  eclipsed  only  by  the  still  more  brilliant 
achievements  on  the  24th  and  25th,  by 
Grant's  very  superior  numbers  over  Bragg's 
weakened  and  disheartened  army.  In  that 
assault  Sherman's  loss  is  reported  as  four 
hundred  and  twenty  killed  and  wounded, 
while  Bragg's  was  somewhat  greater.  This 
assault  evidently  misled  Bragg  as  to  the 
main  point  of  attack,  and  induced  him  to 
weaken  his  left  still  more  by  transferring  part 
of  its  troops  to  his  right. 

Tuesday,  the  24th,  opened  cold  and 
misty,  clouds  and  fogs  enveloping  the  top 
and  the  higher  slopes  of  old  Lookout. 
Later  in  the  day  occasional  showers  fell 
there  and  throughout  the  valley.  All  was 
quiet  along  the  lines  till  about  eleven  o'clock 
in  the  morning,  when  suddenly  the  attention 
of  both  armies  was  called  to  the  roar  of  ar- 
tillery and  the  sharp  rattle  of  musketry  on 
our  extreme  left.  All  eyes  were  turned  to- 
wards Lookout,  and  as  the  fog  gradually 
lifted  and  unveiled  the  mountain  slopes  at 
intervals,  we  could  see  about  an  hour  after 
VOL.  VI.— 10. 


the  firing  began  that  a  lively  fight  was  rag- 
ing immediately  under  Pulpit  Rock  and 
around  the  Craven  house.  As  we  learned 
long  afterwards,  the  earlier  part  of  the  morn- 
ing had  been  occupied  by  Hooker's  men  in 
scaling,  under  cover  of  a  dense  fog,  the 
steep  and  rugged  western  declivity  of  the 
mountain,  until  they  suddenly  appeared  on 
a  ridge  above  our  men,  near  our  rifle-pits, 
and  sweeping  down  upon  them  with  a  gall- 
ing fire,  took  General  Walthall's  brigade  of 
Mississippians  completely  by  surprise.  To 
accomplish  this  really  gallant  achievement, 
General  Cruft's  Division  of  Hooker's  Corps 
marched  at  five  A.  M.  from  Wauhatchie,  five 
miles  west  of  Lookout  Point,  and  climbed 
the  western  slope  of  the  mountain,  while 
Hooker's  two  remaining  divisions,  under 
Generals  Geary  and  Osterhaus,  occupied  the 
attention  of  our  left  by  a  threatened  attack 
in  front. 

The  scene  we  witnessed  from  our  trenches 
near  the  Watkins  house,  as  the  battle  pro- 
gressed near  the  mountain  top,  was  superb 
and  thrilling.  In  fact,  the  contest  was  in 
full  view  from  a  large  part  of  both  lines  to 
eastward,  whenever  the  clouds  rose  now  and 
then,  and  broke  away  along  the  rocky  slopes. 
We  have  at  times,  since  the  war,  seen  the 
question  raised  whether  it  was  correct  to  call 
this  daring  attack  of  Hooker's  men  the  "  bat- 
tle of  the  clouds,"  "above  the  clouds," 
or  "in  the  clouds."  If  these  expressions 
are  intended  to  convey  the  idea  that,  while 
the  fight  was  going  on  at  an  elevation  near- 
ly a  half-mile  above  sea-level,  clouds  and  fog 
once  and  again  enveloped  the  combatants, 
and  sometimes  appeared  below  the  lines  of 
attack  and  defense,  either  one  of  these  terms 
is  literally  correct.  Perhaps,  to  call  it  "  the 
battle  in  the  clouds  "  is  preferable,  as  it  ex- 
presses the  exact  state  of  the  case,  and  in- 
cludes the  other  ideas. 

Never  shall  I  forget  how  a  parcel  of  us 
"  rebs,"  including  General  Clayton,  stood, 
glass  in  hand,  about  high  noon,  on  the  knoll 
near  the  battery  which  our  brigade  was  sup- 
porting, and  watched  with  intensest  anxiety 
the  contending  lines  along  the  mountain 
slope.  Gradually,  the  fog  and  clouds  broke, 


146 


Battles  of  Lookout  .Mountain  and  Missionary  Midge. 


[Aug. 


and  when  they  rolled  off,  like  the  curtain  of 
a  stage,  the  desperate  drama  was  fully  re- 
vealed to  us.  There  was  the  line  of  attack, 
swaying  to  and  fro,  half  a  mile  or  more  in 
length.  All  along  both  lines  were  puffs  of 
smoke,  blown  swiftly  away  by  the  mountain 
breezes,  and  mingled  with  the  surging,  low- 
lying  clouds.  Soon  we  saw  flags  waving 
along  our  line  of  works,  and  it  must  be  con- 
fessed that  when,  by  'aid  of  our  glasses,  we 
recognized  that  they  were  the  "Stars  and 
Stripes,"  we  could  scarcely  believe  our  eyes, 
and  our  hearts  sank  within  us.  For  we  had 
been  led  to  believe  that  our  position  on 
Lookout  was  impregnable  against  all  direct 
assaults.  But  now,  under  cover  of  a  treacher- 
ous fog,  it  had  been  carried  by  storm,  and  the 
day  was  evidently  won  for  the  Union  arms. 
As  became  known  afterwards,  our  loss  by  this 
unexpected  assault  was  between  300  and 
400  killed  and  wounded,  and  about  1,000 
prisoners,  Hooker's  loss  in  killed  and  wound- 
ed being  less  than  ours. 

Its  immediate  result  was  to  force  back 
Bragg's  extreme  left  more  than  a  mile.  The 
Federal  advance  was  checked  by  part  of 
Pettus's  brigade  of  Alabamians,  which  was 
moved  rapidly  from  its  position  two  miles 
distant,  and  posted  on  a  rocky  spur  jutting 
out  eastward  from  the  palisades  that  form 
the  summit  of  Lookout. 

Late  in  the  afternoon  all  was  astir  on  our 
portion  of  the  line,  as  orders  were  received 
to  be  ready  to  march  at  a  moment's  notice. 
About  sunset  our  brigade  was  marched  by 
the  Watkins  Cross  Road  over  Chattanooga 
Creek,  where  we  were  exposed  to  shelling 
from  Moccasin  Point,  and  several  of  our  men 
were  killed  and  wounded ;  and  soon  after- 
wards we  relieved  Pettus's  brigade  in  its 
rocky  position.  At  this  dismal,  dreary  post, 
we  exchanged  a  desultory  fire  with  the  Fed- 
eral advance  till  ten  o'clock  or  later;  and 
held  it  till  after  midnight.  Our  men  who 
remained  in  the  valley  told  us  next  day  that 
this  battle  scene  at  night  was  deeply  impres- 
sive, the  two  lines  of  battle,  extending  up 
and  down  the  mountain  side,  being  marked 
by  the  incessant  flash  of  rifles  till  nearly  mid- 
night, like  thousands  of  "lightning-bugs  "  on 


a  midsummer  night  in  our  southern  woods. 
After  the  firing  ceased,  those  of  us  who  could 
do  so  snatched  a  few  moments  of  troubled 
sleep  on  our  rocky  perch. 

Between  two  and  three  A.  M.,  an  order 
came  to  withdraw  from  our  position  as  qui- 
etly as  possible,  and  we  followed  our  guide, 
drawing  our  slow  length  along,  we  knew  not 
where.  In  the  small  hours  of  that  frosty  No- 
vember morning,  the  full  moon  was  shining 
brightly.  It  was  in  eclipse  soon  after  three 
A.  M.,  when  our  pickets,  under  Captain  Car- 
penter, of  the  36th  Alabama,  withdrew  silent- 
ly from  their  rocky  rosts  in  the  thick  woods, 
just  before  daybreak.  Never  can  I  forget  the 
ghastly  sight  presented  by  some  of  our  dead, 
as  they  lay  along  our  pathway,  ready  for  a 
soldier's  hasty  burial,  with  their  blanched 
faces,  and  glaring  though  sightless  eyes,  up- 
turned in  the  full  moonlight.  What  a  picture 
there,  in  that  solitary  mountain  forest,  of  ut- 
ter loneliness  and  desolation  ! 

The  eclipse  that  night  naturally  set  us  to 
thinking  that  matters  began  to  look  as  if 
Bragg's  great  success  over  Rosecrans,  at 
Chickamauga,  was  about  to  be  eclipsed  by 
the  exploits  of  Grant  and  Sherman  around 
Chattanooga.  And  such,  indeed,  was  to  be 
the  case,  but  none  for  a  moment  anticipated 
the  crushing  disaster  in  store  for  Bragg's 
army  that  day. 

We  soon  found  ourselves  approaching  our 
old  camp  at  the  Watkins  house,  and  there 
about  sunrise  we  were  halted,  only  long 
enough,  without  even  breaking  ranks,  to  fill 
our  haversacks  with  several  days'  rations, 
prepared  by  our  cooks  the  night  before.  We 
at  once  took  up  our  line  of  march  towards 
Missionary  Ridge,  and  learned  that  all  of 
Bragg's  center  and  left  wing  were  moving  in 
the  same  direction.  Our  brigade  gained  the 
top  of  the  ridge  by  a  wagon  road  of  easy 
grade,  a  half  mile  or  so  northeast  of  Ross- 
ville — a  road  that  still  exists  much  as  it  was 
in  war  times,  as  I  found  by  riding  down  it 
last  August  from  the  Brundage  place,  a  farm 
which  includes  our  part  of  the  old  battle- 
field. When  we  reached  the  summit,  we 
filed  to  the  right,  passing  near  the  house  that 
was  occupied  throughout  the  day  as  Breck- 


885.] 


Battles  of  Lookout  Mountain  and  Missionary '  Ridge. 


147 


enridge's  headquarters.  Not  a  vestige  of 
that  house  remains,  and  the  numerous  set- 
tlers living  on  the  ridge  at  present  know 
nothing  about  it.  Reaching  a  point  on  the 
rocky  and  then  well-wooded  crest,  a  quarter 
of  a  mile  or  so  southeast  of  Breckenridge's 
headquarters,  towards  Rossville,  and  well 
down  towards  the  abrupt  point  of  the  ridge 
which  overlooks  that  village,  we  were  halt- 
ed, stacked  arms,  and  were  allowed  to  en- 
joy a  much  needed  rest  from  nine  in  the 
morning  till  about  one  in  the  afternoon. 
Soon  all  of  our  three  thousand  men  who  were 
not  needed  for  picket  duty  had  stretched 
their  weary  limbs  upon  the  ground  in  the 
shady  woods,  and  were  at  once  wrapped  in 
the  profound  sleep  so  necessary  for  the  ter- 
rible ordeal  through  which  we  were  all  des- 
tined to  pass  before  another  sun  should  set. 

Without  knowing  it,  and  without  any  spe- 
cial thought  about  it  at  the  time,  we  were, 
then  occupying  Bragg's  extreme  left — just  as 
we  had  the  night  before  on  Lookout — with 
an  interval  of  nearly  or  quite  three-quarters 
of  a  mile  between  our  isolated  brigade  and 
the  rest  of  his  army,  which  occupied  a  line 
along  the  crest  of  Missionary  Ridge,  extend- 
ing some  six  miles  to  our  right,  or  towards 
the  northeast.  There  our  weary  men  lay 
sleeping — many  a  poor  fellow  enjoying  his 
last  sweet  dream  of  home — and  but  little 
disturbed  by  the  heavy  boom  of  artillery  and 
the  rattle  of  rifles  which  began  about  ten 
o'clock  far  to  our  right,  and  kept  roaring  con- 
tinuously with  but  little  intermission  until 
sunset. 

When  we  awoke  after  our  refreshing  mid- 
day slumbers,  how  superb  a  sight  was  pre- 
sented, under  that  clear,  sunny  November 
sky — a  regular  army-review,  in  grandest  style, 
unasked  for  by  us  and  unsought!  The  vast 
army  of  Grant  and  Sherman,  80,000  men  or 
more,  not  passing,  but  forming  in  review,  in 
the  long  valley  beneath  us.  There  they  were 
as  far  as  our  line  of  vision  could  reach  to- 
wards the  northeast,  in  the  bright  sunlight, 
brigades  and  batteries  filing  and  wheeling 
into  line,  one  after  the  other,  evidently  pre- 
paring for  the  general  assault  that  soon  came 
along  our  entire  front.  On  no  other  battle- 


field of  the  war  did  we  witness,  with  such 
distinctness  and  to  such  an  extent,  so  impos- 
ing an  array.  While  a  group  of  us  officers 
gathered  on  a  commanding  point  of  Mission- 
ary Ridge,  near  our  forest  bivouac,  were 
watching  with  a  field-glass  these  threatening 
formations  of  one  of  the  best  Federal  armies 
ever  organized — best  in  equipment,  disci- 
pline, experience,  personnel,  and  dash — a 
Major  Hammond  of  Louisiana,  then  on 
Breckenridge's  staff — afterwards  the  husband 
of  Miss  Belle  Boyd,  the  noted  female  spy  of 
Lee's  army  — rode  up  and  watched  with  us 
for  a  time  these  formidable  movements. 
Just  then,  between  one  and  two  in  the  after- 
noon, we  began  to  see  a  very  strong  Federal 
force  marching  rapidly  across  the  valley  in 
several  columns,  apparently  two  miles  or 
more  to  our  left,  and  far  to  the  right  of  the 
rest  of  the  Federal  line.  They  appeared  to 
be  moving  towards  Rossville,  which  lay  in 
the  gap  of  Missionary  Ridge,  as  already  de- 
scribed, and  was  scarcely  half  a  mile  in  a  di- 
rect line  to  the  left  of  our  brigade.  We  called 
Major  Hammond's  attention  to  this  evi- 
dent flank  movement  in  heavy  force,  and  as 
we  learned  he  was  a  staff  officer,  one  of  us 
remarked  that  we  hoped  General  Bragg  had 
made  ample  provision  to  meet  it,  or  would 
do  so  at  once.  He  expressed  the  belief  that 
it  had  been  foreseen  and  amply  guarded 
against,  and  soon  rode  away.  Reader,  that 
large  flanking  force  proved  to  be  Hooker's 
full  corps,  some  15,000  strong,  flushed  with 
their  handsome  and  fruitful  victory  on  Look- 
out Mountain,  the  day  before.  And  what 
do  you  suppose  was  the  only  preparation 
made  to  meet,  and  if  possible  to  check,  that 
powerful  flank  movement  ?  As  we  soon 
learned  to  our  great  surprise  and  sorrow,  the 
only  provision  against  this  regular  avalanche 
of  Joe  Hooker's  fighting  men,  was  our  one 
brigade  of  Alabamians,  with  less  than  three 
thousand  rifles  !  To  expect  three  thousand 
men  to  be  able  to  check,  for  any  length  of 
time,  the  advance  of  fifteen  thousand  was 
unreasonable  enough.  But,  as  we  have  since 
concluded,  perhaps  Bragg  could  spare  no 
more  men  at  that  time  to  support  us,  in  our 
attempt  to  hold  Hooker's  corps  at  bay.  For 


148 


Battles  of  Lookout  Mountain  and  Missionary  Ridge. 


[Aug. 


his  army  had  been  seriously  reduced,  and 
Grant  and  Sherman  were  keeping  him  so 
busy  at  that  time,  on  his  right  and  center, 
that  he  could  not  possibly  send  any  ree'n- 
forcements  from  other  parts  of  his  line. 

Not  only  was  our  number  merely  one-fifth 
of  Hooker's,  but  we  had  no  intrenchments 
or  earthworks  whatever  on  our  part  of  the 
line,  not  even  any  rifle-pits.  Federal  official 
reports  referring  to  this  part  of  the  battle, 
speak  of  taking  two  lines  of  "barricades." 
These  were  hastily  constructed  of  small 
stones  placed  in  rows  and  a  few  logs  laid  on 
top  of  them,  and  these  "  barricades  "  were 
not  made  by  us,  but  by  General  Rosecrans's 
men,  when  they  fell  back  from  Chickamau- 
ga,  two  months  before ;  and  though  a  few 
men  of  our  brigade  were  able  to  fight  behind 
them,  they  afforded  very  little  protection  .for 
us,  for  they  extended  up  and  down  the  ridge 
to  defend  the  crest  against  an  advance  from 
the  east  — and  could  have  served  to  defend 
it  towards  the  west ;  but  Hooker's  advance 
was  from  the  southwest,  against  the  end  of 
the  ridge,  and  not  up  its  sides,  as  was  the 
assault  on  the  right  and  center  of  Bragg's 
line  on  Missionary  Ridge.  It  follows  that 
Hooker's  advance  completely  flanked  these 
slight  barricades,  and  they  were  entirely  use- 
less to  our  brigade  in  our  efforts  to  repel  his 
flank  movement.  As  will  be  seen,  then,  our 
part  of  the  battle  on  Bragg's  left,  soon  to  be 
described,  was  very  different  from  the  con- 
flict on  the  rest  of  his  line  on  November 
25th;  for  it  was  a  free  fight  in  the  open 
woods,  without  defensive  works  and  without 
a  battery,  or  even  a  single  cannon,  and  with- 
out the  slightest  warning  from  any  of  our 
superior  officers  of  what  we  were  to  expect, 
or  to  brace  ourselves  for — a  pitched  battle, 
in  fact,  between  the  short  line  of  one  brig- 
ade, and  three  of  the  largest  and  best  divis- 
ions of  the  Federal  army.  With  these  ex- 
planations, the  results  now  to  be  told  will 
not  seem  strange. 

Mention  has  just  been  made  of  the  ab- 
sence of  any  form  of  warning  to  our  men  on 
the  eve  of  this  battle,  which  was  destined  to 
prove  so  disastrous  to  the  Confederate  cause. 
It  was  worthy  of  notice  in  Bragg's  series  of 


signal  defeats  around  Chattanooga,  and  is 
worthy  of  record  here,  that  not  a  single  gen- 
eral order  was  issued  to  his  army  preparatory 
to  these  battles  ;  not  a  word  of  explanation, 
not  a  word  of  encouragement,  not  a  word 
tending  to  "enthuse"  or  strengthen  an  army. 
Before  Chickamauga,  Bragg  issued  such  an 
order,  and  it  certainly  had  a  very  fine  effect 
in  inspiriting  his  men.  It  always  seemed  to 
us  as  if  General  Bragg  was  totally  unpre- 
pared for  the  masterly  stroke  of  the  Federal 
generals  there  in  all  these  spirited  assaults  — 
as  if  they  came  unexpectedly  to  him,  and  he 
was  .  completely  surprised  and  stunned  by 
each  heavy  blow. 

To  form  a  correct  idea  of  the  battle  'of 
Missionary  Ridge,  or  Mission  Ridge,  as  it  is 
called  in  Federal  authorities,  we  must  remem- 
ber not  only  that  it  was  an  entirely  distinct 
engagement  from  the  Battle  of  Lookout 
Mountain,  and  fought  the  following  day — 
though  the  two  are  confounded  in  some  of 
our  leading  histories  in  their  descriptions 
and  engravings — but  that  the  Union  forces 
made  three  distinct  attacks  in  that  battle  on 
different  parts  of  Bragg's  line,  which  was  six 
miles  long,  and  all  these  attacks  were  in  the 
afternoon,  the  morning  being  occupied  by 
Grant's  army  in  securing  positions  for  attack. 
Sherman,  on  the  Federal  left,  opened  an  ar- 
tillery fire  during  the  morning  on  Bragg's 
right,  and  between  one  and  two  in  the  after- 
noon he  made  two  efforts  to  advance  his 
line,  but  both  charges  were  repulsed  by  Har- 
dee's  and  Buckner's  men,  with  an  admitted 
loss  to  the  assaulting  columns  of  seven  hun- 
dred killed  and  wounded.  Next  came  the 
charge  of  Hooker's  corps  on  Clayton's  brig- 
ade of  Alabamians,  forming  Bragg's  left,  near 
Rossville,  between  two  and  three  o'clock. 
Then  followed  the  charge  of  the  Federal  cen- 
ter under  Granger,  with  Sheridan  in  the 
lead,  up  the  western  slopes  and  to  the  crest 
of  Missionary  Ridge,  at  a  quarter  to  four. 
This  ended  that  truly  terrific  struggle,  with 
the  whole  .Federal  force  in  hot  pursuit  of 
Bragg's  routed  army,  in  the  short  interval 
between  sunset  and  dark. 

Leaving  to  other  pens  any  details  of  the 
fighting   along  Bragg's  right   and  center,  I 


1885. 


Battles  of  Lookout  Mountain  and  Missionary  Ridge. 


149 


shall  close  this  account  with  some  incidents 
of  Hooker's  attack  on  Bragg's  left  flank, 
which  rapidly  arid  completely  turned  the 
Confederate  position. 

Soon  after  the  heavy  firing  caused  by 
Sherman's  charges  had  died  away — not  far 
from  half  past  two  in  the  afternoon — Clay- 
ton's Brigade,  consisting  of  the  eighteenth, 
thirty-sixth,  thirty-eighth,  thirty-second,  and 
fifty-eighth  Alabama  Infantry,  was  called  to 
"  Attention ! "  and  was  marched  a  few  hun- 
dred yards  further  to  our  left.  Part  of  the 
brigade  was  filed  to  our  rear  by  the  left 
flank,  so  that  it  faced  southward  towards 
Rossville,  the  rest  of  it  still  facing  westward 
towards  Chattanooga  Valley,  thus  forming  an 
L.  Four  companies  were  at  once  deployed 
as  skirmishers  under  Lieutenant,  afterwards 
Captain,  William  N.  Knight,  of  the  thirty- 
sixth.  They  moved  southward,  or  down  the 
ridge,  and  under  General  John  C.  Brecken- 
ridge's  immediate  supervision,  were  deployed 
rapidly  to  their  left,  forming  a  line  some  four 
hundred  yards  in  length.  This  line  moved 
across  a  slight  depression,  and  when  they 
reached  the  crest  of  the  ridge  beyond,  scarce- 
ly two  hundred  yards  from  the  rest  of  our 
brigade,  they  saw  a  long  Federal  column  fil- 
ing through  the  gap  along  the  road  from 
Rossville  to  Chickamauga  Station,  on  the 
railroad  to  Dalton.  The  head  of  this  col- 
umn was  already  far  behind  the  left  of  our 
skirmish  line,  that  is,  in  Bragg's  rear.  These 
were  Hooker's  men,  and  the  long  column  at 
once  faced  to  their  left,  confronting  our 
skirmishers,  and  advanced  on  them  up  the 
end  of  the  ridge,  where  it  abuts  upon  Ross- 
ville Gap.  The  Federals,  seeming  to  take 
our  skirmishers  for  stragglers  or  deserters, 
began  calling  out  to  them,  "  Come  in,  boys, 
we  wont  hurt  you !  "  By  Lieutenant  Knight's 
orders,  our  men,  who  had  at  first  thought 
Hooker's  men  were  a  part  of  our  own,  imme- 
diately opened  fire,  and  the  fight  began  in 
earnest. 

The  Federal  line  of  battle  advanced  rap- 
idly, and  our  long  and  thin  skirmish  line  fell 
back  and  fought  desperately  from  tree  to 
tree — all  that  part  of  Missionary  Ridge  being 
then  thickly  timbered,  but  with  very  'little 


undergrowth.  Our  skirmishers  were  soon 
hurled  back  upon  the  main  line  of  our  brig- 
ade, and  the  engagement  became  general, 
our  single  brigade,  with  no  supports  within  a 
half  mile  of  us,  making  the  best  fight  we 
could.  Our  men  were  ordered  to  lie  down 
and  fire,  which  they  did  soon  after  our  skir- 
mishers reached  us.  We  were  able  in  this 
way,  by  using  trees,  rocks,  and  all  other  pos- 
sible cover  for  our  3,000  men,  to  check  the 
advance  of  Hooker's  center  a  short  time — 
from  twenty  to  thirty  minutes,  as  well' as  we 
were  able  to  judge — while  his  right  and  left 
wings  were  closing  in  around  us,  along  the 
eastern  and  western  slopes  of  the  rough 
ridge.  Our  line  then  fell  back,  and  in  a  new 
position  again  checked  the  Federal  advance 
for  some  fifteen  or  twenty  minutes. 

From  the  official  reports  of  General  Hook- 
er and  his  subordinate  Generals,  the  follow- 
ing facts  are  gathered,  so  far  as  they  refer  to 
his  corps,  its  disposition  and  advance,  in  this 
memorable  struggle  for  the  possession  of 
Missionary  Ridge.  Hooker's  corps  consist- 
ed then  of  Osterhaus's  division  of  the  Fif- 
teenth Corps,  Cruft's  division  of  the  Fourth, 
and  Geary's  of  the  Twelfth  ;  and  facing  near- 
ly north — slightly  east  of  north — they  moved 
up  and  along  the  ridge  in  the  order  here 
named,  from  their  right  to  left.  Osterhaus 
moved  parallel  with  the  Ridge  on  its  east 
slope,  Cruft  on  the  crest  of  the  Ridge,  and 
Geary  along  its  west  slope,  all  in  supporting 
distance. 

It  will  be  seen,  then,  that  our  single  Ala- 
bama brigade  was  engaged  chiefly  with 
Cruft's  division,  as  we  occupied  only  the 
top  of  the  Ridge.  The  Federal  batteries 
moved  with  Geary's  division  near  the  west 
slope,  or  in  Chattanooga  Valley.  As  already 
mentioned,  our  position  at  the  southern  end 
of  Missionary  Ridge  was  not — strange  to  say 
— defended  by  a  single  piece  of  artillery. 

According  to  the  Federal  account,  Gen- 
eral Cruft  and  staff  preceded  his  column  to 
form  lines,  and  was  at  once  met  by  a  skir- 
mish line  advancing.  This  was  our  four  com- 
panies of  skirmishers  from  theThirty-sixth  Al- 
abama, under  Lieutenant  Knight — Lieuten- 
ant John  Vidmer,  of  our  brigade  staff,  from 


150 


Battles  of  Lookout  Mountain  and  Missionary  Ridge. 


[Aug. 


Mobile,  and  since  dead,  gallantly  directing 
and  assisting  in  this  effort  to  check  the  Fe'der- 
al  advance.  The  official  reports  then  state  : 
"  The  Ninth  and  Thirty-sixth  Indiana  regi- 
ments sprang  forward,  ran  into  line  under 
fire,  and  instantly  charging  drove  back  the 
rebels,  while  the  residue  of  the  column  form- 
ed their  lines.  Gross's  Brigade,  with  the 
Fifty-first  Ohio,  and  Thirty-fifth  Indiana  of 
Whitaker's  Brigade  in  advance,  then  moved 
forward,  and  the  top  of  the  ridge  was  found 
to  be  so  narrow,  that  the  division  (Cruft's) 
was  thrown  into  four  lines. 

The  divisions  of  Geary  and  Osterhaus  now 
kept  abreast.  Whenever  our  short  Confed- 
erate line  made  a  stand,  Geary  and  Oster- 
haus's  divisions  advanced  and  poured  in  a 
withering  fire  from  the  west  and  east,  while 
Cruft's  division  was  making  its  direct  attack 
from  the  south.  Our  line,  having  been  rap- 
idly formed  in  its  second  position,  so  as  to 
face  south  to  meet  the  main  attack,  this  new 
line,  being  formed  under  fire,  and  necessari- 
ly in  some  confusion,  was,  in  the  way  de- 
scribed, steadily  forced  back  from  point  to 
point.  According  to  Federal  official  reports, 
this  fighting  "  continued  until  near  sunset." 

Meanwhile,  General  Breckenridge,  who 
had  gone  towards  his  head-quarters,  after 
seeing  our  skirmishers  properly  deployed  and 
advancing,  seemed  to  ascertain  how  large  the 
attacking  force  was,  and  to  realize  how  hope- 
less was  our  contest  against  such  odds. 

In  the  thickest  of  the  fight,  seeing  that  our 
brigade  in  this  unequal  contest  would  soon 
be  surrounded  and  captured,  to  a  man,  he 
dashed  up  to  our  line  of  battle  on  his  fine, 
dark  bay  horse,  at  a  moment  when  the  Fed- 
eral advance  was  slightly  checked.  He 
called  out : 

"Who  is  in  command  of  this  line?" 

Being  referred  to  Col.  L.  T.  Woodruff,  of 
the  Thirty-sixth  Alabama  (from  Mobile),  the 
ranking  officer  present,  he  gave  him  the 
brief  command,  "  Bring  out  your  men  at 
once,  and  follow  me." 

The  survivors  of  the  brigade  who  were 
not  already  prisoners,  rapidly  followed  Gen- 
eral Breckenridge  and  Colonel  Woodruff 
northward  along  the  ridge  and  then  down 


its  eastern  slope,  the  Federal  forces  pressing 
forward  and  closing  in  on  their  right  and 
left,  until  their  line  was  like  a  horse-shoe. 
The  few  hundreds  of  our  brigade  who  were 
able  to  escape  by  passing  out  of  the  narrow 
opening,  left  just  in  time.  Had  General 
Breckenridge  delayed  his  timely  order  for 
retreat  but  a  few  moments,  Clayton's  entire 
brigade  would  have  been  captured,  and  prob- 
ably General  Breckenridge,  our  corps  com- 
mander at  that  time,  would  have  shared  our 
fate.  As  it  was,  with  a  loss  to  the  brigade 
of  between  four  hundred  and  five  hundred 
killed  and  wounded,  as  well  as  we  have  ever 
been  able  to  learn,  and  at  least  two  thousand 
prisoners  (General  Hooker  claims  upwards  of 
two  thousand),  only  about  six  hundred  men 
answered  at  brigade  roll  call  next  morning. 
This  was  in  their  bivouac,  some  six  miles 
from  the  battle  field,  and  just  south  of  the 
bridge  over  Chickamauga  River,  which  was 
crossed  by  a  large  part  of  Bragg's  routed 
army  during  the  night  of  the  25th.  Out  of 
some  seventy  men  in  Company  C,  and  my 
own  Company  (H)  of  the  Thirty-sixth  Ala- 
bama, who  went  into  the  fight,  only  seven- 
teen were  left  to  answer  at  roll-call  next  fnorn- 
ing,  and  they,  like  many  other  companies, 
were  then  consolidated,  as  but  few  officers 
escaped  from  that  disastrous  field. 

The  writer  of  this  sketch  does  not  give 
these  closing  facts  of  the  retreat  as  an  eye- 
witness ;  I  learned  them  long  afterwards 
from  fellow- officers  who  came  out  of  the  bat- 
tle safely.  It  fell  to  my  share  to  be  left  dis- 
abled on  Missionary  Ridge — in  our  second 
line  of  battle,  and  near  where  the  fight  be- 
gan— by  a  minie-ball  in  the  right  hip. 

Who  can  paint  the  horrors  of  lying  help- 
less from  a  wound,  and  on  an  exposed  spot, 
under  a  heavy  cross-fire  from  foe  and  friend 
for  fifteen  minutes  or  more?  Or  who  can 
realize  the  feeling  of  gloom,  when  thus  face 
to  face  with  death,  a  desperately  wounded 
soldier  first  recognizes  the  fact  that,  far  from 
his  loved  ones,  and  they  in  uncertainty,  he 
is  a  prisoner,  as  he  learns  by  the  steady 
tramp  of  the  conquering  foe,  when  they 
march,  line  after  line,  in  serried  ranks,  till 
four  lines  of  battle  have  passed  where  he  and 


1885.] 


Battles  of  Lookout  Mountain  and  Missionary  Midge. 


us  fellow-unfortunates  strew  the  ground? 
Such  was  my  experience  on  Missionary 
Ridge.  Then  followed  four  months  in  Fed- 

Fral  hospitals  and  prisons  ;  an  escape  to  Can- 
da  and  the  Bermuda  Islands ;  and  a  safe  run- 
ning of  the  blockade  in  the  Clyde  steamer. 

Permit  me  to  record  here  two  acts  of  con- 
siderate humanity  towards  a  worsted  foe,  one 
on  the  part  of  General  Cruft,  the  other  by 
General  Grant.  Soon  after"  Hooker's  skir- 
mishers and  advanced  line  reached  the  part 
of  the  battle-field  where  I  lay,  faint  from  loss 
of  blood,  among  dead  and  dying  comrades 
— uncertain  how  the  scale  would  turn  for 
me — John  McGinnis,  Orderly  Sergeant  of 
Company  A  in  my  regiment,  came  to  me 
in  charge  of  a  Federal  guard,  and  told  me  of 
a  number  of  our  wounded  and  dead  men 
who  lay  near  us.  He  said  his  captors  told 
him  that  they  thought  General  Cruft,  who 
was  then  approaching,  would  consent  that 
he  be  detailed  on  parole  to  help  nurse  those 
of  us  who  were  wounded,  and  asked  me  to 
sign  officially  a  hurriedly  written  request  that 
he  might  be  so  detailed.  I  did  this,  and  in 
a  few  minutes  McGinnis  returned,  as  request- 
ed by  General  Cruft's  order,  and  looked  after 
his  suffering  comrades.  He  was  allowed  to 
remain  with  us,  as  was  Charles  Whelan,  of 
Company  C,  our  Surgeon's  assistant — now 
Doctor  Whelan,  of  Birmingham,  Alabama — 
and  their  presence  added  greatly  to  the  com- 
fort of  their  suffering  comrades  ;  for  in  the 
Chattanooga  hospitals — very  rough  and  un- 
comfortable from  necessity — they  helped  to 
dress  our  wounds,  looked  after  the  burial  of 
those  of  our  number  who  died,  and  were 
permitted  three  weeks  later  to  accompany 
the  first  of  our  wounded,  who  were  suffic- 
iently recovered  to  be  removed  to  Nashville. 
At  General  Bragg's  request,  General  Grant 
permitted  thirteen  Confederate  soldiers  to 
come  within  his  lines,  and  to  remain  three 
months  at  Chattanooga,  helping  the  Federal 
surgeons  in  attentions  to  their  numerous 
wounded  prisoners. 

Never  can  I  forget  how  I  lost  my  sword. 
It  lay  at  my  side  in  its  scabbard,  the  latter 
badly  damaged  by  rough  service.  Two 
"boys  in  blue,"  passing  near  me,  noticed  it, 


and  one  of  them,  saying,  "I  guess  you'll  have 
no  farther  use  for  this,"  was  carrying  it  with 
him.  Just  then,  I  saw  two  mounted  officers 
riding  by,  and  I  called  out  to  them  : 

"  Is  either  of  you  a  captain  ?  " 

Being  answered  in  the  affirmative,  I  ex- 
plained that  the  man  was  taking  my  sword, 
and  requested  the  officer  to  receive  it,  as  I 
preferred  to  yield  it  to  one  of  equal  rank. 
He  did  as  requested,  and  took  charge  of  the 
war-worn  Confederate  blade. 

When  such  disasters  overtook  large  armies, 
as  befell  Bragg  at  Chattanooga,  Rosecrans 
at   Chickamauga,  Hood   at   Nashville,  and 
McDowell  at  Bull  Run,  wonder  is  often  ex- 
pressed that  troops  so  badly  defeated  were 
not  at  once  pursued  and  completely  over- 
whelmed .before  they  had  time  to  rally  from 
the  shock.     Usually  the  supreme  efforts  of 
troops  that  result  in  such  victories,  their  loss 
of  rest  and  their  irregular  rations,  leave  the 
victors  in  quite  as  exhausted  a  condition  as 
the  vanquished.    This  was  peculiarly  true  in 
our  great  civil  war.     Neither  side  was  really 
fit  to  again  offer  the  gauge  of  battle  after 
almost  constant  marching,  countermarching, 
and  fighting  for   three  days,   or  sometimes 
for  a  week.     Then,  each  side  had  too  much 
pluck  to  be  easily  overwhelmed,  even  when 
partly  crushed.    Again,  pursuers,  flushed  with 
victory,  are  apt  to  attack  positions  too  reck- 
lessly, and  thus,  in  turn,  suffer  bloody  re- 
pulses and  defeat.    Lee's  victorious  army  suf- 
ered  so  at  Malvern  Hill,  against  McClellan, 
and  so  did  Grant's  pursuing  forces  suffer  a 
severe    check  when  they  threw  themselves 
too  recklessly,  on  the  evening  of  November 
26th,  against   the   strong   position  held  by 
Bragg's  shattered   but   resolute  veterans  at 
Ringgold.     This  bloody  repulse  ended  the 
fighting  in  Georgia  until  the  following  May. 
Not   to  make  this   narrative  too  long,  it 
only  remains  to  be  said  that  the  losses  in  all 
this  desperate  fighting  around  Chattanooga 
in  November,  '63,  foot  up  somewhere  near 
the   following    figures:   Bragg's    total   loss, 
about  3,500  killed  and  wounded,  6,500  pris- 
oners, 8,000  small  arms,  and  40  pieces  of 
artillery,  against  a  Federal  loss  of  757  killed, 
4,527  wounded,  and  300  missing. 


152 


The  Hermit  of  Sawmill  Mountain. 


[Aug. 


Another  closing  fact  worthy  of  record  is, 
that  now  scarcely  a  vestige  of  the  great  strug- 
gle on  Missionary  Ridge  remains,  except 
that  the  plowshare  occasionally  turns  up  a 
solid  shot  or  shell,  a  minie  ball,  or  even, 
once  in  a  while,  a  skeleton.  The  only  mark 
on  the  battle-ground  where  we  fought  is  a 
remnant  of  the  rocky  barricade  to  which  ref- 
erence has  been  made.  Almost  the  entire 
top  of  the  ridge  is  cleared  and  divided  into 
small  fruit-farms,  where  the  finest  of  fruits 
and  vegetables  are  raised  for  the  markets  of 
Cincinnati  and  other  cities.  But  the  odd- 
est thing  about  it  is,  that  these  well-tilled 
places,  almost  without  exception,  are  owned 
by  men  from  Pennsylvania  and  other  North- 
ern States — the  very  people  we  tried  to  drive 
away  from  there  twenty-one  years  ago.  Yet 
so  changed  are  times  and  feelings  now,  that 
we  would  not  drive  these  thrifty  neighbors 
from  our  Southern  land  if  we  could,  but,  on 
the  contrary,  we  extend  them  a  cordial  wel- 
come to  our  midst. 


The  saddest  of  all  sad  thoughts,  as  one 
gazes  enraptured  from  the  dizzy  "  Point  "  of 
Lookout  Mountain  over  thetruly  magnificent 
panorama  of  mountain  and  valley  and  river 
where  these  battle-scenes  occurred,  is  this : 
The  National  Cemetery  in  full  view  contains 
nearly  as  many  silent  inhabitants  as  there 
are  people  in  the  busy  homes  of  Chatta- 
nooga in  1880 — 13,000  Federals,  who  per- 
ished in  the  deadly  campaigns  of  Chicka- 
mauga,  Chattanooga,  and  Dalton ;  while,  on 
Cameron  Hill,  near  by,  rises  the  tasteful 
monument  in  memory  of  nearly  or  quite  as 
many  Confederate  dead.  Nor  does  any  re- 
flection lessen  our  sorrow,  when  we  think 
of  the  myriads  of  victims  of  fearful — and 
shall  we  say  useless  ? — strife,  unless  it  be  the 
truth  that  our  Union  of  States  is  twice  as 
strong  today  and  twice  as  likely  to  be  perpet- 
ual as  it  was  before  the  craggy  defiles  of  old 
Lookout  and  Missionary  Ridge  reechoed  the 
roar  of  the  "  red  artillery,"  and  the  deadly 
rifles  of  our  fratricidal  war. 

/.  W.  A.  Wright. 


THE  HERMIT  OF  SAWMILL  MOUNTAIN. 


IT  was  neither  religious  fervor  nor  a  desire 
to  fly  from  the  "  world's  cold  scorn,"  which 
had  made  a  recluse  of  Charles  Sydney.  He 
was  simply  a  victim  to  himself — a  slave  to 
his  appetite  for  drink.  Fresh  from  a  some- 
what strict  collegiate  course,  he  had  gone  to 
the  home  of  his  wealthy  parents  in  Western 
New  York,  and,  in  the  exuberance  of  youth- 
ful spirit  and  regained  liberty,  immediately 
proceeded  to  do  his  utmost  to  disgrace  a 
good  old  family  name  that  had  been  hon- 
ored in  the  county  for  generations.  Instead 
of  following  the  brilliant  professional  career 
of  parental  anticipation,  he  grew  more  and 
more  dissipated  as  the  years  went  on — and 
bade  fair  to  degenerate  at  last  into  a  con- 
firmed sot. 

Affairs  grew  desperate  at  last.  The  heart 
of  the  mother  was  breaking  at  the  wayward- 
ness of  her  only  child.  An  added  shade  of 
silver  tinged  the  massive  head  of  the  father. 


A  family  council  was  called  then.  The  Judge 
and  Mrs.  Sydney,  Agnes  Denton,  the  Judge's 
ward,  and  Charles,  the  derelict,  assembled  in 
the  library  one  bright  June  morning. 

It  was  a  more  than  usually  pleasant  room, 
the  library  at  Sydney  farm,  with  an  outlook 
upon  lawn,  and  river,  and  distant  woodland. 
It  was  the  favorite  assembling  room  of  the 
family,  and  many  of  the  most  pleasant  hours 
of  their  lives  had  been  passed  within  it.  But 
it  was  for  no  pleasant  purpose  that  the  Judge 
had  requested  the  presence  of  his  family  here 
this  morning.  He  sat  now,  stern  and  erect, 
in  his  big  chair  by  the  south  window.  In  a 
low  chair  near  him,  Agnes  stitched  busily  to 
hide  her  nervousness,  upon  some  bit  of  Ken- 
sington work.  Mrs.  Sydney  sat  at  the  end 
of  the  reading  table,  her  head  bowed  upon 
her  hands ;  and  Charles  stood  leaning  upon 
the  low  mantel,  dramming  nervously  upon  it. 
He  had  been  upon  a  more  than  usually  dis- 


1885.] 


The  Hermit  of  Sawmill  Mountain. 


153 


graceful  "  spree  "  the  night  before — and  was 
now  consequently  afflicted  with  headache 
and  nausea  and  repentance,  careless  almost 
whether  he  lived  or  died.  The  Judge  broke 
the  silence,  which  had  become  uncomforta- 
ble : 

"  How  much  longer  do  you  suppose  this 
sort  of  thing  is  to  continue  ?  "  he  said,  ad- 
dressing his  son. 

The  drumming  upon  the  mantel  contin- 
ued, but  there  was  no  answer  to  the  ques- 
tion. 

"  It  would  be  idle  to  dwell  upon  the  ad- 
vantages that  you  have  thrown  away,"  the 
Judge  went  on.  "  It  is  sufficient  that  you 
have  wasted  them.  There  is  but  one  thing 
to  be  done  with  you,  and  such  as  you.  I 
shall  consign  you  to  a  private  home  for  in- 
ebriates. I  have  carefully  considered  this 
matter.  We  will  start  today.  Have  you 
any  objections  to  offer  to  the  plan  ?  You 
are  of  age,  you  know,  and  need  not  go  unless 
you  see  fit — only,  if  you  reject  this  opportu- 
nity, the  doors  of  my  house  will  be  forever 
closed  against  you." 

For  a  moment  a  wild  desire  came  to 
Charles  Sydney  to  defy  his  father,  and  to  go 
>ut  into  the  world  and  fight  his  way  alone, 
"hen  he  choked  back  the  impulse,  and  said, 

a  voice  thick  and  husky  : 

"  I  have  no  objections.  I  will  go  with 
pou,  sir." 

"  Very  well,  sir.  I  commend  your  wis- 
dom. You  may.  go  to  your  room  and  pre- 
pare for  an  extended  absence  from  home." 

Charles  turned  to  leave  the  room,  and  his 
mother  arose  and  followed  him,  sobbing  audi- 
bly. Together  they  went  to  the  cosy  room 
which  had  been  his  own  den  since  babyhood, 
and  his  trunk  was  packed  amidst  many  sol- 
emn promises  and  bitter  tears.  The  Judge 
and  his  ward  were  alone  in  the  library. 

"  Uncle,"  she  said,  still  stitching  industri- 
ously, and  keeping  her  eyes  upon  her  work, 
"I  think  that  you  are  very  cruel." 

She  was  a  great  favorite — besides  being  an 
independent  young  lady  —  and  could  afford 
to  take  liberties.  She  called  Judge  Sydney 
"  uncle,"  though  in  no  way  related  to  him, 
simply  as  a  convenient  form  of  address.  The 


suddenness  of  her  remark  surprised  him  out 
of  his  reverie,  but  he  only  said  mildly  : 

"  Why,  my  dear  ?  " 

"  To  send  Charlie  off  to  a  horrible  home 
for  inebriates.  It  is  like  sending  him  to 
prison." 

"But  we  can  do  nothing  with  him  here, 
and  he  is  breaking  his  mother's  heart." 

"  But  think  of  the  disgrace  of  it." 

"  No  one  will  know  it,  my  child,  besides 
ourselves." 

"  Oh,  yes,  they  will.  Cook  will  know  it, 
and  the  field  hands  will  know  it,  and  then 
the  neighbors.  You  cannot  hide  such  things 
in  a  country  neighborhood.  Charlie  can 
never  hold  up  his  head  here  again." 

"  Charlie  should  have  thought  of  that  be- 
fore. As  to  the  disgrace,  I  would  sooner 
see  him  dead  than  in  the  condition  he  was 
in  last  night." 

"  But,  uncle,  have  you  ever  thought  how 
much  idleness  may  have  had  to  do  with 
Charlie's  drinking?  Everything  has  been 
made  so  easy  for  him.  He  has  never  really 
been  compelled  to  make  an  effort.  Give 
him  just  one  more  chance." 

"  Do  you  advise  me  to  turn  him  out  to 
shift  for  himself?" 

"No— though  even  that  would  come 
nearer  making  a  man  of  him  than  the  in- 
ebriate asylum,  perhaps.  Place  him  in  a 
position  of  responsibility,  that  is  all." 

"But  where  shall  I  put  him?  Run  the 
farm  he  cannot,  and  placing  him  in  my  of- 
fice is  but  throwing  him  in  the  way  of  temp- 
tation." 

Agnes  was  silent  a  moment,  thinking  in- 
tently. Her  work  dropped  in  her  lap  and 
remained  there  untouched.  At  last  she 
spoke : 

"You  were  talking  the  other  day  at  din- 
ner, uncle,  about  the  money  to  be  made  in 
wool-growing  in  Southern  California.  Why 
would  it  not  be  a  good  plan  to  buy  some 
sheep  out  there,  put  Charlie  in  charge  of 
them,  make  him  a  sharer  in  the  profits,  and 
give  him  to  understand  that  he  will  be  cast 
off  at  the  first  evil  report?  You  may  use 
my  money,  if  you  cannot  spare  enough  of 
your  own." 


154 


The  Hermit  of  Sawmill  Mountain. 


[Aug. 


"  God  bless  you,  my  child,"  said  the  Judge. 
"  I  will  think  of  it." 

But  Agnes  was  not  satisfied  to  have  him 
think  of  it.  She  wanted  him  to  consent  to 
do  it,  or,  at  least,  consent  to  go  out  there 
with  Charlie  and  see  if  something  could  not 
be  done.  She  prevailed  upon  him  finally. 

The  proposed  trip  to  the  home  for  inebri- 
ates was  abandoned,  and  Charles  was  told 
of  the  change  in  his  prospects,  and  who  had 
wrought  it.  His  gratitude  was  very  touch- 
ing. Agnes  he  treated  as  a  young  queen, 
his  mother  found  once  more  the  loving,  def- 
erential son  of  long  ago,  and  his  father  re- 
ceived from  him  a  respect  that  he  felt  had 
been  lacking  for  many  years.  Already  he 
began  to  take  an  interest  in  the  business, 
and  posted  himself  thoroughly  upon  the  rel- 
ative merits  of  Southdowns  and  Spanish 
Merinos.  Only  once  in  this  time  of  prepar- 
ation did  he  fall  from  grace  ;  and  then  the 
dereliction  was  so  slight,  and  his  repentance 
was  so  sincere,  that  he  was  readily  forgiven. 
For  the  most  part  he  kept  resolutely  away 
from  the  village  and  temptation. 

Judge  Sydney  was  not  slow  in  putting  his 
house  in  order  for  a  long  absence.  It  was 
Sunday  evening.  In  the  morning  Judge  Syd- 
ney and  his  son  would  take  the  six  o'clock 
train  for  Buffalo,  and  go  on  their  long  trip 
across  the  continent. 

A  soft  summer  stillness  was  in  the  air. 
Agnes  stood  alone  upon  the  veranda  of  the 
farmhouse,  watching  the  play  of  the  lights 
and  shadows  of  the  moonlight  upon  the  lawn 
and  fields  and  distant  river.  A  man  came 
slowly  across  the  lawn,  and,  ascending  the 
steps,  stood  upon  the  porch  at  her  side. 

"  Is  it  not  beautiful?"  he  said,  putting  his 
arm  about  her  waist  and  drawing  her  closer 
to  him. 

She  did  not  shrink  from  him,  nor  did  she 
break  the  silence.  Her  breath  came  a  trifle 
quicker — that  was  all.  They  had  been  lov- 
ers, these  two,  in  the  old  days,  though  not 
formally  pledged  to  each  other.  Latterly 
they  had  drifted  apart.  It  had  not  been  her 
fault.  She  had  loved  him  through  every- 
thing. Wrapped  in  the  selfishness  of  his  evil 
courses,  Charles  had  not  seen,  or  had  chosen 


not  to  see,  the  wealth  of  love  which  had 
been  held  ready  to  be  lavished  upon  him. 
Perhaps  new  ties  formed  in  his  college  days 
had  weakened  the  force  of  the  old.  She  had 
remained  at  home,  and  gone  on  loving  him. 
But  she  was  only  a  woman.  If  he  chose  to 
forget  she  could  not  remind  him.  She  could 
only  suffer  and  be  silent. 

Now,  for  the  first  time  in  all  the  years,  he 
approached  her  with  a  lover-like  gesture. 
She  would  have  been  more  than  woman  to 
have  put  him  off. 

"Agnes,"  he  said,  "you  have  saved  me." 

"  No  one  can  save  you,  Charlie,  but  your- 
self. Be  true  to  your  manhood,  and  you  are 
safe." 

"  You  have  saved  me,"  he  repeated.  "  Had 
I  gone  to — to — well,  you  know  where,  I 
would  never  have  come  out  alive.  I  had 
firmly  resolved  upon  that  much." 

"  Do  not  talk  so,  Charlie;  it  is  wicked.  I 
will  not  listen." 

"Very  well,  then,  I  will  not.  Agnes,  I 
give  myself  five  years  of  penance  in  this  far- 
off  land  of  Nowhere  to  which  I  am  bound. 
You  used  to  care  something  about  me  in  the 
old  times.  Will  you  wait  until  I  prove  myself 
a  man  ?  or  is  all  that  done  with  ?  " 

"  Is  it  done  with  ?     Will  I  wait  ?  " 

She  turned  up  to  him  a  face  which  the 
moonlight  had  fairly  glorified.  The  answer 
seemed  to  satisfy  him,  for  he  stooped  and 
kissed  her.  For  a  long  time  they  stood  there 
in  silence. 

".It  grows  late,"  she  said.     Let  us  go  in." 

He  turned  toward  the  door. 

"  With  God's  help,  Agnes,  I  will  be  a  man 
for  your  sake." 

"With  God's  help,"  she  repeated  rever- 
ently. 

Early  Monday  morning  Judge  Sydney  and 
his  son  took  their  departure,  as  had  been 
agreed.  As  was  to  have  been  expected,  it 
was  not  a  very  pleasant  trip.  Both  father 
and  son  were  too  much  engrossed  in  their 
own  thoughts  to  take  much  pleasure  in  the 
usual  interesting  incidents  of  travel.  Of 
course,  they  extended  to  each  other  the  ordi- 
nary courtesies  of  traveling  companions — for 
both  were  gentlemen,  at  least  in  breeding — 


1885.] 


The  Hermit  of  Sawmill  Mountain. 


155 


but  beyond  that  there  was  very  little  inter- 
course between  them.  Of  course,  Charles 
exerted  himself  to  spare  his  father  as  much 
of  fatigue  and  annoyance  as  possible,  and  of 
course  Judge  Sydney  watched  narrowly  that 
no  temptation  to  indulge  his  fatal  appetite 
was  thrown  in  the  way  of  his  son.  The 
scenery  and  the  strange  new  country  through 
which  they  passed  interested  them  but  little. 
Each,  but  for  a  different  reason,  longed  eager- 
ly for  the  end  of  the  journey. 


II. 


THEY  made  Santa  Barbara  without  acci- 
dent. Of  course,  there  was  much  canvassing 
as  to  locality,  and  number  of  sheep,  and  pur- 
chase price  thereof;  but  all  these  details 
were  adjusted  with  but  little  friction,  and 
Charles  Sydney  was  comfortably  settled  upon 
a  corner  of  General  Beale's  immense  ranch 
in  Kern  County,  and  given  charge  of  some- 
thing like  five  thousand  head  of  sheep.  It 
was  a  most  excellent  range,  and  the  new  ven- 
ture bade  fair  to  be  a  prosperous  one. 

Upon  one  of  the  northern  spurs  of  Saw- 
mill Mountain,  Charles  built  his  cabin — a 
very  cosy  affair  of  rustic  redwood — and,  with 
a  touch  of  the  poetry  of  old  college  days,  he 
christened  it  " The  Hermitage."  Naturally 
enough,  then,  the  neighbors  fell  into  the  prac- 
tice of  calling  him  "the  Hermit."  He  bore 
out  the  character  for  the  first  few  months, 
too,  showing  little  disposition  to  form  ac- 
quaintances or  to  fraternize  with  his  neigh- 
bors. Surrounding  himself  with  books  and 
pictures  and  newspapers,  he  sought  to  find 
in  them  and  in  his  letters  a  solace  for  the 
human  companionship  which  he  had  volun- 
tarily renounced. 

The  experiment  was  a  failure,  however. 
He  was  of  a  companionable  nature,  and  the 
joys  of  solitude  palled  upon  him.  There 
came  a  time,  indeed,  when  he  could  almost 
have  shrieked  aloud  in  utter  loneliness.  The 
grand  music  of  the  wind  among  the  pines 
upon  the  mountain  side,  which  at  first  had 
seemed  like  the  deep  notes  of  some  old  or- 
gan, grew  inexpressibly  weird  and  dreary. 
His  soul  sickened  of  the  messages  which  the 


night-wind  whispered  to  the  trees,  and  which 
the  waving,  bending,  writhing  needles  told 
again  to  him.  Nay,  even  his  meerschaum 
had  ceased  to  give  him  comfort — so  that  it 
will  readily  be  seen  he  'was  in  a  very  bad 
way.  Ah  Yup,  the  genius  of  the  kitchen, 
was  no  company  for  a  white  man.  Ah  Yup 
was  but  a  symphony  in  white  and  yellow—- 
and a  monotonously  aggravating  one  at  that. 

It  was- at  this  time  Charles  sought  the 
company  of  his  herders — finding,  to  his  sor- 
row, that  they  could  speak  no  word  of  Eng- 
lish. Feeling  the  need  of  a  medium  of  com- 
munication, of  course,  he  set  to  work  to  mas- 
ter the  Spanish  language.  There  was  noth- 
ing else  for  it  The  herders  would  not,  or 
could  not,  learn  English.  Being  used  to  sol- 
itude, possibly  they  felt  no  need  for  sympa- 
thy, and  consequently  none  for  company. 

It  was  but  natural  that  the  acquirement  of 
this  strangely  beautiful  language,  so  musical 
and  so  fascinating  for  itself  alone,  should 
awaken  in  Sydney  a  desire  to  practice  his 
new  accomplishment. 

As  he  became  proficient  himself  in  the 
tongue,  he  could  readily  discern  that  the  vo- 
cabulary of  his  dusky  retainers  was  very  lim- 
ited— even  in  their  own  mongrel  dialect. 
What  easier  of  accomplishment,  then,  than 
an  acquaintance  with  the  courtly  Don  Senor 
Jose  de  Carillo?  Courtly  and  elegant,  re- 
fined and  intelligent,  proud  in  spirit,  though 
broken  in  purse,  Don  Jose  was  a  Castilian 
gentleman  of  the  old  school — once  so  com- 
mon ;  now,  alas,  becoming  so  rare  in  Cali- 
fornia. Once,  in  the  old  days,  he  had  held 
in  his  own  right  all  the  broad  domain  of 
General  Beale,  and  a  score  of  others  equally 
princely. 

As  did  all  his  class,  Don  Jose"  had  wel- 
comed the  coming  of  "Los  Americanos"  to 
the  country.  They  had  come  and  had 
brought  him — ruin.  It  was  the  old  story  of 
vexatious  lawsuits,  grasping  attorneys,  land 
thieves,  and  the  extravagance  of  a  large  fam- 
ily reveling  in  new  and  costly  luxuries.  Of 
all  his  great  possessions,  he  retained  but  the 
old  adobe  ranch  house,  large  and  roomy,  of 
La  Roblar,  and  a  few,  a  very  few,  acres  of 
land  surrounding  it. 


156 


The  Hermit  of  Sawmill  Mountain. 


[Aug. 


To  this  ranch  house  and  all  that  it  con- 
tained, Charles  Sydney  was  made  most  cor- 
dially welcome.  Of  course,  his  bright  face 
and  his  taste  for  fine  old  wines  and  brandies 
made  him  a  prime  favorite  with  the  old  Don 
— whose  own  sons  had  degenerated,  with  the 
easy  facility  of  their  race,  from  young  landed 
proprietors  into  sheep-herders,  vaqueros,  and 
what-not.  Sydney  was  a  favorite  with  the 
women,  too — but  then  he  had  always  been 
that.  They  did  not  seem  to  mind  his  drink- 
ing to  excess  occasionally.  They  seemed 
even  to  like  and  encourage  it,  esteeming  it 
rather  manly — as  is  the  way  with  their 
race. 

He  had  returned  to  his  old  habits,  you 
see.  And  he  seemed  almost  to  live  at  La 
Roblar,  abandoning  his  cottage  among  the 
pines  upon  the  mountain  side  to  the  mercies 
of  Ah  Yup  and  the  herders.  The  sheep  did 
not  need  his  immediate  supervision  ;  and  it 
was  much  pleasanter  here ;  and  the  folks  at 
home  would  never  know ;  and  —  well,  his 
correspondence  was  neglected,  of  course, 
and  Agnes  worried  herself  almost  sick  over 
his  short  letters  and  his  long  intervals  of 
silence. 

Of  course,  there  was  a  reason  for  all  this, 
aside  from  the  acquirement  of  a  knowledge 
of  the  Spanish — and  while  a  large  part  of 
that  reason  lay  in  the  good  cheer  which  pre- 
vailed at  La  Roblar,  I  very  much  fear  that 
a  larger  part  lay  in  the  witchery  which  lurked 
in  the  dreamy,  passionate,  black  eyes  of  the 
Don's  only  daughter,  Claudia. 

Truly  she  was  a  woman  to  make  a  man 
forget  all  the  world  beside  in  her  presence — 
her  form,  slight,  yet  rounded  in  the  perfect 
curves  of  Andalusia ;  eyes  liquid  with  mel- 
ancholy, yet  breathing  the  very  fire  of  tropi- 
cal longing  ;  skin  just  tinged  with  olive,  yet 
showing  beneath  its  satin  smoothness  the 
faintest  trace  of  richest  carmine  ;  long  lashes, 
drooping  ever  downward  ;  features  regular  in 
outline  as  some  delicate  sculpture ;  dainty, 
shapely  hands  and  feet;  a  curving  swell  of 
throat  and  neck ;  and  a  well  poised  head 
crowned  by  a  shimmering  mass  of  raven  hair, 
straight  as  the  tail  of  an  ebon  charger. 

Sydney  loved  her — almost  before  he  knew 


it.  What  was  the  cold  regard  he  had  felt 
for  Agnes  to  the  fiery  longing  for  possession 
which  now  filled  him  ?  And  yet — and  yet 
— sometimes  a  pale,  accusing,  beautiful  face 
would  rise  before  him,  and  he  could  find 
forgetfulness  only  when  he  felt  the  blood  of 
the  grape  tingling  in  his  finger  ends. 

Is  it  necessary  to  tell  that  Claudia  loved 
him  also  ?  Well  has  it  been  said  that  "  the 
Spanish  maid  is  no  coquette."  Why  should 
she  feel  shame  in  the  great  gift  which  had 
been  showered  upon  her  ? 

So  they  loved,  and  so  at  last  there  came 
a  time  when  Sydney's  passion  would  be  de- 
nied no  longer — and  a  day  had  been  set  for 
their  wedding. 

The  old  Don  made  no  objection.  Was 
not  his  prospective  son-in-law  at  least  appar- 
ently possessed  of  five  thousand  sheep  ? 
That  was  enough.  He  called  them  his  own. 
He  never  spoke  of  his  Eastern  relatives. 
For  all  Don  Jose  and  Claudia  knew  to  the 
contrary,  Charles  Sydney  might  have  been 
without  a  tie  on  earth.  It  was  not  their  cus- 
tom to  inquire  as  to  the  character  and  ante- 
cedents of  their  guests.  What  was  told  them 
they  believed.  More  they  cared  not  to  know. 

At  first,  Charles  had  told  them  nothing, 
simply  from  his  inability  to  do  so.  After- 
wards, as  he  grew  to  love  Claudia,  he  had 
remained  silent.  Confession  meant  renun- 
ciation— and  he  was  not  strong  enough  for 
that. 

But  he  was  even  more  criminally  silent 
than  he  had  been  to  Claudia ;  for  he  told 
Agnes  nothing  of  his  new  love,  his  engage- 
ment, or  his  approaching  marriage.  It  is 
true  he  wrote  her  no  such  warm  letters  as  of 
old — he  could  not  carry  deception  so  far  as 
that — but  she  attributed  this  silence  to  busi- 
ness cares  (as  he  had  intimated),  and,  wom- 
an-like, loved  and  trusted  on. 

Once,  only  once,  his  better  nature  had 
almost  conquered  him,  and  he  resolved  to 
tell  Claudia  and  brave  everything.  It  was 
perhaps  a  month  before  the  time  set  for  their 
wedding.  He  had  received  a  letter  from 
Agnes,  oh,  so  delicately  sympathetic,  telling 
him  gently  that  his  father  had  died  suddenly 
ten  days  before,  and  that  two  days  afterward 


1885.] 


The  Hermit  of  Sawmill  Mountain. 


157 


his  gentle  mother  had  followed  her  life-love 
to  the  grave. 

"You  need  not  come  home,  dearest 
Charlie,"  the  letter  concluded,  "  for  I  will 
settle  everything  and  come  to  you.  I  am 
quite  a  famous  business  woman.  There  is 
nothing  to  keep  us  apart  now,  and  /  can 
trust  you  " 

All  that  was  good  in  Charles  Sydney's 
nature  came  to  the  surface  at  the  receipt  of 
that  letter.  He  would  be  true  to  Agnes, 
cost  what  it  might.  Full  of  his  good  resolu- 
tion, he  went  to  La  Roblar.  Claudia  greet- 
ed him  lovingly,  as  was  her  wont,  clinging  to 
him  and  moving  before  him  with  the  lithe 
grace  of  a  lioness.  One  long  look  into  the 
passionate  depths  of  her  eyes,  and  his  tongue 
and  his  heart  failed  him.  Did  she  know, 
with  the  intuition  of  her  sex,  that  some- 
thing had  gone  wrong  with  her  lover  ?  She 
did  not  question  him ;  she  only  pressed  the 
gleaming  wine  upon  him,  and  he  drank  and 
was  silent. 

Of  course  he  cursed  himself,  returning  to 
his  lonely  home  that  night,  for  his  weakness 
— as  he  always  cursed  himself  when  not 
under  the  influence  of  drink.  But  at  least 
he  would  write  to  Agnes,  tell  her  the  truth, 
and  throw  himself  upon  her  generosity. 
That  much  he  could  and  would  do ;  but  he 
did  not  do  it.  It  was  an  unpleasant  task 
at  best,  and  from  day  to  day  he  postponed 
it. 

There  came  a  time  when  it  was  too  late. 
A  telegram  was  brought  from.  San  Buena- 
ventura, his  post-office,  couched  in  these 
words  : 

"  I  start  today.  Will  travel  as  far  as  Santa  Bar- 
bara with  the  Winters.  AGNES." 

Sydney  made  a  hurried  mental  calculation. 
In  just  ten  days  time  he  was  to  be  married 
in  the  Mission  Church  at  San  Buenaventura. 
Counting  for  the  delays  incident  .to  travel — 
and  he  knew  that  the  Winters  would  proba- 
bly travel  very  slowly — Agnes  would  reach 
Santa  Barbara  in,  say,  twelve  days.  That 
would  be  two  days  after  his  marriage.  He 
and  Claudia  were  to  take  Santa  Barbara  in 
on  their  wedding  trip  to  San  Francisco. 
They  could  change  their  plans  easily  enough 


to  meet  Agnes.  Then  he  would  introduce 
Claudia  as  his  wife,  and  let  the  women  settle 
it  between  them.  That,  he  reflected  philo- 
sophically, would  be  the  easiest  way  to  get 
it  over.  Of  course  Agnes  would  be  surprised 
— but  she  would  get  over  that.  She  never 
was  much  of  a  girl  for  making  a  scene,  any- 
way. 

He  spoke  to  Claudia  about  the  change  that 
night,  telling  her  he  desired  to  introduce 
some  Eastern  friends  who  were  coming  out. 
Of  course  she  acquiesced,  and  then  the  sub- 
ject dropped.  Claudia  had  no  time  to  make 
inquiries  as  to  who  these  "friends"  were, 
and  Sydney  chose  to  smoke  his  pipe  and 
congratulate  himself  upon  the  easy  road 
which  had  opened  out  of  his  difficulties. 

HI. 

THE  Concord  wagon  running  by  night  be- 
tween Santa  Barbara  and  San  Buenaventura 
rattled  to  the  front  door  of  the  principal 
hotel  in  the  latter  place  with  a  great  noise 
and  clatter  at  sharp  midnight.  Only  one 
passenger,  a  lady,  dusty  and  travel-stained, 
alighted.  She  was  received  by  the  night- 
clerk,  and  shown  at  once  to  her  room.  The 
clerk  was  new  at  the  business,  and  so  forgot 
to  request  her  to  register — an  omission  for 
which,  afterwards,  she  came  to  be  most  de- 
voutly thankful.  In  the  hurry  of  business  in 
the  morning,  this  oversight  was  not  noticed 
in  time  to  remedy  it,  and  to  the  hotel  books 
she  came  to  be  known  only  as  "the  lady  in 
No.  7."  She  had  a  valise,  certainly,  but  it 
was  taken  by  request  to  her  room.  Her 
trunk,  through  the  exigencies  of  stage  travel, 
she  had  been  compelled  to  leave  in  Santa 
Barbara. 

Agnes  Denton,  for  the  solitary  arrival  at 
the  hotel  was  none  other,  found  very  little 
sleep  visit  her  couch  that  night.  Her  sur- 
roundings were  so  strange,  she  had  seen  so 
much  of  novelty  lately,  that  it  was  no  great 
wonder.  And  then,  she  was  just  a  little  bit 
put  out  that  Charlie  had  not  met  her  at  the 
stage.  "I  would  not  let  him  arrive  alone 
and  uflwelcomed  in  a  strange  town,"  she 
thought.  "Poor  fellow;  I  suppose  he  grew 


158 


The  Hermit  of  Sawmill  Mountain. 


[Aug. 


tired,  and  went  to  bed,  thinking  to  see  me 
in  the  morning.  He  may  be  in  this  very 
house,  now — or  there  may  be  other  hotels; 
or  perhaps  he  had  not  expected  me  so  soon. 
He  would  think  that  the  Winters  had  trav- 
eled slower  than  they  actually  had." 

Her  conflicting  thoughts  thus  kept  her 
tossing  restlessly  until  broad  bands  of  sun- 
shine stole  in  at  her  window,  and  lay  quiver- 
ing upon  the  worn  "  three-ply  "  carpet ;  and 
she  arose  feverish  and  unrested. 

She  found  herself  the  first  arrival  in  the 
long,  low-ceiled  dining-room,  and  sipped  her 
tea  and  ate  her  poached  egg  with  but  very 
little  relish.  Everything  was  clean  and  neat, 
and  bright  and  pretty,  but  her  appetite  had 
deserted  her. 

Afterwards  she  went  up  stairs  into  the 
plainly  furnished  parlor,  and  sat  gazing  idly 
out  upon  a  street  upon  which,  in  spots,  green 
grass  was  growing,  and  where  a  wagon,  dust- 
covered,  and  apparently  from  somewhere  in 
the  mountain  country,  was  passing  now  and 
again.  A  few  vagrant  flies  drummed  idly 
against  the  window,  and  across  the  street  a 
row  of  low,  tile-roofed  adobes  seemed  to  sleep 
in  the  indolent  atmosphere.  Further  up  town 
there  was  a  quaint  old  church,  its  white- 
washed walls  fairly  glimmering  in  the  sun- 
shine, with  antique  wooden  doors  and  deep- 
set,  small-paned  windows,  and  low,  massive 
belfry,  with  a  double  chime  of  bells  in  full 
view;  while  still  higher  up  the  street,  where 
the  rows  of  adobe  broke  and  mingled  with 
tiny  frame  stores  and  square-fronted  bricks, 
there  seemed  to  be  a  slight  stir  as  of  business 
— but  it  was  very  slight.  Plank  sidewalks 
lined  the  street  on  either  side,  and  up  toward 
the  hillsides  there  were  glimpses  of  beautiful 
gardens  and  waving  trees — and  this  was  Jan- 
uary. 

All  of  this,  however,  had  but  very  slight 
interest  to  Agnes.  She  might  grow  to  like 
the  town,  and  she  might  not.  It  did  not 
matter  so  much,  either.  Charley  had  written 
that  he  lived  among  the  pines,  and  she  knew 
that  must  be  pleasant ;  anywhere  would  be 
pleasant  with  him — and  then  she  branched 
off  into  a  train  of  visionary  musing,  as  girls 
will,  which  was  broken  by  the  entrance  of 


the  landlady — a  bustling  Western  woman, 
gifted  with  her  full  share  of  curiosity. 

"Got  any  friends  about  yer,  Miss? "she 
said,  with  the  freedom  peculiar  to  her  kind. 

"Oh,  yes,"  said  Agnes,  blushing  a  trifle. 
"  I  expect  a  gentleman — a  friend — to  meet 
me  here." 

"  Does  he  live  in  these  parts,  this  friend 
of  yours,  Miss  ?  Maybe  I  mought  know  him. 
I  reckon  I  know  everybody  about  yer, 
mostly." 

Agnes  hesitated  a  moment,  and  then,  some- 
thing of  kindly  sympathy  in  the  woman's 
homely  face  appealing  to  her,  she  answered  : 

"  His  name  is  Sydney — Charles  Sydney. 
He  has  a  sheep  farm  somewhere  on  Sawmill 
Mountain — or  some  such  place  as  that — I 
think.  Do  you  know  him  ?  " 

"  Why,  in  course  I  know  him.  Why,  he's 
the  feller  that's  a  goin  to  git  married  tonight 
to  old  Don  Josti  Carillo's  darter,  Claudy.  Is 
he  kinsfolk  of  yourn,  Miss?" 

Married  !  For  a  moment  a  great  cloud 
seemed  to  swim  before  Agnes  Denton's  eyes. 
She  thought  that  she  was  going  to  faint — but 
she  did  not.  Pale  and  cold,  with  a  chill 
which  struck  to  her  very  heart,  she  recovered 
her  composure  with  an  effort ;  and  the  wo- 
man still  droned  on  : 

"  Sydney's  the  feller  they  call  the  '  Hermit 
of  Sawmill  Mountain' — the  boys  call  him 
that,  Miss,  for  no  earthly  reason,  as  I  kin 
see,  except  that  he  haint  never  alone.  Allus 
got  some  boys  havin'  a  good  time  at  his 
place,  er  out  somewheres  a  rampagin'  around 
with  the  Spanish  gals.  Did  you  say  he  was 
kin  o'  yourn,  Miss?  'Cause  he's  in  the 
house,  now,  and  if  yer  want  to  see  'im,  I'll 
send  him  up.  He  come  in  to  git  married 
tonight,  as  I  said  afore,  and  maybe  he'd 
want  to  see  you." 

The  woman  started  toward  the  door  as 
she  spoke..  It  seemed  to  Agnes  that  she 
went  over  her  whole  life  in  a  flash,  before 
she  said : 

"  No,  I  do  not  wish  to  see  him — just  yet." 
The  woman  stopped,  looking   at  her  in 
slight  surprise.     For  only  a  moment  did  Ag- 
nes doubt.     The  landlady's   face   was   the 
very  essence  of  sympathy.      She  could   be 


885.] 


The  Hermit  of  Sawmill  Mountain. 


159 


trusted.  Agnes  was  utterly  alone — silence 
was  killing  her — she  knew  no-other  woman 
— she  must  tell  some  one — she  must  have 
advice  and  help.  She  looked  up  and  spoke 
again  : 

"  Will  you  come  to  my  room  in  half  an 
hour  ?  I  must  have  time  to  think — and,  in 
the  meantime,  do  not  tell  Mr.  Sydney  nor 
— nor  anybody — that  I  am  here." 

Then  she  walked  steadily  down  the  hall 
and  entered  Room  7.  It  took  her  a  long 
time  to  think  out  her  position— to  realize 
that  the  man  she  loved  was  untrue  to  her. 

"  It  cannot  be,"  she  moaned.  "  It  cannot 
be." 

And  yet  reason  told  her  that  it  was  true. 
It  was  preposterous  to  think;  as  she  had  at 
one  moment  wilfully  hoped,  that  there  were 
two  Charles  Sydneys  in  the  same  place,  and 
engaged  in  the  same  business.  At  all  events, 
her  line  of  conduct  was  marked  out  plainly 
enough.  She  would  see  this  man — herself 
unseen — and  if  it  were  her  Charles,  why  he 
should  never  know  that  she  had  seen  him. 
With  a  great  sigh  of  relief  she  remembered 
that  she  had  not  put  her  name  upon  the 
register  the  night  before. 

Promptly  as  the  half-hour  expired,  there 
was  a  soft  rap  at  the  door,  and  the  landlady 
entered.  Her  face  fairly  beamed  with  good- 
natured  curiosity  and  kindly  sympathy. 

Agnes  was  in  manner  almost  her  old  self 
as  she  met  the  woman.  "  I  am  going  to  tell 
you  a  secret,1'  she  said,  "and  to  ask  you  to 
help  me.  I  know  that  you  can." 

"  Ef  I  kin,  I  will,"  the  woman  said,  ener- 
getically. 

"  I  have  known  Charles  Sydney  all  his 
life,"  Agnes  went  on,  speaking  with  nervous 
rapidity.  "  I  am  engaged  to  be  married  to 
him,  and  I  came  out  here  to  fulfil  that  en- 
gagement. You  tell  me  that  he  is  to  be 
married  tonight.  I  do  not  know  that  this 
is.  the  same  man — but  I  think  that  it  is.  I 
must  see  him — but  where  he  cannot  see  me 
—and  find  whether  it  is  he  or  no.  There 
has  been  some  terrible  misunderstanding, 
but  if  it  is  the  same  man  he  must  never  know 
of  my  presence  here.  Never!  Do  you  un- 
derstand? I  have  plenty  of  money,  and 


shall  return  East  without  my  presence  com- 
ing to  his  knowledge.  I  should  like  also  to 
see  the  woman  he  is  to  marry.  Can  it  be 
managed  ?  " 

"  Easy  enough,  miss.  The  Padre  marries 
'em  at  the  Mission  at  eight  o'clock  tonight. 
Ef  you  hev  a  thick  veil  we  can  easy  slip  into 
a  back  seat  unbeknownst  to  nobody.  Most 
likely,  only  the  candles  up  front  will  be  lit." 

Promptly  as  the  vesper  bells  chimed  eight 
o'clock  that  January  evening,  two  well-filled 
carriages  dashed  up  to  the  front  of  the  Mis- 
sion church  and  discharged  their  loads  of 
gayly  chattering  occupants.  On  the  arm  of 
the  stately  old  Don  Jose,  Claudia  swept 
down  the  center  aisle  of  the  church  between 
the  stiff-backed  pews,  her  darkly  glorious 
beauty  trebly  enhanced  by  the  cloud  of  tulle, 
and  satin,  and  old  point  lace  in  which  she 
moved.  Behind  them,  leading  the  Dona 
Carillo,  was  Sydney — erect  and  handsome, 
but  with  flushed  face  and  sparkling  eye, 
which  to  one  watcher,  at  least,  betokened 
heavy  potations.  After  the  bridal  party,  a 
gay  crowd  swept  up  the  aisle,  and  ranged 
themselves  in  silence  before  the  altar  rail. 

Within  the  church  a  dim,  shadowy  dark- 
ness half  hid  and  half  revealed  the  solemn 
scene.  The  candles  upon  the  altar  gleamed 
like  stars  upon  the  surrounding  gloom,  and 
the  ghostly  light  of  a  young  moon  mapped 
upon  the  floor  the  outlines  of  the  western 
windows.  Upon  the  walls  the  faded  pictures 
of  the  Passion  were  but  darker  spots  upon 
the  darkness — and  the  large  crucifix  upon 
the  western  side,  with  its  drawn  face  of  tense, 
bitter  agony,  was  brought  out  startlingly  by 
the  one  swinging  lamp  which  burned  before 
it.  Upward  the  rudely  painted  walls  faded 
into  darkness,  and  the  great  rafters  holding 
the  roof  might  have  been  the  supports  of  the 
vault  of  heaven — so  high,  and  dim,  and  dark 
did  they  seem. 

From  one  side  a  priest  in  the  sacred  vest- 
ments of  his  order  moved  softly  like  a  shad- 
ow, and  took  position  in  front  of  the  high 
altar  with  its  lofty  gilt  cornice,  its  showy 
mirrors,  and  its  solemn  symbols.  Turning 
slowly  to  face  the  church,  he  raised  his  hands 
in  solemn  silence.  The  bridal  party  knelt 


160 


The  Hermit  of  Sawmill  Mountain. 


[Aug. 


reverently  to  receive  the  blessing.  Then  the 
priest  advanced  to  the  rail,  and  began  the 
impressive  marriage  service  of  the  Catholic 
Church. 

No  one  had  heeded  the  two  women,  close- 
ly veiled,  who  crouched  in  a  pew  far  back  as 
the  bridal  party  entered.  Now,  as  the  cere- 
mony was  concluded,  and  the  bride  and 
groom  turned  with  their  friends  to  leave  the 
church,  no  one  noticed  that  one  of  these 
women  had  fallen  back  limp  and  white,  and 
lay  as  one  dead  against  the  high  back  of  the 
pew.  Only  the  landlady  of  the  hotel  knew 
what  had  happened,  and  she  dared  give  no 
alarm,  fearful  of — she  knew  not  what. 

Charles  Sydney  did  not  know,  would  nev- 
er know,  that  when  he  left  that  church  with 
his  new-made  wife,  a  proud  and  happy  bride- 
groom, he  left  within  its  walls  so  much  of 
heart-ache  and  bitter  woe. 

Arriving  at  Santa  Barbara,  of  course,  Syd- 
ney made  diligent  inquiries  for  Agnes.  The 
Winters,  he  found,  had  not  been  there  at  all. 
They  had  passed  down  on  the  steamer  on 
the  1 2th — the  day  before  his  marriage — but 
had  gone  on  to  either  Los  Angeles  or  San 
Diego.  So  far  as  he  could  learn,  there  had 
been  no  young  lady  with  them.  The  clerk 
at  the  hotel,  after  his  memory  had  been  re- 
freshed, remembered  that  a  young  lady  had 
left  the  steamer  on  the  i2th,  and  at  once 
taken  the  night  stage  for  Ventura.  She  had 
left  her  trunk  at  the  hotel,  but  had  returned 
on  the  night  stage  of  the  i3th,  and  at  once 
taken  the  stage  for  San  Luis  Obispo.  He 
thought  that  she  meant  to  catch  the  steamer 
there,  going  north,  but  was  not  certain.  Did 
not  remember  her  name,  but  did  not  think 
it  was  Denton.  She  had  breakfasted  there 
on  the  1 3th.  but  had  not  registered. 

Clearly  this  could  not  be  Agnes,  thought 
the  sagacious  Charles — and  he  gave  up  the 
search,  contenting  himself  with  sending  her 
his  wedding  cards.  Something  had  prevent- 
ed her  coming,  he  supposed.  Then  he 
shrugged  his  shoulders,  after  the  manner  of 
his  kind,  at  the  vagaries  of  women,  and  con- 
gratulated himself  on  the  fact  that  she  had 
not  come. 

The  receipt  of  the  cards  was  never  ac- 


knowledged. Sydney  received  a  note  from 
his  father's  lawyer,  stating  that  the  farm  had 
been  sold,  as  per  request,  and  the  money 
placed  to  his  credit  in  an  Eastern  bank. 

After  that,  everything  pertaining  to  his 
past  life  was  dead  to  him  as  though  it  had 
never  been.  He  invested  his  inherited 
wealth  in  sheep— and  for  a  time  all  went 
well  with  him. 


IV. 


THE  rainy  season  of  '76  opened  very  au- 
spiciously in  Southern  California  with  an 
early  fall  of  rain  in  November,  starting  the 
grass  in  hill  and  canon,  and  putting  the  agri- 
cultural land  in  excellent  shape  for  working. 

But  December  came  and  went,  and  '77 
opened,  but  there  was  no  more  rain.  Old 
settlers  began  to  shake  their  heads  ominous- 
ly, and  to  talk  of  the  great  drought  of  '63. 
Wise  stock-men  looked  out  for  and  secured 
all  additional  available  range,  and  farmers, 
alarmed  at  the  prognostications  of  wise- 
acres, hesitated  to  plant  where  there  was  no 
prospect  of  harvest.  Then  the  plowed  fields 
became'  wastes  of  dust,  and  it  was  too  late 
to  plant.  January  waxed  and  waned,  but  the 
rain  came  not. 

Charles  Sydney,  with  his  broad  ranges  and 
his  ten  thousand  fat  sheep,  laughed  at  the 
fears  of  his  neighbors.  In  the  five  years  that 
he  had  been  in  the  country  there  had  been 
no  such  thing  as  a  drought.  Such  a  thing 
was  impossible.  The  February  rains  would 
start  the  grass,  and  in  the  meantime  he  had 
abundance  of  the  glorious  grasses  of  Cali- 
fornia which  dry  upon  the  ground,  and  make 
a  hay  which  needs  no  harvesting. 

He  had  been  married  a  little  over  a  year 
now,  and  shortly  expected  that  a  greater 
blessing  even  than  his  wife  had  proved  would 
be  bestowed  upon  him. 

But  the  dry  spell  continued.  February 
was  well  advanced,  and  even  the  most  san- 
guine began  to  lose  heart.  Sydney  had  not 
been  prepared  for  such  a  contingency  as  now 
confronted  him.  His  sheep  began  to  die — 
literally  starving  to  death — at  first  one  or  two 
daily,  and  then  in  steadily  increasing  num- 


1885.] 


The  Hermit  of  Sawmill  Mountain. 


161 


bers.  More  range  could  not  be  procured, 
for  there  was  none.  The  country  was  scorch- 
ing all  around  him.  In  December  some 
more  fortunate  owners  had  driven  their 
stock  into  Arizona,  but  it  was  too  late  now 
to  think  of  that.  The  attempt  would  be 
madness,  for  there  was  no  feed  along  the 
route. 

In  the  San  Francisco  market  sheep  had 
gone  steadily  down  to  twenty-five  cents  per 
head.  Then  they  ceased  to  be  quoted. 
There  were  no  takers.  The  local  market 
was  glutted  with  mutton,  for  the  sheep  men 
sought  thus  to  save  some  small  share  of  their 
investment.  Fifty  cents  for  a  sheep,  skinned 
and  dressed,  was  the  ordinary  price.  Clearly, 
^he  could  not  dispose  of  his  stock.  It  is 
doubtful  if  he  could  have  even  given  them 
away. 

The  feed  upon  the  ground  had  dried  up 
long  ago,  and  had  been  swept  away  in  clouds 
of  dust  by  the  hot  winds,  which  came  like  the 
breath  of  a  furnace  from  the  scorching  sands 
of  the  Mojave  Desert. 

One  day  in  early  March,  Charles  and  his 
herders  had  killed  two  thousand  lambs — 
knocked  them  in  the  head,  ruthlessly,  to 
prevent  starvation.  It  was  pitiful,  but  there 
was  no  room  for  pity. 

At  last  Sydney  saw  that  but  one  resource 
was  left  him.  He  would  establish  a  matanza 
forthwith,  and  slaughter  his  flocks  for  their 
pelts.  The  little  shearing  house  down  upon 
the  creek  bank  was  speedily  prepared  for 
the  work.  In  two  days  it  was  in  full  opera- 
tion, killing  at  the  rate  of  five  hundred  per 
day,  and  the  green  hides  were  being  cured 
for  transportation. 

But  a  greater  calamity  even  than  the  loss 
of  his  flocks  was  in  store  for  the  man.  One 
Friday  night  his  wife  was  taken  suddenly  ill, 
and  on  Sunday  they  carried  her  to  rest  in  the 
old  Mission  churchyard  in  San  Buenaven- 
tura. Upon  her  breast  a  little  baby  lay,  fair- 
haired  and  waxen-fingered,  which  had  never 
opened  its  eyes  upon  the  world. 

Sydney   seemed  to   give   up    everything 
after  the  funeral,  going  about  everywhere  as 
one  in  a  dream.     He  was  listless  and  restless. 
All  interest  had  gone  out  of  life. 
VOL.  VI.— it. 


It  was  at  this  time  of  trouble  that  the 
image  of  Agnes  Denton,  fair  and  smiling, 
again  rose  before  him.  He  would  go  to  her, 
he  thought.  Though  she  might  despise 
him,  she  would  still  pity  him  and  comfort 
him  in  his  sorrow.  He  was  very  humble 
now.  Whatever  of  her  great  sympathy  she 
chose  to  accord  him,  he  would  accept  it 
thankfully,  and  would  ask  for  no  more. 

At  first,  I  think,  he  only  wanted  to  be 
near  some  one  who  knew  him  and  who  would 
condole  with  him  in  his  sorrow.  Don  Jose" 
and  the  Dona  were  kind,  but  they  did  not 
know  and  could  not  understand. 

He  began  at  once  to  prepare  for  his  de- 
parture from  Southern  California.  His  bus- 
iness affairs  were  soon  arranged  ;  his  pelts 
disposed  of  to  the  best  advantage,  to  a  peri- 
patetic Basque  dealer  in  hides  and  tallow, 
and  he  was  ready  to  start.  The  cabin  he 
would  -leave  as  it  was,  simply  locking  the 
doors  and  placing  the  key  in  charge  of  Don 
Jose\  There  was  nothing  but  his  immediate 
personal  effects  that  he  cared  to  take  with 
him,  and  some  day  in  the  future,  perhaps, 
when  he  was  happier,  it  might  be  a  source  of 
melancholy  pleasure  to  return  here  for  a 
season  and  to  muse  over  the  happiness  which 
had  gone  out  of  his  life  forever.  The  cabin 
and  its  contents  were  safe  from  molestation 
until  his  lease  of  the  land  expired,  five  years 
yet. 

It  was  on  the  25th  day  of  April  that  he 
mounted  his  horse — a  splendid  animal,  kind- 
ly loaned  him  for  his  ride  into  town  by  Don 
Jose — and  turned  to  bid  farewell  to  valley 
and  mountain  and  whispering  pines. 

"  It  is  the  day  upon  which  my  five  years' 
probation  expires,"  he  muttered,  smiling 
sadly. 

Slowly  he  rode  into  town  and  stabled  his 
horse.  Then,  from  force  of  habit,  he  en- 
tered the  postoffice  and  asked  for  mail.  A 
newspaper  was  handed  him,  but  he  put  it 
into  his  pocket  without  so  much  as  a  glance 
at  the  handwfiting  in  which  it  was  directed. 

He  thought  of  it  again  at  supper  that 
evening,  and  pulling  it  out,  prepared  to  glance 
over  it,  while  waiting  the  filling  of  his  order. 
It  was  a  copy  of  a  New  York  paper,  he  no- 


162 


The  Bent  of  International  Intercourse. 


[Aug. 


ticed,  dated  April  i2th.  Carelessly  his  eye 
ran  down  the  column,  until  arrested  by  the 
following  paragraph,  which  was  marked  : 

MARRIED. — In  Grace   Church,  yesterday,  by  Rev. 

,  Mr.  Henry  Rollins,  of  this  city,  and  Miss 

Agnes  Denton,  of  Buffalo.     No  cards. 

The  couple  will  sail  for  Europe  on  the  "Scotia" 

today. 

The  waiter  brought  Charles  Sydney  his 
supper,  but  it  remained  untouched  upon  the 
table.  He  sat  there  silently,  gazing  into  va- 
cancy. His  room  was  needed  at  last,  and 
the  waiter  approached  and  touched  him  re- 
spectfully upon  the  shoulder.  Then,  slowly 
and  painfully,  as  an  old  man  moves,  Sydney 
arose  and  staggered  out  into  the  night. 

I  WAS  deer-hunting  in  the  Lockwood  val- 
ley last  summer,  and  I  saw  thet  Hermit  of 
Sawmill  Mountain,  sitting  quietly  in  the  door 
of  his  cabin,  and  smoking  a  meerschaum 
pipe,  which  never  leaves  his  lips,  they  say, 


day  or  night.  He  arose  as  we  drove  up, 
and  tottered  out  into  the  sunshine.  His 
gait  was  feeble  and  stooping,  his  eyes  lack- 
lustre, his  hair  silver-gray,  his  hands  nerve- 
less, and  his  whole  appearance  that  of  a  man 
prematurely  aged.  He  partook  freely,  with 
very  little  urging,  of  our  liquid  supplies,  and 
afterwards  grew  quite  garrulous.  He  was  a 
trifle  daft,  I  concluded,  for  he  jumbled  Ho- 
mer and  Virgil  and  the  latest  market  quota- 
tions together  in  inextricable  confusion.  It 
was  evident,  however,  that  his  education  had 
been  excellent.  With  a  grandiloquent  wave 
of  the  hand  he  placed  the  whole  valley  at 
our  disposal,  and  then  tottered  back  into  his 
cabin  as  we  rode  off. 

Thus,  it  is  said,  he  treats  all  campers  and 
wayfarers.  At  other  times  he  sits  alone  in 
his  cabin,  muttering  to  himself  and  smoking, 
and,  in  times  of  high  winds,  bending  his 
head  to  catch  the  music  of  the  pines,  and 
waiting — waiting — for  what  ? 

Sol.  Sheridan. 


THE  BENT  OF  INTERNATIONAL  INTERCOURSE. 


THE  gift  by  a  foreign  country  to  the  United 
States  of  a  statue  of  "  Liberty  enlightening 
the  World,"  carries  with  it  a  compliment  of 
no  inconsiderable  significance.  It  is  a  testi- 
monial to  the  fact  that  Liberty  has  found  a 
congenial  home  within  our  confines.  And 
what  is  Liberty  ?  "  Liberty,"  says  Victor 
Hugo,  "is  the  climate  of  civilization"" 

But  in  the  face  of  this,  what  do  we  see? 
Alien  writers  and  lecturers  coming  to  this 
country,  assuming  the  right  to  teach  the 
people,  and  proclaiming  Europe  as  an  exem- 
plar, because  they  have  been  reared  in  an 
older  civilization  and  received  its  approval. 
Throughout  their  discourses  Europe  is  their 
standpoint,  and  the  way  things  are  done  in 
Europe  is  their  standard.  But  who  is  pre- 
pared to  accept  this  criterion  ?  Who,  among 
Americans,  is  willing  to  admit  that  the  new 
world  would  be  altogether  better  for  instruc- 
tion from  the  old  ?  Thomas  Jefferson  makes 
the  admission,  it  is  true,  but  in  a  way  from 


which  it  is  not  necessary  to  dissent.  During 
the  days  of  his  diplomatic  service  abroad, 
writing  to  James  Monroe,  he  says : 

"  I  sincerely  wish  that  you  may  find  it  convenient 
to  come  here ;  the  pleasure  of  the  trip  will  be  less 
than  you  expect,  but  the  utility  greater.  It  will  make 
you  adore  your  own  country,  its  soil,  its  climate,  its 
equality,  liberty,  laws,  people,  and  manners." 

What  would  be  the  effect  of  such  advice 
upon  this  generation?  Let  an  American 
hailing  from  any  of  the  States  of  the  Atlantic 
sea-board  travel  abroad  today,  and  he  will 
no  doubt  find  a  great  contrast  between  that 
life  with  which  he  is  familiar  and  that  which 
he  observes.  But  let  a  resident  of  any  of 
the  Western  States  make  the  same  tour,  and 
to  him  the  contrast  will  be  much  more 
marked,  and  the  patriotic  profit  of  travel, 
perhaps,  be  greater,  because  the  recent  States 
of  the  Union,  within  the  last  three  or  four 
decades,  have  come  to  more  closely  resem- 
ble the  country  of  Jefferson  than  do  the 


1885.] 


The  Bent  of  Intrenational  Intercourse. 


163 


colonial  States  themselves.  Remote  from 
that  sea-board  which  is  most  exposed  to  the 
Old  World,  they  have,  without  effort,  pre- 
served traditions  and  developed  traits  which 
are  still  called  American,  though  often  des- 
ignated in  deference  to  foreign  criticism, 
"  Philistine." 

The  first  traveler,  while  he  pursues  his 
way,  is  more  apt  to  become  enamored  of 
European  life,  and  lingers  abroad  ;  but  the 
other,  more  sensible  to  the  artificial  charac- 
ter of  his  new  surroundings,  will  probably 
become  more  attached  to  the  life  which  he 
has  left  behind,  and  long  to  return  :  he  will 
think  with  Hawthorne,  that  the  years  he 
spends  on  a  foreign  shore  have  a  sort  of 
emptiness,  and  that  he  defers  the  reality  of 
life  until  he  breathes  again  his  native  air. 
This  predilection  in  favor  of  his  own  coun- 
try does  not  arise  from  any  incapacity  to 
enjoy  the  magnificence  of  the  old  civiliza- 
tion, its  treasures  and  refinements,  but  he 
distinguishes  after  his  own  manner  between 
a  salon  and  a  home,  between  passing  pleas- 
ures and  permanent  interest,  between  false 
standards  of  conduct  and  what  he  regards  as 
the  more  serious  duties  of  life.  Such  a  man 
has  little  sympa'thy  with  Europe.  But  the 
other  is  impressed  differently:  bred,  perhaps, 
in  a  State  that,  by  closer  contact  with  the  old 
world,  has  fallen  into  many  of  its  ways,  ac- 
cepted its  criteria,  and  submitted  to  its  cen- 
sorship, he  is  not  so  jealous  of  the  distin- 
guishing characteristics  of  his  native  country. 
He  takes  pleasure  in  possessing  the  real  of 
which  before  he  had  only  an  imitation.  But 
he  is  only  one  of  a  large  and  may  be  increas- 
ing class  living  on  the  eastern  verge  of  our 
continent,  who  look  upon  America  as  a  poor 
copy  of  the  master  prototype  across  the  wa- 
ter. 

Europe  possesses  the  accumulations  of 
the  ages,  which  are,  it  is  true,  drawn  upon 
by  America,  but  discriminatingly ;  and  this 
wise  discrimination  is,  or  has  been,  one  of 
Columbia's  cardinal  virtues.  She  rejected 
manners,  morals,  ideas,  and  rule,  and  in 
these  vital  respects  became  a  law  unto  her- 
self. What  influence  Europe  exerted  over 
early  America  was,  for  the  most  part,  nega- 


tive :  the  fathers  of  the  republic,  by  knowing 
Europe,  knew  what  to  avoid.  Principles 
were  formulated  and  constitutions  made  in 
consonance  with  an  ideal  government  in 
which  the  most  people  should  be  the  most 
benefited.  But  the  conspicuous  feature  of 
them  all  was  their  antagonism  to  the  prevail- 
ing foreign  methods.  In  these  principles 
and  instruments  there  was  but  little  copied ; 
it  will  even  be  admitted  that  they  showed 
considerable  creative  intellect,  something 
which  is  often  denied  to  America ;  and,  at 
the  time  of  their  adoption,  Europe  rather 
noisily  proclaimed  them  the  height  of  original- 
ity, not  to  say  worse.  Certainly  the  mother 
country  disclaimed  all  responsibility  for  the 
new  creation,  and  America  was  left  to  her 
own  destiny. 

But  what  this  country  might  have  been  with- 
out Europe's  example  and  contribution,  has 
occasionally  afforded  a  subject  of  speculation 
for  curious  minds.  Disraeli,  in  one  of  his  nov- 
els, makes  Shelley,  who  figures  for  the  time  as 
a  character  of  fiction,  exclaim  :  "I  wish  that 
the  Empire  of  the  Incas  and  the  Kingdom  of 
Montezuma  had  not  been  sacrificed  ;  I  wish 
that  the  republic  of  the  Puritans  had  blended 
with  the  tribes  of  the  wilderness."  Then,  he 
thinks,  the  Americans  would  be  an  original 
people,  and  have  a  nationality ;  otherwise 
not. 

But  such  rank  originality  as  this  would  be 
hardly  desirable.  A  people  with  pretensions 
to  a  race,  language,  and  skin  of  their  own 
might  have  resulted ;  and  while  this  would 
have  gladdened  the  poet's  heart,  it  would 
not  have  contributed  to  the  substantial  hap- 
piness of  mankind.  No;  the  essence  of 
American  nationality  must  be  sought  and 
found  in  the  republican  form  of  government 
and  all  that  flows  from  it ;  for  the  distinguish- 
ing characteristics  of  the  people  are  not  in 
the  color  of  their  skins,  but  in  the  color  of 
their  minds ;  not  in  the  words  they  adopt  to 
express  their  ideas,  but  in  the  ideas  them- 
selves. 

A  nationality  founded  on  institutions, 
ideas,  manners,  and  morals  is,  however,  sub- 
ject to  change.  If  formerly,  as  it  has  been 
remarked,  the  influence  which  Europe  ex- 


The  Bent  of  International  Intercourse. 


[Aug. 


erted  on  this  country  was  to  a  large  extent 
negative  and  advantageous,  of  late  positive 
influences  have  prevailed  which  seem  to  war 
with  the  design  and  true  distinction  of  Amer- 
ica. Due  to  this  cause  is  the  fact  often  ob- 
served, that  the  United  States  do  not  now 
possess  in  the  same  degree  the  national  vir- 
tues which  adorned  their  early  history. 
There  is  not  among  all  classes  the  same  at- 
tachment to  democracy  and  confidence  in 
its  success,  nor  the  same  simple  life.  The 
political  ideals  have  fallen  from  the  estab- 
lishment of  liberty  and  happiness  to  ends 
less  worthy  and  more  material.  The  old 
school  of  statesmen  would  inquire  what  ef- 
fect innovations  would  have  upon  man,  the 
new  school  upon  money ;  and  where  there 
was  once  a  people  there  is  now  a  populace. 
Under  a  paternal  policy  special  interests  have 
been  so  fostered,  to  the  general  loss,  that 
great  inequalities  of  wealth  have  resulted, 
creating  those  conditions  in  this  country 
most  favorable  to  the  growth  of  European 
institutions. 

Even  now  throughout  the  Atlantic  States 
foreign  tastes  and  manners  have  taken  hold 
of  a  large  section  of  society.  There  is  a 
mania  for  English  "form"  and  French 
modes,  and  rules  and  regulations  as  to  con- 
duct and  costume  are  not  only  accepted 
from  abroad,  but  eagerly  sought.  In  mat- 
ters of  etiquette  and  dress,  America  is  with- 
out a  convention.  What  is  indigenous  is 
inelegant. 

When  the  Due  de  Chartres  and  the 
Comte  d'Artois  introduced  English  sports 
and  fashions  into  France  to  the  prejudice  of 
their  own,  even  the  Court  of  Louis  xvi.,  on 
the  score  of  national  pride,  condemned  their 
course,  and  required  them  to  abandon  their 
folly.  And  Carlyle  indulges  his  sarcasm 
when  he  refers  to  the  period,  and  says  :  "  O 
beautiful  days  of  international  communion  ! 
Swindlery  and  blackguardism  have  stretched 
hands  across  the  channel  and  saluted  mu- 
tually." 

In  this  country  public  opinion,  that  unique 
force,  is  opposing  the  Anglo  and  other 
manias  which  afflict  the  land,  but  not  always 
with  success.  Sports,  wines,  vehicles,  lan- 


guage, manners,  arts  —  fine,  culinary,  and 
dubious — are  supplanting  our  own,  and  with 
increased  intercourse  the  danger  is  from  an 
inundation  which  will  sweep  away  the  re- 
sults of  a  century  of  independence.  In- 
deed, public  opinion  itself  is  not  impreg- 
nable to  attack.  Fifty  years  ago,  when 
Tocqueville  wrote  his  "  Democracy,"  it  may 
be  said  without  pessimism,  that  America 
had  a  more  marked  individuality,  and  even 
more  creditable  characteristics  than  are  ob- 
servable today.  Notwithstanding  the  severe 
drawing  of  the  old  master,  the  picture  he 
has  given  us  of  the  United  States  at 
that  period  is  refreshing  to  contemplate. 
The  people  were  happy,  equality  of  condi- 
tions had  some  reality,  excessive  individual 
importance  was  unknown,  corporations  were 
undeveloped,  the  avenues  to  office  were 
clean,  the  voters,  to  his  knowledge,  had 
never  been  bribed,  and  politics  were  a  field 
on  which  the  best  men  of  the  day  were 
proud  to  contend.  Employment  was  uni- 
versal, leisure  exceptional,  luxury  discour- 
aged, and  the  tyranny  of  fashion  no  more 
submitted  to  than  that  of  King  George. 
Men  were  still  'intensely  serious  in  the  work 
of  maintaining  free  government  without  sel- 
fish incentive,  and  their  patriotism  amounted 
even  to  vanity.  "If  I  say  to  an  American 
that  the  country  he  lives  in  is  a  fine  one, 
'Aye,'  he  replies,  '  there  is  not  its  fellow  in 
the  world.'  If  I  applaud  the  freedom  its 
inhabitants  enjoy,  he  answers  :  'Freedom  is 
a  fine  thing,  but  few  nations  are  worthy  to 
enjoy  it.'  If  I  remark  the  purity  of  morals 
which  distinguishes  the  United  States,  'I 
can  imagine,'  says  he,  '  that  a  stranger  who 
has  been  struck  with  the  corruption  of  all 
other  nations  is  astounded  at  the  difference.'" 

Such  enthusiastic  sentiments  serve  to  show 
how  much  more  the  people  esteemed  their 
own  country  than  any  other,  and  how  far 
they  were  from  falling  into  that  fatal  flattery 
— imitation. 

But  what  may  be  the  causes  which  are 
leading  the  Republic  from  her  quondam  sim- 
plicity, her  notable  morality,  her  intense  de- 
mocracy, and  are  reducing  her  to  a  condi- 
tion little  better,  if  at  all  better,  than  other 


The  Bent  of  International  Intercourse. 


165 


nations  in  these  respects?  What  has  put 
this  country,  after  so  much  early  resistance, 
at  last  within  the  influence  of  the  old  world, 
whose  tastes,  manners,  and  thought  are 
known  to  be  inimical  to  republican  life  ? 

Thomas  Jefferson  has  undoubtedly  given 
us  an  important  clue.  During  his  life-time 
he  attributed  the  virtue  of  his  fellow  citizens 
to  the  fact  that  "  they  have  been  separated 
from  the  parent  stock  and  kept  from  con- 
tamination, either  from  them  or  the  people 
of  the  old  world,  by  the  intervention  of  so 
wide  an  ocean."  Here,  then,  is  the  cause 
of  the  change :  the  ocean  no  longer  inter- 
venes. It  has  practically  dried  up,  leaving 
but  a  narrow  channel  to  cross.  The  shore 
which  was  for  Jefferson  about  two  months 
distant,  is  for  us  less  than  a  week  for  travel, 
and  less  than  a  moment  for  thought ! 

Tocqueville,  with  prophetic  vision,  antici- 
pated many  evils  which  would  beset  the  new 
Republic,  but  contamination  by  contact 
with  Europe  he  left  to  the  finer  patriotic  in- 
stincts of  Thomas  Jefferson.  The  ocean  was 
then  a  real  barrier  between  the  two  conti- 
nents, the  winds  and  the  waves  beating 
back  adventurous  craft,  and  allowing  few  to 
break  their  lines.  No  prophet,  however  en- 
dowed, would,  one  hundred  years  ago,  have 
ventured  to  predict  this  marvelous  annihila- 
tion of  space  !  Europe  and  America  are  to- 
day, for  most  purposes,  as  closely  bound  to- 
gether, by  grace  of  electricity  and  steam,  as 
are  California  and  New  York,  parts  of  our 
own  continent  and  country.  Aye,  more  so, 
for  in  the  one  case  the  highway  is  free,  and 
the  expenses  of  transportation  less.  And 
the  West  might  as  well  expect  ultimate  immu- 
nity from  Eastern  influence,  as  the  United 
States  hope  to  keep  its  institutions- intact,  on 
account  of  the  intervention  of  what  was  once 
an  ocean,  but  is  now  a  "pond." 

The  question  then  suggests  itself,  as  a  cor- 
ollary, Should  not  America,  self-reliant  and 
firm  in  her  principles,  discourage  too  close  a 
communication  with  Europe,  whereby  a  fickle 
and  perverse  generation  might  become  enam- 
ored of  a  condemned  civilization,  and  fall 
away  from  their  own  ?  The  Israelites,  when 
they  observed  in  their  wanderings  that  other 


nations  had  royal  establishments,  cried  out 
for  a  king  :  and  such  was  the  force  of  exam- 
ple that  they  disregarded  the  advice  of  their 
judges  to  put  not  their  trust  in  princes,  and 
later  had  reason  to  repent  it.  The  same 
people,  in  servile  imitation,  worshiped  idols 
when  most  favored  by  the  living  God.  "What 
the  eye  does  not  see  the  heart  does  not  crave 
for."  And  we  also  know  by  proverbial  wis- 
dom the  effects  of  touching  pitch  and  loving 
danger.  Therefore,  if  the  products  of  Euro- 
pean life  are  detrimental  to  our  own,  there 
should  certainly  be  a  discriminating  moral 
prohibition  against  them. 

The  old  world  bears  about  the  same  rela- 
tion to  the  new  that  Judaism  bears  to  Chris- 
tianity. The  ever  constant  surprise  to  the 
Pharisees  is  that  so  much  ,good  should  have 
come  out  of  Nazareth.  The  old  law  was  re- 
jected by  the  Master,  in-so-far  as  it  was  incon- 
sistent with  the  new.  The  disciples  turned 
their  backs  upon  the  religion  of  their  fathers 
and  let  the  dead  past  bury  its  dead.  The 
new  dispensation  had  come,  better  and  more 
hopeful. 

The  traditional  policy  of  this  country,  as 
declared  by  Monroe  and  Madison,  and  by 
Washington  himself,  in  his  farewell  address, 
is  to  leave  Europe  severely  alone.  Says 
Washington  :  "  Europe  has  a  set  of  primary 
interests,  which,  to  us,  have  none  or  a  very 
remote  relation."  Again:  "The  great  rule 
of  conduct  for  us  in  regard  to  foreign  na- 
tions is,  in  extending  our  commercial  rela- 
tions, to  have  with  them  as  little  political 
connection  as  possible."  Monroe  declared 
that  "  we  should  consider  any  attempt  on 
their  part  to  extend  their  system  to  any  por- 
tion of  this  hemisphere  as  dangerous  to  our 
peace  and  safety." 

Europe  was,  as  it  is  plainly  seen,  an  object 
of  suspicion,  from  which  nothing  was  asked. 
Washington  thought  that  such  were  the  re- 
sources, and  "  the  peculiarly  happy  and  re- 
mote situation  "  of  this  country,  that  it  could, 
without  loss,  assume  an  attitude  of  entire  in- 
dependence. 

Is  this  policy  still  pursued  ?  Has  not  the 
diplomatic  service  been  extended  unneces- 
sarily ?  Has  not  the  United  States,  without 


166 


The  Bent  of  International  Intercourse. 


[Aug. 


precedent,  sat  with  European  powers,  on  a 
foreign  commission,  for  disposal  of  a  foreign 
territory,  and  otherwise  contravened  the 
spirit  of  the  Monroe  doctrine  ?  Are  we  not 
afflicted  with  Anglo-mania  and  every  mania 
foreign?  The  "  happy  and  remote  situation  " 
has  no  longer  any  reality,  and  to  this  is  attrib- 
utable the  silent  invasion  of  our  territory  by 
European  peculiarities,  customs,  and  thought. 
Europe  and  America  remained  apart  until 
innocent  causes  at  last  drew  them  together, 
and  the  reduction  of  the  distance  between 
the  two  continents  effected  with  equal  pace 
a  diminution  of  the  differentia. 

The  immediate  result  of  greater  proximity 
is  increased  intercourse ;  and  intercourse 
may  be  by  travel,  immigration,  commerce, 
and  literature.  Now  let  us  enquire  to  which 
of  these,  or  to  all  combined,  is  the  contam- 
ination spoken  of  by  Jefferson  particularly 
due? 

i.  Not  to  immigration  is  it  due  in  any 
marked  degree,  because  the  un-American 
proclivities  and  fond  imitation  are  attrib- 
utable to  the  so-called  higher  classes,  where- 
as the  large  body  of  immigrants  belong  to  the 
humbler.  And  again,  it  is  on  account  of  the 
introduction  of  ideas  and  tastes,  and  not  of 
men,  that  America  suffers.  Men  and  ideas, 
it  is  true,  go  together,  but  the  immigrant  is 
not  engaged  in  a  propaganda.  And  further, 
it  is  a  matter  of  common  observation,  that 
in  one  or  two  generations  the  immigrant  be- 
comes what  his  improved  environment  makes 
him.  He  arrives,  as  it  were,  in  a  nascent 
state,  and  is  absorbed  and  assimilated  by  the 
established  communities  'into  which  he  is 
cast.  He  is  influenced,  but  does  not  sensibly 
influence.  He  conforms  to  the  manners  of 
the  place,  and  does  not  contaminate  by  his 
European  breeding  the  people  among  whom 
he  resides.  His  loyalty  is  rarely  questioned. 
If  he  retains  an  affection  for  the  land  of  his 
birth,  though  it  has  given  him  naught  but 
life,  yet  it  is  a  sentiment  no  man  would  stifle, 
and  one  which,  in  the  breast  of  his  offspring, 
will  be  awakened  thereafter  for  the  land  of 
his  adoption.  But  the  sentimental  and  un- 
sentimental alike  find  ample  reason  for  the 
renunciation  of  their  old  allegiance  in  the 
passage  from  the  Greek  : 


"The  land  where  thou  art  prosperous  is  thy  country." 
It  is  not  surprising  that  naturalized  citizens 
should  be  devoted  to  the  institutions  of  the 
United  States.  They  appreciate  free  govern- 
ment the  more  on  account  of  their  intimate 
acquaintance  with  despotic  rule,  which  they 
leave  because  they  do  not  love. 

Consequently,  it  can  in  no  way  follow  that 
because  this  country  was  settled  by  Europe- 
ans, and  continues  to  receive  them,  that  it 
should  on  that  account  be  affected  by  Euro- 
pean ideas,  and  have  no  distinct  character 
of  its  own.  It  had  a  distinct  character,  be- 
cause it  disapproved  all  along,  not  of  mere 
foreigners,  men  who  happened  to  be  born 
elsewhere,  but  of  those  foreign  principles  of 
government  and  morals  which  are  found  to 
be  fatal  alike  to  freedom  and  virtue.  It  is 
very  often  the  same  strong  disapproval  by 
the  emigrant  himself,  which  drives  him  from 
fatherland.  Not  without  a  pang  are  the  ties 
of  native  associations  severed,  and  the  man 
who,  under  oppression,  leaves  home  and 
country,  must  dislike  his  own  government 
and  respect  himself.  The  very  fact  of  vol- 
untary exile  should  make  him  worthy  of 
citizenship. 

There  are  certain  classes  who  feel  that 
their  influence  in  the  State  is  not  commensu- 
rate with  their  social,  financial,  or  intellectu- 
al importance,  and  consequently  they  are  res- 
tive under  popular  rule,  and  stand  opposed 
to  immigration.  But  it  is  a  question  which 
are  the  more  dangerous  classes  to  the  Re- 
public, the  lordly  or  the  lowly.  If  ever 
Europe  be  enthroned  in  America,  and 
king,  caste,  and  their  concomitants  be  in- 
troduced, it  is  safe  to  say  that  neither  the 
foreign  population  nor  the  lower  orders  will 
be  responsible  for  it.  The  encouragement 
and  support  will  come  from  another  class, 
sincerely  patriotic,  no  doubt,  but  whose 
ideas  have  been  perverted  by  education,  and 
whose  ideals  are  cast  after  false  models.  The 
most  thorough  American  of  recent  years  was 
Wendell  Phillips.  He  had  a  just  apprecia- 
tion of  American  society,  having  made  its 
constitution  and  bearing  the  study  of  his 
life.  In  his  memorial  oration,  George  Wil- 
liam Curtis  thus  speaks  of  him:  "He  felt 
that  what  is  called  the  respectable  class  is 


L885.] 


The  Bent  of  International  Intercourse. 


167 


often  really,  but  unconsciously,  and  with  a 
generous  purpose,  not  justly  estimating  its 
own  tendency,  the  dangerous  class." 

Now,  we  may  point  out  at  least  one  way  in 
which  this  class  has  become  dangerous.  In 
the  first  place,  what  is  called  the  "respecta- 
ble "  class  wields  comparatively  a  large 
amount  of  influence,  more  than  they  them- 
selves perhaps  believe.  They  are  in  a  posi- 
tion to  exact  virtue  or  tolerate  vice  ;  they  in- 
augurate fashions,  adopt  manners,  and  set 
examples.  Nor  is  their  sway  confined  to 
their  immediate  circle:  it  extends  beyond, 
for  there  are  always  multitudes  who  follow 
blindly  the  law  that  is  given.  There  '  are 
also  included  under  this  designation  the  men 
and  women  who  represent  the  thought  of 
the  country,  who  edit  newspapers,  write 
books  and  plays,  and  who,  on  platform  and 
stage,  or  in  the  legislature,  propagate  ideas 
or  give  them  local  habitation.  This  impor- 
tant class,  consciously  or  unconsciously,  are 
subject  to  all  the  influences  of  the  older  civ- 
ilization. 

2.  This  influence  is  exerted  in  many 
ways,  among  which  is  the  medium  of  im- 
ported literature.  There  is  practically  a  free 
trade  of  books  between  the  two  continents, 
but  the  current  is  all  one  way,  and  author- 
ship in  this  country  remains  the  only  indus- 
try unprotected.  The  English-speaking  peo- 
ple of  America  give  comparatively  little  en- 
couragement to  the  native  literature,  and  as 
Lowell  has  expressed  it,  "read  Englishmen's 
books  and  steal  Englishmen's  thoughts." 
But  it  would  be  nearer  true  to  indicate  Eu- 
rope and  not  England  alone  as  the  source  of 
America's  intellectual  subsistence.  The  ab- 
sence of  international  copyright  has  given  to 
America  greater  facilities  for  an  acquaintance 
with  European  literature  than  the  Europeans 
themselves  enjoy.  What  is  the  result  but 
that  America  is  most  affected  thereby,  and 
that  this  becomes  one  of  the  agencies 
through  which  the  worst  features  of  con- 
tinental life  are  introduced,  and  made,  as  it 
were,  by  intimate  acquaintance,  the  common 
experience  of  the  people  ?  For  instance, 
what  a  disastrous  popularity  the  French 
drama  and  novel  have  gained,  and  Ouida 


is  read  only  less  than  Zola.  They  paint  with 
shocking  fidelity  the  daily  life  of  the  old 
world,  and  cast  a  glamour  of  false  coloring 
over  practices  and  principles  which  are  fatal 
to  the  orderly  existence  of  society. 

But  a  republic  is  a  much  more  sensitive 
organism  than  a  monarchy.  The  former  de- 
pends entirely  upon  the  people,  and  when 
the  people  become  corrupt,  it  is  impossible 
for  it  to  thrive.  A  monarchy  flourishes  on 
that  very  food  which  is  fatal  to  freedom,  for 
the  necessity  of  absolute  government  in- 
creases part  passu  with  the  inability  of  the 
masses  to  govern  themselves.  Thus  France 
is  keeping  up  the  conditions  of  monarchy, 
and  we  are  importing  them. 

3.  Intercourse  by  commerce,    the  least 
objectionable  form  it  can   take,    is   closely 
guarded   by  a  protective   tariff;    while   the 
gates  are  wide  open  to  the  introduction  of 
everything  else.     American  industries  would 
certainly   suffer,  temporarily,  at  least,  were 
import  duties  abolished,  as  American  nation- 
ality suffers  now  from  a  free  trade  of  the  im- 
palpable products  of  Europe,  which  compete 
with  native  ideas,  tastes,  and  manners.     As 
foreign  goods  are  less  expensive,  so  foreign 
ways  are  more  comfortable,  and  the  people 
insensibly  adopt  them. 

4.  But  immigration,  literature,  and  com- 
merce  yield,    perhaps,  in   the  effects   they 
cause,  to  travel,  which  is  one  of  the  principal 
de-Americanizing  forces  at  work.     By  travel 
I  mean  the  perennial  hegira  of  the  people  of 
this  country  to  foreign  parts ;  tourists,  who 
turn  their  faces  against  the  course  of  empire, 
traverse  the  dividing  sea,  and  revel  in  the 
continent  beyond.     At  one  time  travel  was 
the   necessary   complement   of    education ; 
but   since   then   the   world    has    changed. 
Prester  John  can  no  longer  rule ;  Hernan- 
do  Mendez  Pinto  is  impossible.     All  coun- 
tries  have   been   explored   and    described. 
One  may  sit  down  in  his  library  and  read  ac- 
curate accounts  of  distant  places  with  per- 
fect confidence.    And  daily  at  breakfast  one 
need  but  to  read  the  newspapers  to  be  put 
en  rapport  with  the  remotest  peoples,  and  to 
learn  of  yesterday's  events  throughout  the 
world. 


168 


The  Bent  of  International  Intercourse. 


[Aug. 


While  travel  has  a  fascination  in  itself, 
and,  within  reasonable  limits,  has  much  edu- 
cating influence,  yet,  when  extended  or  hab- 
itual, it  is  open  to  objection  from  a  patriotic 
point  of  view.  If,  perchance,  it  improves 
the  American  as  an  individual,  which  is  not 
entirely  conceded,  it  undoubtedly  detracts 
from  his  value  as  a  citizen.  Europe  is  a 
hot-house  of  men  and  things.  All  develop- 
ment there  is  artificial ;  the  rugged  virtues 
are  apt  to  be  rejected  as  weeds,  and  the  nat- 
ural powers  lost  in  over-cultivation.  Society 
is  insincere.  In  every  field  false  standards 
are  set  up.  Everything  militates  against  the 
proper  training  of  an  American  respecting 
rights,  duties,  government,  and  home.  To 
trust  in  the  people,  the  domestic  virtues,  and 
the  dignity  of  labor,  there  is  opposed  the 
despotic  idea,  lubricity,  and  leisure.  Jeffer- 
son has  said  that  two  things  only  may  be 
learned  better  abroad  than  at  home,  namely, 
"vice  and  the  foreign  languages."  Whether 
strictly  true  or  not,  this  remark  carries  more 
force  now,  with  our  advance  in  the  means  of 
education,  than  it  did  one  hundred  years  ago. 

The  English  have  been  called  the  greatest 
of  travelers,  but  of  recent  years  the  Ameri- 
icans  have  outstripped  them,  particularly  on 
the  continent  of  Europe.  And  as  regards 
the  effects  of  travel,  there  can  be  no  analogy 
between  the  two  peoples,  for  the  English 
have  an  established  nationality  and  are  an 
ancient  race,  while  America  is  new,  impres- 
sionable, and  still  plastic,  and  her  people 
largely  cosmopolitan. 

Emerson  has  dwelt  upon  the  fondness  of 
his  countrymen  for  travel,  and  deplored  it. 
"  It  is  for  want  of  self-culture  that  the  super- 
stition of  Traveling,  whose  idols  are  Italy, 
England,.  Egypt,  retains  its  fascination  for 
all  educated  Americans.  They  who  made 
England,  Italy,  or  Greece  venerable  in  the 
imagination  did  so  by  sticking  fast  to  where 
they  were,  like  an  axis  of  the  earth."  "  Trav- 
eling is  a  fool's  paradise."  And  again :  "  Our 
minds  travel  when  our  bodies  are  forced 
to  stay  at  home.  We  imitate ;  and  what  is 
imitation  but  traveling  of  the  mind?  Our 
houses  are  built  with  foreign  taste;  our 
shelves  are  garnished  with  foreign  ornaments; 


our  opinions,  our  tastes,  our  faculties,  lean 
and  follow  the  past  and  the  distant." 

And  as  the  flow  is  more  ample,  the  resist- 
ance being  diminished,  so,  the  victories  of 
peace  having  broken  down  the  barriers  of 
space,  travel  has  assumed  floodlike  pro- 
portions. Invention  has  verily  laid  siege  to 
the  Atlantic,  and  it  has  yielded  up  most  of 
its  terrors.  And  so  natural  have  speed  and 
comfort  become,  the  Clyde  leviathans  seem 
merely  to  supply  an  omission  in  the  scheme 
of  creation.  And  thus  facilitated,  travel 
has  grown  portentously  popular.  It  is  esti- 
mated that  an  average  of  one  hundred  and 
twenty-five  thousand  persons  sail  yearly  for 
European  ports,  three-fourths  of  whom  are 
of  the  tourist  class.  Only  Russia  has  seen 
fit  to  tax  her  travel-loving  subjects,  who  pay 
one  hundred  and  sixty  roubles  ($115)  per 
year  during  their  absence;  and  the  United 
States,  under  a  recent  interpretation  of  the 
Act  of  Congress  of  August  3,  1882,  is  about 
to  collect  a  duty  of  fifty  cents  for  every  alien 
passenger,  including  tourists  and  transient 
visitors,  arriving  from  a  foreign  port.  With 
these  exceptions  the  traffic  of  travelers  is  un- 
restricted. Indeed,  every  facility  is  afforded 
it.  The  passport  system  has  been  abolished, 
and  passports  are  now  needless,  unless,  per- 
haps, to  more  speedily  get  a  registered  letter 
or  gain  admittance  to  a  private  gallery.  The 
principle  of  "  once  a  subject  always  a  sub- 
ject "  is  being  gradually  relaxed,  while  the 
writ  of  ne  exeat  is  confined  exclusively  to 
criminals. 

And  as  to  special  facilities,  there  are  estab- 
lished in  the  principal  capitals,  exchanges, 
whose  single  purpose  is  to  smooth  the  way  of 
innocents  abroad.  And  so  complete  have  ar- 
rangements been  made,  that  it  is  now  unneces- 
sary for  the  bare  uses  of  travel  to  carry  any 
money  whatever;  for  it  is  possible  to  pur- 
chase in  any  large  center,  as  New  York, 
tickets  and  hotel  accommodations  for  an  en- 
tire European  tour  ;  and,  as  it  were,  supple- 
mentary to  this,  far-sighted  benevolence  has 
provided  an  institution  at  Paris  wherein 
stranded  Americans  are  cared  for  or  ad- 
vanced the  wherewithal  to  bridge  over  tem- 
porary distress. 


1885.] 


For  a  Preface. 


169 


It  is  not  surprising  that  travel  is  encour- 
aged by  Europe.  It  is  a  rich  source  of  rev- 
enue to  the  national  railroads,  museums,  and 
galleries ;  to  hotels  and  to  producers  gener- 
ally from  Ultima  Thule  to  the  Isles  of 
Greece. 

Again,  the  same  "  respectable  class "  of 
Wendell  Phillips  are  the  principal  offenders. 
They  go  to  Europe  with  growing  families  for 
residence  and  education,  and  generally  with 
the  purpose  to  return.  And  every  shipload  of 
returning  tourists  of  this  sort  is  a  Trojan  horse 
of  danger.  They  become  familiar  with  a 
life  inimical  to  ours,  and  what  they  do  not 
learn  to  enthusiastically  admire  they  pas- 
sively tolerate.  This  is  true  of  manners,  mor- 
als, thought,  tastes,  and  government.  They 
are  no  longer  staunch  in  their  love  of  coun- 
try, a  sentiment  which  they  are  informed  by 
foreign  critics  is  "'a  narrow  provincialism." 
No  longer  do  they  put  any  value  on  political 
privileges,  and  they  become  oblivious  at  last 
to  the  historic  struggles  which  resulted  in 
human  freedom.  Travel  affords  them  the 
luxury  of  being  without  a  country,  and  they 
are  proud  of  their  new  condition  as  "  citi- 
zens of  the  world."  Of  Europe  they  unqual- 
ifiedly approve.  They  say  that  the  men  and 
women  abroad  are  more  cultivated,  the  peas- 


ants more  picturesque,  the  governments  bet- 
ter conducted,  the  capitals  more  gorgeous, 
and  existence  more  enjoyable  than  at  home. 
Everything  seems  to  be  done  for  the  people, 
and  they  are  not  required  to  do  anything  for 
themselves.  With  such  surface  observations 
they  are  content.  They  do  not  suspect  that 
ceremonies,  forms,  and  pageantry  are  all  de- 
signed to  act  upon  the  imagination  of  the 
crowd,  and  keep  them  in  awe  of  authority, 
and  that  authority,  in  its  turn,  acts  as  a  cloak 
to  despotism.  They  do  not  see  the  result- 
ant misery,  the  denial  of  freedom,  religious 
and  civil,  the  enforced  conscription,  the  bur- 
dens upon  industry,  and  the  chronic  impov- 
erishment of  the  people.  A  true  knowledge. 
of  the  past  and  contemporaneous  history  of 
Europe  would  make  better  Americans  of 
such  travelers,  whose  information  now  is 
gleaned  on  delusive  fields. 

International  intercourse  may  be  instru- 
mental in  civilizing  America,  but  is  it  not  on 
the  old  lines  condemned  by  the  Fathers? 
Is  there  not  danger,  by  too  close  contact  with 
Europe,  of  losing  all  that  is  distinctive  in 
American  life?  And,  notwithstanding  the 
strictures  of  foreign  criticism,  is  not  Ameri- 
can nationality,,  such  as  it  is,  worth  preserv- 
ing? 

/.  D.  Phelan. 


FOR  A  PREFACE. 

I  HAVE  stood  shivering  in  November  days — 

The  sour  November  days  that  threatened  frost — 
Watching  the  birds  that,  summer  long,  had  crossed 

And  crossed  so  oft  my  quiet  garden  ways, 

I  knew  and  loved  them  as  I  did  the  rays 
Of  sunshine  there,  wing  southward  until  lost 
At  the  far,  misty  world  brim,  cloud  embossed, 

Where  summer  still  lay  warm  in  drowsy  haze. 

They  .found  the  summer  ?     That  I  do  not  know. 

Mayhap  'twas  not  for  them— nor  yet  for  these, 
My  books.     I  only  stand  as  they  depart, 

Miss  them  and  wait,  not  eager  that  they  please 
So  much  as  wistful  that  they  bring  the  glow 

Of  lacking  summer  to  some  chilly  heart. 


170 


August  in  the  Sierra. 


[Aug. 


AUGUST  IN  THE  SIERRA. 


THE  clear  sunlight  fills  this  glorious  moun- 
tain land.  I  write  from  beneath  the  shelter 
of  a  sugar  pine  growing  on  the  hillside,  near 
a  ruined  saw-mill,  and  close  by  the  flash  and 
sparkle  of  water  flowing  from  a  broken  flume. 
A  mile  below,  far  down  the  ridge,  are  the 
clustered  houses  of  a  mining  village,  once, 
in  the  days  before  the  decision  against  hy- 
draulic mining,  a  thrifty  mountain  town,  but 
now  fast  tumbling  into  decay.  Ten  years 
ago  there  were  fifty  children  in  the  public 
school;  now  only  fifteen.  Ten  years  ago 
the  town  had  three  hotels  and  half  a  dozen 
stores ;  now  the  single  hotel-keeper  runs  the 
store  and  keeps  the  post-office  and  the  liv- 
ery stable,  and  peddles  vegetables,  and  mines 
a  little  during  the  intervals  of  his  other  occu- 
pations. 

Far  up  the  ridge,  beyond  the  sharp  knobs 
of  quartz  and  masses  of  lava,  beyond  the 
dark  cedar  forest,  are  peaks  on  whose  pre- 
cipitous sides  a  few  patches  of  snow  yet  lin- 
ger in  the  hot  August  sun.  Deep  down  sheer 
descents,  twinkling  along  the  bottom  of  the 
gulch,  is  a  winding  river,  flowing  through 
wastes  of  gravel  and  past  trunks  of  blasted 
trees.  At  my  feet  are  flowers  in  earliest  bud 
— flowers  that  long  ago  passed  out  of  bloom 
in  the  valley ;  and  beside  them  are  shyer 
flowers,  which  only  the  wilder  heights  nour- 
ish. Here  is  that  rare  luxuriance  of  inter- 
mingling trees,  vines,  shrubs,  trailers,  and 
lesser  plants,  which  only  the  mountain  can 
display. 

It  is  the  earliest  summer  here;  the  grass- 
es are  yet  green  ;  the  flush  of  spring  has  not 
quite  faded.  Climb  a  mile  further  up  the 
steep  trail,  and  you  will  find  wild  roses  in 
first  bloom,  and  imagine  yourself  back  in 
April.  Down  in  the  far-away  valley  gardens 
of  Sacramento  and  San  Jose,  there  are  dahl- 
ias and  hollyhocks,  gladiolas,  oleanders, 
crape  myrtles,  and  magnolias;  here,  larkspurs 
and  dicentras.  If  one  should  climb  to  the 
edges  of  yon  snow-drift,  the  green  grass,  a 


finger's  width  in  tallness,  would  be  found 
lying  about  it,  and  blue  nemophilas  of  March 
would  be  seen  there. 

As  one  sits  in  peace  beneath  his  chosen 
pine  tree,  the  beauty  of  this  broad  plateau, 
so  cleft  by  rivers  like  the  Yuba  and  Feather, 
so  uplifted  into  crags  and  snow  peaks,  takes 
possession  of  his  thoughts.  He  remembers 
the  slow  ascent,  the  pictures  of  the  past,  the 
foothill  homes,  the  winding  roads,  the  busy 
and  prosperous  men  he  met  in  the  way  hith- 
er. How  long  ago  it  seems  since  he  was  in 
the  midst  of  the  broad  barley  fields  of  Sola- 
no,  Yolo,  and  Sacramento,  white  to  the  har- 
vest, already  falling  before  the  gleaming 
reaper  blade. 

The  Sierra  foothills  extend  so  far  down 
into  the  valley  that  it  is  hard  to  say  at  any 
point,  "  here  the  lowland  ceases,  the  upland 
begins."  The  low  hills  that  one  finds  after 
leaving  the  valley,  have  little  to  commend 
them  to  the  eye.  They  are  dull  in  appear- 
ance, and  seemingly  unfertile,  given  over  to 
stunted  fields  of  grain,  and  small  chicken 
ranches,  with  an  occasional  effort  at  orchard- 
ing and  vegetable  gardening.  Approach  the 
Sierras  from  whichever  way  you  choose,  the 
entrance  must  be  through  this  region  of  few 
attractions,  this  narrow  belt  of  land  that  does 
not  as  yet  attract  the  horticulturist.  The 
true  orchard  land  is  farther  up  the  heights. 
But  the  judicious  use  of  water  from  the  old 
mining  ditches  extended  to  the  outermost 
verge  of  these  hills  will  work  a  surprising 
change  in  their  appearance. 

Just  below  me,  within  fifty  yards  in  fact, 
is  a  cabin  sinking  slowly  into  decay.  "  Old 
Cap  "'  lives  there,  a  miner,  who  goes  down 
into  the  gulch  each  morning  to  his  toil,  and 
returns  each  night  with  a  little  gold-dust, 
enough  to  supply  his  wants.  He  owns  a  lit- 
tle claim  down  there,  and  he  takes  water 
from  the  mining  ditch  that  courses  its  way  on 
the  hillside  above  us.  The  little  work  he 
does  hardly  roils  the  stream  for  a  mile,  and 


1885.] 


August  in  the  Sierra. 


171 


so,  despite  decisions  of  Courts,  he  will  prob- 
ably go  on  in  the  same  uneventful  way  for 
the  rest  of  his  life.  Scattered  all  through 
these  ravines  are  such  men  as  "  Old  Cap," 
upon  whom  the  spell  of  this  warm,  spicy 
mountain  air,  this  dreamy,  beautiful  land, 
has  taken  an  irresistible  hold.  They  cannot 
depart  if  they  would  ;  they  would  not  depart 
if  they  could.  "  Old  Cap  "  often  passes  me, 
with  his  pick  on  his  shoulder — a  glittering 
and  dangerous  weapon,  curved  in  the  shape 
of  a  third  of  the  circumference  of  a  cart-wheel, 
steel-pointed,  burnished  from  tip  to  eye,  and 
with  a  handle  "  like  a  weaver's  beam."  I 
have  seen  him  poise  his  weapon  carelessly 
above  a  foot  square  fragment  of  stone,  and 
splinter  it  with  a  stroke.  Not  a  weapon  for 
unskilled  hands,  this  famous  tool  of  the 
seekers  for  minerals  in  waste  places  so 
many  centuries,  the  toil-sacred  Pick  that 
stands  on  our  State  shield,  the  weapon  that 
Aletes  carried  over  the  hills  of  Spain,  when 
he  searched  for  and  found  the  most  famous 
silver  mines  of  antiquity ;  the  weapon  that 
Attic  slaves  in  revolt  caught  up,  and  that 
Bargulus,  the  Illyrian,  led  his  troops  with. 
"  Old  Cap  "  will  tell  you,  with  a  chuckle, 
that  "a  young  city  chap  thought  he  could 
heft  my  pick,  and  drapped  the  p'int  on  his 
foot  " — another  chuckle. 

"And  what  happened,  Cap?" 

"  Nothing  much.  Only  he  had  to  mend 
his  shoe — a  thin  thing,  like  a  girl's.  Two 
holes — one  in  the  upper,  t'other  in  the 
sole." 

Cap  comes  home  about  an  hour  before 
sunset,  cooks  his  supper,  washes  the  dishes, 
and  then  brings  out  an  old  chair  and  sits  in 
front  of  his  hut  till  bed-time.  Now  and  then 
he  goes  off  to  the  village,  a  half-hour's  walk, 
and  brings  back  his  weekly  paper,  and  buys 
a  few  groceries.  He  has  not  written  nor  re- 
ceived a  letter  for  fifteen  years.  He  has  a 
few  books  in  the  cabin,  so  he  tells  me,  but 
what  they  are  I  do  not  know,  for  his  gentle- 
ness is  of  the  sort  that  invites  not  but  rather 
repels  questions,  and  he  does  not  invite  any 
one  across  his  threshold.  Yet  it  will  hardly 
do  to  build  up  a  romance  upon  all  this.  He 
is  no  ex-professor  from  a  far-off  college,  no 


heart-broken  romancist,  hiding  here ;  long 
ago  he  found  he  could  live,  and  eat,  and 
sleep  here,  and  he  is  just  as  contented  as  the 
cattle  on  the  hillside,  and  in  much  the  same 
way. 

From  this  point  on  the  slope,  the  far-off 
mining  village  seems  to  sprawl  over  space 
enough  to  make  several  good-sized  farms. 
One  gets  little  good  out  of  a  mining  camp  in 
daytime.  It  is  at  dusk  that  it  takes  on  the 
air  of  peaceful  acquiescence  that  most  be- 
comes its  nature.  In  the  whole  world,  one 
is  tempted  to  believe,  there  is  nothing  else 
like  the  old  mining  camp  for  contented  ac- 
ceptance of  the  ways  of  Providence.  The 
sleepiest  fisher  village  that  ever  clung  to 
dark  cliffs  above  slow  breakers  and  white 
sea-sand,  will  rouse  from  its  quiet  when 
shoals  of  herring  fill  the  bay,  or  when  winter 
storms  hurl  some  doomed  ship  on  the  rocks; 
the  laziest  village  of  all  the  valleys  will  grow, 
though  slowly,  by  increase  in  the  value  of 
lands,  and  by  better  means  of  communica- 
tion with  larger  towns  ;  even  a  peaceful  hill- 
tribe  of  the  Afghan  foothills  may  find  their 
little  village  invaded  by  Boundary  Commis- 
sioners and  emissaries  of  empires  whose 
capitals  are  a  continent  away.  But  the  old 
mining  camp  is  repose  unbroken.  If  a  man 
moves  away,  he  leaves  his  house  behind  him, 
unsold,  uncared  for,  and  there  it  stands  till 
it  rots  into  a  pile  of  kindling  wood,  or  falls 
down  the  bank,  or  is  utilized  as  a  bon-fire  by 
some  of  the  boys  in  times  of  political  fer- 
vor. 

Yonder  was  a  pretty  garden  on  the  slopes, 
but  the  miners  here  have  stopped  work,  the 
water  flows  no  more  in  the  ditch,  the  gar- 
den is  dead  and  gone  to  dust  and  weeds. 
The  ferns  and  red  thistles  cover  it  like  a 
garment.  Here  is  a  building  with  solid 
brick  walls,  iron  shutters,  and  a  door  which 
would  stand  a  siege  from  a  regiment.  This 
was  a  bank  once,  and  the  Express  Company 
had  an  office  there,  and  the  miners  bought 
exchanges  and  letters  of  credit  on  Hamburg, 
Paris,  Berlin,  London,  New  York — it  says 
so  in  faded  letters  painted  on  the  old  iron 
door.  But  now — strange  metamorphosis  of 
a  banker's  office — the  front  is  plastered  over 


172 


August  in  the  Sierra. 


[Aug. 


with  red  paper  charms  against  evil,  and  pray- 
ers to  the  manes  of  departed  relatives ;  piles 
of  rice-sacks  heap  the  stone  floor,  and  twen- 
ty or  more  Chinese,  who  carry  on  a  little 
mining  and  have  vegetable  gardens  along 
the  river,  are  owners  and  occupants  of  the 
building.  Sometimes  it  seems  a  camp  from 
which  all  life  has  long  before  departed  with 
the  gold  and  miners  of  forty  years  ago — for- 
gotten miners  who  died  unrecorded  deaths, 
and  fill  unmarked  graves  on  rain-washed 
hillsides.  You  can  find  the  marks  of  their 
work  for  miles  about  the  place,  along  the 
ancient  gold-bearing  channels,  and  on  the 
highest  ridges  of  the  tempest-torn  land ; 
stumps  of  pine  in  the  forest  show  where 
sawyers  and  loggers  worked ;  prospect  holes 
on  the  ledges  tell  a  story  of  uncounted  strug- 
gles and  failures. 

Yet  somehow,  through  all  its  vicissitudes, 
the  true  camp  keeps  much  that  is  homelike 
and  unique.  Slip  quietly  away  from  the 
hulking  business  houses,  where  the  stock  that 
suffices  to  supply  fifty  inhabitants  is  vainly 
trying  to  occupy  the  shelves  of  once-gorgeous 
establishments  that  supplied  ten  times  that 
population,  and  you  will  discover  that  there 
is  home-life,  though  no  business  life.  For 
almost  always  a  few  families  that  would  grace 
the  society  of  far  more  populous  places  re- 
main to  watch  their  rose  gardens  and  prune 
their  vines.  They  keep  ample  communica- 
tion with  the  outside  world :  chiefly  for  them 
the  mail-bags  come  and  go,  the  lumbering 
stage-coaches  and  light  wagons  climb  the 
dusty  slopes  from  distant  towns.  Crooked 
streets  wind  up  the  hill,  trees  line  them  with 
deep  shade;  cottages  stand  back  from  the 
street,  and  gardens  are  everywhere.  Pretty 
women  in  white  summer  gowns  stand  on 
wide  porches  overhung  with  roses,  and  chil- 
dren run  and  frolic  on  terraced  grass  plots. 
Neighborly  people  slip  in  and  out,  by  gates 
hidden  in  hedges,  to  make  twilight  visits ; 
the  sound  of  music  and  laughter  and  friendly 
talk  mingle,  and  one  falls  in  love  with  the 
place,  and  is  disposed  to  write  himself  for- 
ever a  dweller  in  this  lotus-land. 

How  varied  are  the  uses  men  make  of 
water  in  the  mountains ;  how  abundantly  it 


flows  by  roadside  and  trail.  It  is  used  in 
small  orchards,  grass-plots,  alfalfa  and  red 
clover  fields,  gardens  and  vineyards.  In  even 
the  smallest  "camp"  the  dusty  street  is 
kept  wet  and  hard  from  one  end  of  the  vil- 
lage to  the  other.  Almost  every  half  mile, 
as  one  travels  through  the  Sierra,  there  is  a 
trough  or  barrel  by  the  roadside,  and  cool 
water  flows  in  and  seeps  over  the  edge  again, 
and  so  away,  keeping  a  trail  of  green  grass 
quite  across  the  road,  and  a  rod  of  blossoms 
below.  Springs  are  numerous,  and  water  is 
near  the  surface.  You  cannot  ride  far  in  any 
direction  before  you  come  upon  a  scooped 
out  place  in  the  gravel-bank,  or  almost  hid 
in  bushes,  where  a  spring  bubbles  up  or 
drips  out  of  a  rock,  most  clear  and  ice  cold. 
In  nine  cases  out  of  ten  you  will  also  find 
that  a  tin  can  for  a  cup  has  been  hung  on  a 
bush,  or  stands  in  a  narrow  niche  cut  in  the 
bank — some  friendly  teamster's  forethought 
has  provided  it  so  that  you  need  not  go  down 
on  your  knees  in  the  wet  grass,  and  dip  your 
nose  in  the  water,  or  lap  like  Gideon's  three 
hundred,  or  scoop  the  water  hastily  with 
bent  palm. 

From  the  top  of  my  hill,  and  it  is  not  far 
thither,  I  should  see  the  valley  in  its  cloudy 
distance.  I  should  see  the  State  House  at 
Sacramento,  and  the  two  largest  rivers  of 
California,  and  the  Coast  Range,  and  the 
peak  of  Mount  Diablo.  I  should  be  able  to 
count  ten  towns  and  fifty  villages,  and  a  hun- 
dred landmarks  of  interest.  The  level  plain, 
checker  boarded  with  inch-square  farms,  and 
the  sea-green  wastes  of  tule  along  the  rivers, 
represent  the  realm  of  the  lowlands.  There 
are  towns  lying  level  as  floors  of  a  house ; 
there  are  long,  monotonous  roads,  deep  dust, 
sweltering  heat,  toiling  men,  threshing  ma- 
chines, from  whose  hoppers  the  golden  grain 
runs.  There  men  are  busy  enough,  in  a 
thousand  modes  of  activity — building,  gath- 
ering grapes,  shipping  fruit,  putting  out  fires 
in  wheat  fields,  arranging  for  their  county 
fairs — as  becomes  easy,  comfortable,  and 
prosperous  lowlanders.  If  I  could  see  it  all, 
from  Reading  to  Tejon  Pass,  with  such  mi- 
nuteness that  I  could  count  the  spears  of 
grass  in  each  farmyard,  I  would  not  hasten 


1885.] 


August  in  the  Sierra. 


173 


to  climb  my  hilltop  today.  I  would  rather 
sit  here,  and  see  where  a  yellow  cliff  gleams 
in  a  circle  of  dark  pines  toward  the  south  ; 
and  watch  a  river-like  torrent  that  foams  pas- 
sionately down  the  cliff,  and  breaks  into 
spray  on  black  rocks  below.  Let  the  valley- 
world  make  its  pilgrimage  here,  and  when  we 
have  nothing  better  to  do,  we  will  take  a  pine- 
branch  for  an  umbrella,  and  visit  the  lands 
of  the  tule  islands,  .the  cities  of  dead  levels 
and  streets  mathematical. 

One  arrives  in  the  Sierras  by  slow  grada- 
tions. You  cannot  easily  understand  the 
greatness  of  the  mountain  battlements  you 
ascend.  Along  some  artery-like  road,  hewn 
out  years  ago  by  the  argonauts  in  their  gold- 
quest,  you  climb  unaware  into  the  land  of 
peace  and  silence.  The  Coast  Range  often 
has  its  peaks  cleft  nearly  to  the  valley  level, 
and  its  ridges  follow  no  law  of  arrangement, 
but  project  towards  all  points  of  the  com- 
pass. But  the  axis  of  the  Sierra  is  unbroken  ; 
from  the  high  plateau  still  higher  peaks  rise, 
and  ravines  descend  to  profound  depths ; 
but  the  traveler  who  once  gains  the  "  divide  " 
between  two  rivers  can  follow  it  up  to  the 
snow-peaks,  and  find  that  the  season  keeps 
at  almost  a  standstill  for  him,  if  he  times  his 
journey  with  judicious  care.  How  good  a 
plan,  just  for  a  change,  to  have  three  months 
of  June,  and  come  back  to  the  valley  to  dis- 
cover that  it  was  September  there  ! 

The  children  one  passes  on  the  roadside 
are  carrying  armfuls  of  wild  lilies.  You  can 
find  them  growing  in  tall  clusters  in  openings 
in  the  forest  —  clusters  sometimes  so  tall 
that  if  you  are  on  horseback  the  topmost 
buds  will  be  nearly  at  your  waist.  A  child 
is  always  an  object  of  interest  in  the  moun- 
tains ;  parents  make  companions  of  them  to 
the  greatest  extent  imaginable,  and  the  pet- 
ting they  have  from  old  miners  who  live 
lonely  lives  in  their  cabins  is  quite  marvel- 
ous. Thus  they  come  at  last  to  have  a 
demure  dignity  all  their  own,  and  learn  to 


rule  their  kingdom  with  a  rod  of  iron — at 
least,  the  girls  do ;  for  the  boys  are  too  soon 
dethroned,  and  learn  that  the  world  yields 
only  to  wit,  strength,  and  wisdom. 

Not  many  years  ago  the  old  mining  coun- 
ties were  considered  worn-out,  and  fit  to  em- 
igrate from  ;  but  one  of  the  most  encouraging 
of  recent  developments  in  the  direction  of 
fruit  culture  and  grape-growing  is  in  these 
same  old  mining  regions.  The  settler  finds 
good  timber,  free  fire  wood,  pure  water,  a 
glorious  climate,  soil  which  will  grow  the 
grains  and  fruits  of  the  temperate,  and  often 
of  the  semi-tropical  zones.  Some  men  of 
energy  have  created  for  themselves  fertile 
gardens  on  the  hillsides,  and  there  is  room 
for  thousands  of  others.  According  to  the 
reports  of  the  immigration  societies,  a  steady 
stream  of  travel  to  the  mining  counties  ap- 
pears to  have  begun,  and  it  is  not  hard  to 
predict  a  great  change  there  within  a  few 
more  years.  Shasta  is  receiving  much  new 
blood  ;  the  broad  plains  east  of  the  Sacra- 
mento, at  Redding,  are  dotted  with  cabins, 
and  the  red-land  foothills  west  of  Anderson 
are  nearly  all  occupied.  Placer  and  Butte 
Counties  have  become  favorite  spots  for 
home-seekers,  and  Nevada  County  is  also 
attracting  attention.  Tuolumne,  Calaveras, 
Mariposa,  and  the  southern  Sierra  region, 
^are  also  coming  into  public  notice.  This 
very  hillside  where  I  sit  would  make  an  ex- 
cellent place  for  an  apple  orchard,  and  the 
fruit  would  keep  much  later  than  that  grown 
farther  down  the  ridge,  ten  miles  from  here  ; 
and  several  thousand  feet  lower,  peaches  and 
grapes  thrive.  A  slice  of  land  a  mile  wide, 
and  extending  across  this  county,  would  be 
like  a  strip  of  territory  from  the  Gulf  to  the 
Lakes,  put  into  a  condenser  and  reduced  to 
thirty  miles  exactly.  At  one  end  there 
might  be  a  date  palm  tree  planted  for  a  gate- 
post, and  at  the  other  end  an  edelweiss  from 
the  Alps,  for  a  warning  that  only  lichens  and 
snow-plants  could  grow  beyond. 

Paul  Meredith. 


174 


The  Metric  System. 


THE  METRIC  SYSTEM. 


AN  instinctive  sense  of  the  right  of  property 
seems  to  be  coextensive  with  intelligence.  We 
discover  abundant  evidence  of  the  existence 
of  this  feeling  among  the  lower  animals  as 
well  asamong ourselves.  Carniverous animals 
and  birds  will  store  away  provisions,  and  will 
defend  the  property  thus  acquired.  Among 
the  social  animals,  as  the  beaver,  and  the 
social  insects,  as  the  ant  and  the  bee,  we 
perceive  the  principle  more  broadly  devel- 
oped. But  the  lower  animals,  while  they 
assert  the  right  of  property,  never  manifest 
any  notion  of  commerce  or  exchange,  even  in 
its  simplest  form.  "The  commercial  idea 
makes  its  first  appearance  in  man.  It  is 
present  in  every  stage  of  human  civilization." 
Man  is  essentially  an  animal  which  barters 
and  exchanges. 

As  wealth  augments,  and  as  its  forms  be- 
come diversified,  the  necessity  of  determining 
the  equivalents  exchanged  by  quantity  rather 
than  by  tale  is  quite  manifest.  Out  of  this 
necessity  springs  the  creation  of  conventional 
standards,  by  means  of  which  quantities  may 
be  correctly  ascertained  and  everywhere  ac- 
curately verified.  Hence  have  arisen  the- 
various  systems  of  measure  and  weight  which 
have  been  found  to  accompany  even  the 
rudest  forms  of  civilization.  As  social  and 
political  institutions  became  developed,  legis- 
lation has  stepped  in  from  time  to  time  to 
alter  these  primitive  systems;  to  change  the 
value  of  their  unit  bases ;  to  modify  the  re- 
lations of  derivative  denominations ;  until, 
at  the  present  time,  there  is  no  reason  to  be- 
lieve that  there  survives  a  single  value  of  any 
standard  unit  of  measure  or  weight  identical 
with  one  in  use  two  thousand  years  ago. 

No  precise  notion  can  be  formed  of  any 
measurable  magnitude  in  any  other  way 
than  by  comparing  it  with  some  other  more 
familiar  magnitude  taken  as  a  unit.  So  far 
as  measures  and  weights  are  concerned,  the 
most  important  unit  is  that  of  length,  or  the 
linear  unit.  For  the  square  of  the  linear 


unit  furnishes  the  unit  of  surface,  the  cube 
of  the  same  unit  furnishes  the  unit  of  volume 
or  capacity,  and  the  weight  of  a  unit  volume 
of  some  substance,  as  water  at  a  standard 
temperature,  furnishes  a  unit  of  weight. 

The  necessity  of  having  recourse,  for  the 
interchange  of  ideas,  to  units  of  length  not 
entirely  arbitrary,  but  fixed  by  nature,  and 
intelligible  alike  to  all  mankind,  seems  to 
have  been  recognized  in  the  earliest  ages. 
Hence  originated  the  fathom,  the  pace,  the 
cubit,  the  foot,  the  span,  the  palm,  the  digit, 
the  barleycorn,  the  hairbreadth,  and  other 
denominations  of  linear  measure,  taken  from 
parts  of  the  human  body,  or  from  natural 
objects,  which,  though  not  of  an  absolute 
and  invariable  length,  have  a  certain  mean 
value  sufficiently  definite  to  answer  all  the 
purposes  required  in  a  rude  state  of  society. 

But  as  civilization  advanced,  the  necessity 
of  adopting  more  precise  standards  would  be 
felt,  and  the  inadequacy  of  such  units  as  the 
pace,  cubit,  foot,  etc.  (referred  only  to  the 
human  body),  to  convey  accurate  notions, 
would  be  rendered  more  apparent  in  their 
application  to  itinerary  measures,  or  the  es- 
timation of  great  distances;  where  differences 
of  the  fundamental  unit,  of  no  account  when 
only  one  or  two  units  are  considered,  would 
amount,  by  repeated  multiplication,  to  enor- 
mous quantities.  To  avoid  this  inconve- 
nience, recourse  was  had  to  other  methods  of 
estimation,  so  vague  as  scarcely  to  deserve 
the  appellation  of  measures.  Thus,  in  an- 
cient writers,  we  frequently  read  of  a  day's 
journey,  a  day's  sail,  and  so  forth  ;  and  in 
many  countries,  even  at  the  present  time,  it 
is  the  custom  of  the  peasantry  to  estimate 
itinerary  distances  by  hours. 

As  civilization  advanced,  the  inconve- 
niences arising  from  the  variability  and  want 
of  uniformity  of  the  units  of  linear  measure 
derived  from  parts  of  the  human  body  be- 
came so  perplexing,  that  material  standards 
were  prepared,  and  carefully  kept  by  govern- 


1885.] 


The  Metric  System. 


175 


ment  in  places  of  security.  At  Rome  they 
were  kept  in  the  Temple  of  Jupiter;  among 
the  Jews  they  were  in  the  custody  of  the 
family  of  Aaron. 

The  excavations  at  Pompeii  have  revealed 
many  household  articles  in  use  among  the 
Romans  during  the  first  century  of  our  era. 
It  is  well  known  that  this  city  was  buried 
under  the  ashes  of  Vesuvius  in  the  year  79 
of  our  era.  Fine  specimens  of  steel-yards, 
called  statera,  or  tnitina  campana,  have  been 
found,  bearing  inscriptions  showing  that  they 
had  been  proved  at  Rome  in  the  year  77, 
two  years  before  the  destruction  of  the  city. 
These  excavations  have  likewise  revealed  a 
pair  of  scales,  with  equal  arms  (called  libra), 
having  scale-pans  and  the  appliances  for 
delicate  weighing,  including  a  graduated  arm, 
with  a  movable  rider  for  indicating  fractional 
weights. 

From  an  early  period  the  English  standard 
of  length  was,  as  it  is  now,  the  yard.  There 
is  no  reason  to  doubt  the  commonly  received 
account  which  derives  the  yard  from  the 
length  of  the  arm  of  King  Henry  L,  about 
the  year  1115.  For  the  purpose  of  securing 
some  degree  of  uniformity  among  the  ordi- 
nary measures  of  the  kingdom,  certain  stand- 
ards were  preserved  in  the  Exchequer,  with 
which  all  rods  were  required  to  be  compared 
before  they  were  stamped  as  legal  measures. 
The  most  ancient  of  these  in  actual  existence 
dates  from  the  reign  of  Henry  VIL,  about 
1485,  but  it  has  long  been  disused. 

That  which,  till  the  year  1824,  was  con- 
sidered as  the  legal  standard,  was  a  brass 
rod,  placed  in  the  Exchequer  in  the  time  of 
Queen  Elizabeth,  about  1570.  To  this  rod 
belonged  a  brass  bar,  on  one  edge  of  which 
was  a  hollow  bed  or  matrix  fitted  to  receive 
the  square  rod  of  the  standard  yard ;  and 
into  this  bed  were  fitted  the  yard  measures 
brought  to  be  examined  and  stamped  with 
the  standard  marks.  All  rods  so  stamped 
became  standard  measures.  It  is  evident 
that  measures  determined  in  this  coarse  man- 
ner could  have  no  strict  claim  to  be  consid- 
ered as  accurate  copies  of  the  original  stand- 
ard. Moreover,  from  Mr.  Baily's  report,  it 
would  seem  that  the  standard  itself  was  in- 


capable of  affording  any  definite  or  correct 
measure.  Mr.  Baily,  who  had  an  opportu- 
nity of  examining  this  curious  instrument, 
thus  describes  it  (Memoirs  Roy.  Ast.  Soc., 
Vol.  ix.):  "A  common  kitchen  poker,  filed 
at  the  ends  in  the  rudest  manner,  by  the 
most  bungling  workman,  would  make  as  good 
a  standard.  It  has  been  broken  asunder,  and 
the  two  pieces  been  dovetailed  together,  but 
so  badly  that  the  joint  is  nearly  as  loose  as 
that  of  a  pair  of  tongs  " ;  and  yet,  as  late  as  the 
year  1820,  "to  the  disgrace  of  this  country, 
copies  of  this  measure  have  been  circulated 
all  over  Europe  and  America,  with  a  parch- 
ment document  accompanying  them,  certify- 
ing that  they  are  true  copies  of  the  English 
standard." 

Such  being  the  condition  of  the  English 
legal  standard,  it  was  obviously  impossible 
that  it  could  be  applied  to  any  purpose 
where  great  accuracy  and  minuteness  were 
demanded.  In  fact,  it  was  utterly  inappli- 
cable to  any  scientific  purpose  whatever. 
In  the  year  1742  some  Fellows  of  the  Royal 
Society  of  London  and  Members  of  the 
Academy  of  Sciences  of  Paris,  proposed  to 
have  accurate  standards  of  the  measures  of 
both  nations  made  and  carefully  examined, 
in  order  that  means  might  be  provided  for 
comparing  the  results  of  scientific  experi- 
ments in  England  and  France.  The  com- 
mittee having  the  matter  in  charge  found, 
besides  the  legal  standard  in  the  Exchequer, 
some  others  which  were  considered  of  good 
if  not  of  equal  authority.  At  Guildhall  they 
found  two  standards  of  length.  Another, 
preserved  in  the  Tower  of  London,  is  a  solid 
brass  rod  forty-one  inches  long,  on  one  side 
of  which  was  the  measure  of  'a  yard,  divided 
into  inches.  Another,  belonging  to  the 
Clockmakers'  Company,  having  the  stamp 
of  the  Exchequer  for  1671,  was  a  brass  rod 
on  which  the  length  of  the  yard  was  ex- 
pressed by  the  difference  between  two  up- 
right pins.  The  committee  selected  the 
standard  in  the  Tower  as  being  the  best  de- 
fined; and  Mr.  George  Graham  (the  cele- 
brated clockmaker)  was  directed  to  lay  off 
from  it,  with  great  care,  the  length  of  the 
yard  on  two  brass  rods,  which  were  sent  to  the 


176 


The  Metric  System. 


[Aug. 


Academy  of  Sciences  at  Paris,  who  in  like  man- 
ner laid  off  thereon  the  measure  of  the  Paris 
haM-toise.  One  of  these  was  kept  at  Paris, 
the  other  was  returned  to  the  Royal  Society, 
where  it  still  remains.  Unfortunately,  it 
was  not  stated  at  what  temperature  the  toise 
was  set  off,  and,  consequently,  the  compari- 
son is  now  of  little  or  no  value  for  scientific 
purposes. 

In  1758,  a  committee  of  the  House  of 
Commons  was  appointed  to  inquire  into  the 
original  standards  of  measures  and  weights. 
The  committee  presented  an  elaborate  re- 
port, in  which  they  recommended  that  a  rod 
which,  at  their  order,  had  been  made  by  Mr. 
Bird  from  the  standard  of  the  Royal  Society, 
should  be  declared  the  legal  standard  of  all 
measures  of  length. 

In  the  following  year  another  committee 
was  formed  on  the  subject,  which  concurred 
with  the  former  committee  in  recommending 
that  "  Bird's  Standard  Yard  of  1758  "  should 
be  the  only  unit  of  linear  measure;  and  at 
the  same  time  recommended  that  a  copy  of 
it  should  be  made  for  security  against  acci- 
dents, and  deposited  in  some  public  office. 
Accordingly  a  second  standard  was  construct- 
ed by  Bird  in  1760,  intended  to  be  an  exact 
copy  of  the  former.  This  last  standard  (of 
1760)  was  declared,  by  the  Act  of  1824,  to 
be  the  legal  standard  of  the  kingdom. 

Notwithstanding  these  two  parliamentary 
reports,  no  legal  enactment  was  passed,  and 
the  subject  remained  for  a  long  time  (from 
1760  to  1824)  in  the  same  state  of  uncer- 
tainty. During  this  interval,  the  celebrated 
Troughton  constructed  various  measures, 
which  were  all  copies,  as  nearly  as  could  be 
made,  of  Bird's  Standard  of  1760,  or,  at 
least,  of  a  copy  of  it  constructed  by  Bird  him- 
self, which  was  in  the  custody  of  the  British 
mint. 

In  1814  the  subject  of  standards  of  meas- 
ures and  weights  was  again  brought  under 
the  consideration  of  Parliament ;  a  report 
was  made,  but  was  attended  with  no  result. 
In  1819  a  commission  was  appointed,  con- 
sisting of  several  distingushed  Fellows  of  the 
Royal  Society,  who,  in  their  final  report,  in 
1820,  proposed  the  adoption  of  "Bird's 


Standard  of  1760,"  as  being  the  best  defined. 
This  standard  was  at  length  legalized  by  an 
act  passed  in  June,  1824,  in  which  for  the 
first  time  the  unit  of  measure  was  defined  as 
the  "  distance  between  the  centers  of  the 
two  points  in  the  gold  studs  in  the  brass 
rod  "  of  the  "  Standard  Yard  of  1760,"  the 
same  being  at  the  temperature  of  62°  (F.). 
It  was  designated  as  the  "  Imperial  Standard 
Yard."  The  act  further  declared,  that  "if  at 
any  time  hereafter  the  said  standard  shall  be 
lost  or  destroyed,  it  shall  be  restored  by 
making  a  new  Standard  Yard,  bearing  the 
proportion  to  the  length  of  a  pendulum  vi- 
brating seconds  of  mean  time,  in  the  lati- 
tude of  London,  in  a  vacuum,  and  at  the 
level  of  the  sea,  of  36  inches  to  39.1393 
inches."  This  measurement  of  the  length  of 
the  second's  pendulum,  which-  is  made  the 
basis  of  the  restoring  feature  of  the  enact- 
ment, was  executed  with  extraordinary  pre- 
caution and  skill,  in  1818,  by  Captain  Kater, 
who  at  the  same  time  first  made  an  accurate 
determination  of  the  relation  between  the 
metre  and  the  British  standard  yard. 

The  recommendation  of  the  commission- 
ers, on  which  the  enactment  was  founded, 
has  been  severely  criticized ;  for,  when  Mr. 
Baily  compared  the  legal  standard  with  the 
new  standard  scale1  made  by  Troughton, 
for  the  Royal  Astronomical  Society,  it  was 
found  to  be  utterly  impossible  to  ascertain 
the  centers  of  the  points  in  the  gold  studs 
within  distances  perfectly  appreciable  by 
modern  methods  of  observation.  The  mean 
diameter  of  each  of  the  holes  was  nearly 
i-iooth  of  an  inch ;  and  they  by  no  means 
presented  anything  like  a  circular  shape.  In 
fact,  the  irregularities  were  such,  when  viewed 
under  the  microscope,  that  Mr.  Baily  char- 
acterizes these  holes  as  resembling  the  "cra- 
ters of  lunar  volcanoes."  And  Mr.  Baily 
justly  adds,  that  how  the  commissioners  of 
so  late  a  date  as  1824,  when  the  art  of 
making  instruments  of  precision  had  attained 
such  perfection,  "  could  have  sanctioned  the 
adoption  of  such  an  imperfect  and  undefin- 
able  measure  as  this  for  a  standard,  must 
always  be  a  matter  of  astonishment,  more 
especially  when  we  consider  that  the  French 


1885.] 


The  Metric  System,. 


Ill 


had  recently  set  us  a  laudable  example  in 
the  great  pains  and  labor  taken  in  the  execu- 
tion of  a  new  set  of  standard  weights  and 
measures  of  superior  accuracy  and  precision." 
(Mem.  Roy.  Ast.  Soc.,  Vol.  ix.) 

The  contingency  contemplated  by  the  last 
clause  of  the  Act  of  1824  actually  happened 
in  less  than  ten  years  after  its  passage ;  for 
the  standards  were  lost,  or  irremediably  in- 
jured, in  the  great  fire  which  destroyed  the 
Houses  of  Parliament  in  October,  1834.  It 
was  then  discovered  that  the  restoration  of 
the  lost  standard  yard  could  not  be  effected 
with  tolerable  accuracy  by  means  of  its  ratio 
to  the  length  of  the  second's  pendulum  at 
London,  as  prescribed  by  the  Act.  For  Cap- 
tain Kater's  measurement  was  subsequently 
found  to  be  incorrect,  owing  to  the  neglect 
of  certain  precautions  in  determining  the 
length  of  the  pendulum,  which  more  recent 
experiments  have  shown  to  be  indispensable. 
On  account  of  these  sources  of  error,  the 
yard  could  not  be  restored  with  certainty 
within  one  five-hundredth  of  an  inch  ;  an 
amount  which,  although  inappreciable  in  all 
ordinary  measurements,  is  an  intolerable  er- 
ror in  a  scientific  standard. 

Fortunately,  early  in  1834  (hardly  six 
months  before  the  destruction  of  the  stan- 
dards), Mr.  Baily  had  executed  a  most  labo- 
rious and  minute  comparison  of  the  different 
standard  measures  with  a  new  scale  con- 
structed for  the  Royal  Astronomical  Society. 
Thus  the  length  of  the  legal  standard,  as 
nearly  as  it  could  be  determined,  is  known 
in  terms  of  this  scale;  and  may,  therefore, 
be  recovered,  but  not  in  the  manner  pre- 
scribed in  the  legislative  enactment. 

The  Commissioners  appointed  in  1838, 
"  to  consider  the  steps  to  be  taken  to  restore 
the  lost  standard,"  recommended  in  their  re- 
port of  December,  1841,  the  construction  of 
a  "  standard  yard,"  and  four  "  Parliamentary 
copies,"  from  the  best-authenticated  copies 
of  the  "  Imperial  standard  yard"  which  then 
existed.  These  recommendations  were  adopt- 
ed, and  the  restored  standard  yard  was'legal- 
ized  by  an  act  of  Parliament  in  July,  1855. 

Under  the  provisions  of  this  act,  the  stan- 
dards were  deposited  in  the  office  of  the  Ex- 
VOL.  VI.— 12. 


chequer.  But  in  1866,  on  the  consolidation 
of  the  Office  of  Exchequer  with  the  Audit 
Office,  and  the  creation  of  the  Standards 
Department  of  the  Board  of  Trade,  the  cus- 
tody of  the  "  Imperial  Standards  "  was  trans- 
ferred to  the  Warden  of  the  Standards  De- 
partment. They  are  now  deposited  in  a  fire- 
proof iron  chest  in  the  strong  room  in  the 
basement  of  the  Standards'  Office.  Copies 
have  been  deposited  at  the  royal  mint  and  at 
the  royal  observatory  at  Greenwich.  Thus 
the  present  British  standard  of  length  re- 
mains virtually  the  same  as  prescribed  by 
the  Act  of  1824. 

The  legislation  in  1855  changed  the  stan- 
dard of  weight  from  the  Troy  pound  of  5,760 
grains,  to  the  Avoirdupois  pound  of  7,000 
grains  ;  but  did  not  abolish  the  Troy  weight 
and  the  Apothecaries'  weight. 

The  legislation  of  1824  changed  the  stan- 
dard of  capacity  from  the  wine  gallon  of 
231  cubic  inches  to  the  "  imperial  gallon  "  of 
277.274  cubic  inches.  This  is  equivalent  in 
weight  to  ten  pounds  avoirdupois  of  distilled 
water  at  sixty-two  degrees,  Fahrenheit.  In 
like  manner,  the  bushel  equaling  eight  gallons 
was  changed  from  the  Winchester  bushel  of 
2,150.42  cubic  inches,  to  the  Imperial  bushel 
of  2,218.192  cubic  inches.  The  Act  of  1855 
did  not  disturb  these  measures  of  capacity. 

The  actual  standard  of  length  of  the 
United  States  is  a  brass  scale  of  eighty-two 
inches  in  length,  prepared  for  the  United 
States  Coast-Survey  by  Troughton,  of  Lon- 
don, in  1813,  and  deposited  in  the  Office  of 
Weights  and  Measures  at  Washington.  The 
temperature  at  which  this  scale  is  a  standard 
is  sixty-two  degrees,  Fahrenheit,  and  the 
standard  yard  is  the  distance  between  the 
twenty-seventh  and  the  sixty-third  inches  of 
the  scale.  It  was  intended  to  be  identical  with 
the  British  standard  yard;  and  should  be  so 
regarded.  From  a  series  of  careful  compar- 
isons of  this'scale,  executed  in  1856  by  Mr. 
Saxton,  under  the  direction  of  the  late  A. 
D.  Bache,  with  a  bronze  copy  of  the  British 
standard  yard,  it  was  found  that  the  British 
standard  is  shorter  than  the  American  yard 
by  0.00087  of  an  inch — a  quantity  by  no 
means  inappreciable.  Hence  : 


178 


The  Metric  System. 


[Aug. 


i  American  yard  equals         36.00087          British  inches. 
3         '•        feet      "  3.0000725          "        feet, 

i          "          "        "  1.0000241667    " 

10,000         "          "        "        10,000.2416667         "          " 

Our  standard  of  weight  is  the  Troy  pound 
of  5,760  grains,  copied  by  Captain  Kater,  in 
1827,  from  the  British  Imperial  Troy  pound 
for  the  United  States  Mint.  The  avoirdu- 
pois pound  of  seven  thousand  grains  is  de- 
rived from  this.  Our  standard  of  weight  is, 
therefore,  identical  with  the  present  British 
standard,  excepting  that  in  England,  the 
avoirdupois  pound  is  the  standard. 

Our  standard  measures  of  capacity  are  the 
wine  gallon  of  231  cubic  inches,  for  liquids, 
and  the  Winchester  bushel  of  2,150.42  cubic 
inches,  for  dry  measure.  Hence,  we  see  that 
our  measures  of  capacity,  unlike  the  meas- 
ures of  length  and  of  weight,  are  not  in  har- 
mony with  the  British  standards.  These 
several  standards  were  adopted  by  the  Treas- 
ury department  of  the  United  States  on  the 
recommendation  of  Mr.  Hasslef,  in  1832. 

ON  looking  among  the  objects  of  nature 
for  a  standard  of  measure  perfectly  definite, 
and,  at  the  same  time,  invariable  and  access- 
ible to  all  mankind,  a  very  moderate  acquain- 
tance with  geometry  and  physical  science 
will  suffice  to  show  that  the  subject  is  beset 
with  innumerable  difficulties.  In  fact,  mod- 
ern researches  render  it  quite  certain  that 
nature  presents  no  elements  that  are  strictly 
invariable.  The  dimensions  of  our  globe, 
and  the  intensity  of  the  force  of  gravity  at  a 
given  place,  are  unquestionably  the  two  ele- 
ments which  approach  most  nearly  to  invari- 
ability. Hence  the  length  of  a  degree  of  the 
meridian,  and  the  length  of  the  second's  pen- 
dulum, Have  both  been  used  as  the  basis  of 
a  system  of  measures. 

The  idea  of  securing  a  uniform  standard 
of  length,  by  connecting  it  with  one  of  these 
assumed  invariable  elements  in  nature,  is 
quite  old.  Mouton,  an  astronomer  of  Ly- 
ons, about  1670,  proposed  as  a  universal 
standard  of  measure  a  "  geometrical  foot,"  of 
which  a  degree  of  the  earth's  circumference 
should  contain  600,000.  In  1671,  Picard 
proposed  a  similar  idea.  Still  earlier,  Father 
Mersenne,  in  the  third  volume  of  the  "  Re- 


flections," in  1647,  first  suggested  the  use  of 
the  pendulum  as  the  unit  or  standard  of 
measures.  This  idea  must  have  been  famil- 
iar to  the  people  as  early  as  1663  ;  for  Sam- 
uel Butler,  in  "  Hudibras,"  thus  launches 
his  keen  satire  at  it : 

"They're guilty,  by  their  own  confessions, 
Of  felony,  and  at  the  Sessions 
Upon  the  bench  I  will  so  handle  'em, 
That  the  vibration  of  this  pendulum 
Shall  make  all  taylors'  yards  of  one 
Unanimous  opinion."          Part  2,  Canto  j. 

About  the  same  time,  Robert  Hooke  was 
ridiculed  for  his  experiments  with  pendu- 
lums, which  were  designated  "  swing-swangs." 
Ten  years  later  Huyghens  speaks  of  the  idea 
of  employing  the  pendulum  as  a  standard 
of  measure,  as  a  common  one. 

But  no  attempt  was  made"  to  establish  a 
regular  system  of  measures  on  the  basis  of 
either  of  these  standards,  until  the  period  of 
the  French  Revolution.  In  1790,  Prince 
Talleyrand,  then  Bishop  of  Autun,  distrib- 
uted among  the  members  of  the  Constituent 
Assembly  of  France  a  proposal  for  the 
foundation  of  a  new  system  of  measures  and 
weights,  upon  the  principle  of  a  single  and 
universal  standard.  The  decree  required  . 
"  that  the  National  Assembly  should  write  a 
letter  to  the  British  Parliament,  requesting 
their  concurrence  with  France  in  the  adop- 
tion of  a  natural  standard  of  weights  and 
measures  ;  for  which  purpose,  commissioners 
in  equal  numbers  from  the  French  Acade- 
my of  Sciences  and  the  British  Royal  Socie- 
ty, chosen  by  those  learned  bodies  respec- 
tively, should  meet  at  the  most  suitable 
place,"  and  select  an  invariable  standard  for 
all  measures  and  weights.  The  British  gov- 
ernment gave  no  response  to  this  friendly  in- 
vitation. "  The  idea  of  associating  the  inter- 
ests and  the  learning  of  other  nations  in  this 
great  effort  for  common  improvement,  was 
not  confined  to  the  proposal  for  obtaining 
the  concurrent  agency  of  Great  Britain. 
Spain,  Italy,  the  Netherlands,  Denmark,  and 
Switzerland  were  actually  represented  in  the 
proceedings  of  the  Academy  of  Sciences  to 
accomplish  the  purposes  of  the  National  As- 
sembly." 

The  preliminary  work,  as  well  as  the  se- 


1885.T 


The  Metric  System. 


179 


lection  of  the  standard,  was  intrusted  to  a 
committee  consisting  of  the  most  distinguish- 
ed members  of  the  French  Academy  of  Sci- 
ences, viz:  Lagrange, Laplace,  Borda,  Monge, 
Condorcet,  and  Lalande.  The  committee 
had  under  consideration  thfee  projects  of  a 
natural  standard  of  length ;  viz  :  first,  the 
length  of  a  second's  pendulum ;  second,  a 
fraction  of  the  equatorial  circumference  of 
the  earth  ;  and  third,  a  fraction  of  the  quad- 
rant of  the  terrestrial  meridian.  After  a  full 
deliberation,  and  with  great  accuracy  of 
judgment,  the  committee  preferred  the  last ; 
and  proposed  that  the  io,ooo,oooth4part  of 
the  quadrant  of  the  meridian  should  be  cal- 
led the  metre,  and  be  considered  as  the  stan- 
dard unit  of  linear  measure  ;  that  the  subdi- 
visions and  multiples  of  ail  measures  should 
be  made  on  the  decimal  system ;  and  that 
the  weight  of  distilled  water  at  the  tempera- 
ture of  its  maximum  dejisity,  measured  by  a 
cubical  vessel  in  proportion  to  the  linear 
standard,  should  determine  the  standard  of 

eights  and  of  vessels  of  capacity. 

report  to  the  Academy  of  Sciences 
was  made  on  the  igth  of  March,  1791,  and 
immediately  transmitted  to  the  National  As- 
sembly; the  sanction  of  this  body  being 
promptly  received,  the  execution  of  the  great 
work  was  intrusted  to  four  separate  commis- 
sions, including  some  of  the  most  celebrated 
men  of  science  in  France.  The  measure- 
ment of  the  arc  of  the  meridian  from  Dun- 
kirk to  Barcelona  was  assigned  to  Delambre 
and  Mechain;  and  for  determining  the  length 
of  the  metre,  to  the  two  men  just  mentioned 
were  added  Laplace,  Legendre,  Von  Swin- 
den,  of  Holland,  and  Trall&s,  of  Switzerland. 
The  determination  of  the  weight  of  the  cubic 
unit  of  water  was  intrusted  to  Lefevre-Gi- 
neau,  assisted  by  Fabroni,  of  Florence ;  and 
their  operations  were  revised  by  Coulomb, 
Trailes,  Mascheroni,  and  Von  Swinden. 

But  the  Assembly  did  not  wait  for  the  com- 
pletion of  the  great  work  of  measuring  the 
arc  of  the  meridian,  before  giving  to  the  sys- 
tem a  legal  and  practical  existence  :  for  La- 
caille's  measure  of  a  degree  of  the  meridian 
in  latitude  forty-five  degrees*  furnished  an 
approximate  determination  of  the  metre  suf- 


ficiently exact  for  all  ordinary  purposes  of 
life.  The  system  was,  therefore,  provision- 
ally established  by  law  on  the  ist  of  August, 
1793;  and  the  uniform  decimal  nomencla- 
ture, which  now  distinguishes  it,  was  adopted 
on  the  7th  of  April,  1795. 

At  length,  Delambre  and  his  associates — 
after  encountering  and  overcoming  unheard- 
of  difficulties  incident  to  that  turbulent  pe- 
riod— completed  the  measurement  of  the  arc 
of  the  meridian.  In  1799,  an  international 
commission  assembled  at  Paris,  on  the  invi- 
tation of  the  French  Government,  to  settle, 
from  the  results  of  the  great  meridian  survey, 
the  exact  length  of  the  "definitive  metre." 
In  this  commission  were  represented  the 
governments  of  France,  Holland,  Denmark, 
Swede'n,  Switzerland,  Spain,  Savoy,  and  the 
Roman,  Cis-Alpine,  and  Ligurian  Republics. 
The  report  of  this  commission  was  presented 
by  Trailes,  of  Switzerland,  on  the  3oth  of 
April,  1799  ;  and  on  the  226.  of  June,  1799, 
they  proceeded  to  deposit  at  the  Palace  of 
the  Archives  in  Paris,  the  standard  metre- 
bar  of  platinum,  which  represents  the  linear 
base  of  the  system ;  and  the  standard  kilo- 
gramme weight,  also  of  platinum,  which  rep- 
resents the  unit  of  metric  weights. 

The  system  was  declared  obligatory  on  the 
2d  of  November,  1801  ;  but  the  people  of 
France  were  not  prepared  for  so  sudden 
a  change,  and  accordingly,  in  1812,  during 
the  period  of  Napoleon  the  Great,  a  compro- 
mise was  adopted,  which  was  designated  as 
the  "  systeme  iisuel."  In  the  year  1837,  how- 
ever, during  the  reign  of  Louis  Philippe,  a 
new  law  was  passed,  prescribing  the  use  of 
the  metric  decimal  system  and  nomenclature 
in  all  its  integrity,  which  wks  ordered  to  be 
universally  enforced  from  the  beginning  of 
the  year  1840.  All  vestiges  of  other  systems 
have  disappeared  in  France ;  and,  as  we  shall 
see,  the  metric  system  has  been  quite  gener- 
ally adopted  by  European  nations. 

IT  has  been  said  that  the  linear  unit  of  this 
system  is  too  large  "  to  be  apprehended  by 
a  young  and  uninstructed  mind."  It  is  very 
hard  to  appreciate  the  force  of  this  objec- 
tion. How  much  more  difficult  would  it  be 


180 


The  Metric  System. 


[Aug. 


for  a  child  to  apprehend  the  length  of  a  me- 
ter than  the  length  of  a  yard  ? 

But  Mr.  Adams  says  the  meter  is  too  long 
for  a  pocket-rule  ;  and  that  "  neither  the  me- 
ter, the  half-meter,  nor  the  decimeter  is  suit- 
ed to  that  purpose."  Would  a  foot-rule  fit 
into  a  carpenter's  pocket  more  conveniently 
than  the  decimeter?  Cannot  a  folded  meter 
be  carried  in  the  pocket  as  easily  as  a  folded 
two-foot  measure  ?  We  have  tape-measures 
of  a  yard  or  a  fathom  in  length  ;  and  we  can 
have  tape-measures  of  a  meter  in  length. 

It  is  evident  that  we  must  have  several 
linear  units,  appropriate  to  different  classes 
of  measurement ;  and  it  is  the  great  merit  of 
the  metric  system  that  its  secondary  units 
have  the  simplest  of  relations  to  one  another. 
In  the  physical  laboratory,  the  millimeter  may 
be  the  unit ;  in  the  machine  shop,  the  centi- 
meter ;  and  on  the  railroad  line,  the  meter 
and  the  kilometer.  But  we  can  translate 
quantities  from  one  to  another  by  simply 
moving  the  decimal  point;  whereas,  quite  an 
arithmetical  computation  is  required  to  re- 
duce inches  to  feet,  rods,  and  miles. 

Second  :  It  is  said  that  ten  is  a  difficult 
number  to  grasp  !  Is  not  twelve  equally  dif- 
ficult to  grasp  ?  This  objection  will  not  bear 
the  slightest  examination.  Our  children 
must  know  something  about  decimal  arith- 
metic, for  it  is  the  basis  of  our  arithmetical 
notation.  They  must  have  this  knowledge, 
whether  they  learn  the  metric  system  or  not. 
If  they  know  it,  they  know  the  system,  all 
excepting  the  nomenclature ;  if  they  do  not 
know  it,  then  it  is  difficult  to  conceive  of 
"  educational .  machinery  better  suited  to 
make  them  know  it,  than  the  visible  magni- 
tude of  the  mefric  measures  placed  before 
their  eyes."  Moreover,  our  currency  is  deci- 
mal, and  yet  there  is  no  difficulty  in  learn- 
ing it. 

Third  :.  It  is  admitted  that  the  decimal  ra- 
tio is  infinitely  more  favorable  for  calculation 
than  any  other ;  but  asserted  that  for  the  daily 
purposes  of  life,  the  binary  subdivision  is  to 
be  preferred.  Mr.  Adams  urged  this  as  a 
most  serious  practical  difficulty  in  the  adop- 
tion of  any  decimal  system,  and  especially  in 
relation  to  the  successful  introduction  of  our 


decimal  currency.  He  thought  that  the 
people  would  persist  in  dividing  into  eighths 
and  sixteenths.  Yet  within  ten  years  after 
he  wrote,  all  the  small  Spanish  coins  had 
been  swept  away,  and  nobody  now  perceives 
the  want  of  them.  Moreover,  the  binary 
system  may  be  retained,  as  far  as  it  may  be 
convenient.  Halves  and  quarters  of  the 
meter  might  be  used  as  freely  as  halves  and 
quarters  of  the  dollar.  Finally,  the  general 
use  of  the  decimal  system  in  Europe  demon- 
strates that  it  is  not  unsuitable  for  the  practi- 
cal purposes  of  life. 

Fourth  :  "  Decimal  division  has  failed  as 
applied  to  the  circle,"  With  regard  to  this 
objection,  it  must  be  remembered  that  when 
the  metric  system  was  created,  only  four 
things  were  the  sanje  for  all  civilized  mankind, 
viz:  (i.)  The  Arabic  numerals:  (2.)  The  al- 
gebraic symbols ;  (3.)  The  divisions  of  the 
circle ;  and  (4.)  The  divisions  of  time. 
Hence,  to  decimalize  the  divisions  of  the  cir- 
cle was  to  introduce  diversity  where  uniform- 
ity already  prevailed.  Moreover,  such  a 
change  involves  the  destruction  of  the  use- 
fulness of  a  vast  body  of  scientific  literature, 
tables,  etc.,  which  had  been  founded  on  the 
sexagesimal  division.  For  these  reasons  the 
decimal  division  of  the  circle,  after  a  brief 
trial,  was  abandoned  by  the  French.  Nev- 
ertheless the  centesimal  division  of  the  quad- 
rant was  found  to  be  much  more  conveni- 
ent than  the  old  system ;  and  when  the 
metric  system  shall  be  universal,  it  is  proba- 
ble that  the  decimal  division  will  be  once 
more  applied  to  the  circle.  Nothing  could 
be  less  convenient  than  the  sexagesimal  di- 
vision which  is  now  employed.  In  fact,  this 
inconvenience  is  so  far  recognized  that  this 
-law  of  subdivision  has  already  been  aban- 
doned for  all  values  below  seconds,  and,  in 
some  instances,  for  values  below  minutes, 
such  values  being  expressed  decimally. 
This  objection  may,  therefore,  be  regarded 
as  without  foundation. 

Fifth :  "  The  unit  of  length  should  be 
some  dimension  of  the  human  body."  This 
point  has  been  strongly  urged  by  the  ob- 
jectors to  th^  metric  system.  It  has  been 
assumed  that  our  present  measures  of  length 


585.] 


The  Metric  System. 


181 


have  their  prototypes  in  the  dimensions  of 
some  parts  of  the  human  body.  Thus,  it 
has  been  said  that  the  "  foot  "  "  was  undoubt- 
edly adopted  as  the  standard  of  measure 
from  the  part  of  the  body  from  which  it 
takes  its  name."  Let  this  be  granted ;  but 
what  foot?  Careful  inquiry  shows  that 
more  than  one  hundred  foot-measures,  dif- 
fering in  value  from  23.22  to  8.75  British 
inches,  have  been  in  use'  at  some  time  in 
some  part  of  Europe.  It  can  hardly  be 
supposed  that  .alHhese  measures  were  taken 
from  the  human  foot.  It  is  evident  that  the 
name  foot  has  been  perpetuated  from  very 
early  times  ;  but  the  thing  named  has  either 
lost  its  original  value,  or  it  has  been  arbi- 
trarily changed.  In  relation  to  the  origin 
of  the  British  'foot,  we  know  that  was  derived 
from  the  yard ;  it  is  simply  one-third  part  of 
that  measure. 

It  is  continually  asserted  that  our  foot 
measure  is  in  length  but  a  fraction  in  excess 
of  the  average  human  foot.  It  is  astound- 
ing how  such  an  opinion  ever  originated. 
According  to  Doctor  Young,  the  length  of 
the  human  foot  is  9.768  British  inches.  Ac- 
cording to  Dr.  B.  A.  Gould's  measurements 
of  the  feet  of  16,000  men,  volunteers  for  the 
army,  of  whom  about  i  r,ooo  were  white  and 
the  rest  colored,  the  mean  length  for  no  na- 
tionality exceeded  10.24  inches,  and  none 
fell  below  9.89  inches.  The  mean  value  for 
the  total  was  10.058  inches.  This  latter  is 
much  nearer  the  quarter  of  a  meter  than  the 
one-third  of  a  yard.  Our  foot,  slightly  mod- 
ified, would  be  equal  to  three  decimeters. 

The  facility  jof  measuring  off  the  yard  on 
the  arm  furnishes  the  objector  with  another 
ground  of  objection  to  the  meter.  Sir  John 
Herschel's  rule  is :  "  Hold  the  end  of  a  string 
or  ribbon  between  the  finger  and  thumb  of 
one  hand,  at  the  full  length  of  the  arm,  ex- 
tended horizontally  sideways,  and  mark  the 
point  that  can  be  brought,  to  touch  the  cen- 
ter of  the  lips,  facing  full  in  front."  Very 
good;  now,  if  you  will  carry  the  string  or 
ribbon  entirely  across  the  lips,  and  mark  the 
point  that  can  be  brought  to  touch  the  lobe 
of  the  ear,  you  will  have  a  meter.  Moreover, 
we  have  the  following  metrical  relations, 
viz  : 


The  breadth  of  the  palm  is    I  decimeter, 

^little  finger  is    i  centimeter, 
length  "    "     pace  is   9-10  of  meter. 

Hence,  by  adopting  metrical  measures, 
we  shall  not,  in  the  slightest  degree,  be  dis- 
abled from  finding,  in  the  dimensions  of  our 
own  persons  or  of  our  steps,  all  the  means 
of  performing  rough  measurements.  Conse- 
quently, this  objection  falls  to  the  ground. 

Sixth  :  As  regards  the  objection  that  the 
introduction  of  the  new  measures  would  in- 
validate the  titles. to  lands  held  under  old  sur- 
veys, nothing  can  be  more  imaginary.  No 
legislation  on  this  subject  can  be  retroact- 
ive. It  would  not  affect  past  deeds ;  and  in 
making  a  new  deed  in  future,  nothing  would 
be  easier  than  to  translate  the  language  de- 
scriptive of  linear  and  superficial  dimensions 
from  one  form  of  expression  to  the  other. 
Changes  would  thus  come  on  gradually,  as 
property  changed  hands. 

Seventh  :  Some  have  criticised  the  metric 
system  on  the  ground  that  its  base  is  not 
well  chosen.  The  meter  purports  to  be  the 
ten  millionth  part  of  a  meridional  quadrant 
of  the  terrestrial  spheroid.  But  recent  inves- 
tigations show  that  the  earth  is  not  a  sphe- 
roid, but  rather  an  ellipsoid  of  three  unequal 
axes;  hence,  the  meridians  are  unequal.  The 
polar  axis  of  the  earth,  on  the  other  hand, 
being  the  common  minor  axis  of  all  merid- 
ians, is  a  magnitude  more  suitable,  it  is  as- 
serted, for  the  base  of  a  system  of  measures, 
than  any  quadrant  of  the  earth.  This  is 
the  view  of  Sir  John  Herschel  and  of  Pro- 
fessor Piazzi  Smyth ;  and  if  the  whole  thing 
were  to  be  done  over  again,  it  would  un- 
doubtedly be  the  unanimous  view  of  the  sci- 
entific world.  But  the  matter  has  gone  too 
far  now  to  change  the  base;  and,  moreover, 
it  is  evident  that  the  natural  unit  from  which 
the  linear  base  is  derived  is  a  feature  of  in- 
significant importance  compared  with  the 
other  merits  of  a  uniform  metric  system.  At 
the  present  time,  measures  are  not  verified 
by  applying  them  to  the  meridian ;  and  we 
need  not  trouble  ourselves  about  whether 
the  quadrant  of  the  meridian  or  the  polar 
axis  of  the  earth  is  the  more  suitable  dimen- 
sion from  which  to  derive  the  linear  base. 
Sir  John  Herschel  proposes  that  the  Brit- 


182 


The  Metric  System. 


[Auj 


ish  standard  of  length  be  an  aliquot  part  of 
the  earth's  polar  axis.  He  shows  that  if  the 
existing  English  standard  measures  were  in- 
creased by  one  one-thousandth  part,  and 
calling  it  the  "  geometrical  standard,"  a  geo- 
metrical inch  would  be  exactly  equal  to  the 
five  hundred  millionth  part  of  the  polar  axis 
of  the  earth  ;  a  rod  of  fifty  inches  would  be 
equal  to  the  ten  millionth  part  of  the  same 
axis;  and  one  of  twenty-five  inches  would  be 
equal  to  the  ten  millionth  part  of  the  polar 
semi-axis.  Discarding  the  error  of  one  part  in 
8,000,  one  cubic  geometrical  foot  of  water, 
at  the  standard  temperature,  would  be  equal 
to  1,000  imperial  ounces  or  100  half  pints. 
This  scheme  would  certainly  be  a  great  im- 
provement on  the  present  complicated  and 
incoherent  British  system  ;  but  it  would  not 
help  us  towards  unification. 

Eighth  :  Another  objection  to  the  base  of 
the  metric  system,  which  is  often  urged  in  a 
tone  of  exultation,  is,  that,  after  all,  the 
meter  is  not  equal  to  the  particular  merid- 
ional quadrant  from  which  it  was  derived. 
Thus,  BesseFs  calculations  make  the  quad- 
rant equal  to  10,000,857  meters;  General 
De  Schubert,  of  the  Russian  army,  in  1859, 
from  a  comparison  of  arcs,  makes  the  true 
length  of  the  French  quadrant  to  be  10,- 
001,221.6  meters ;  while  Captain  A.  R. 
Clarke,  of  the  British  Ordnance  Survey,  in 
1860,  finds  the  length  of  the  French  quad- 
rant to  be  10,001,561.8  meters(io, 001,498. 85 
meters  as  revised  in  1866).  Hence  we  find 
that  these  recent  investigations  all  concur  in 
showing  that  the  actual  meter  is  slightly 
shorter  than  the  ten  millionth  part  of  the 
quadrant.  Thus,  according  to  these  results, 
the  actual  meter  is  in  error  by  the  following 
fractions,  viz  : 

Bessel  =  i/u665  of  a  meter,  or  1/296  of  an  inch. 
Schubert=i/8i86  of  a  meter,  or  1/208  of  an  inch. 
Clarke=  1/6403  of  a  meter,  or  1/163  °f  an  inch. 
"     =1/6671.776  of  a  meter  or  1/172  of  an  inch. 

It  is  quite  certain,  therefore,  that  the  actual 
meter  is  not  identical  with  the  mefer  of  def- 
inition. This  discordance  was  noticed  in 
the  year  1838,  by  Colonel  Puissant.  M. 
Largeteau,  in  his  report  to  the  French  Bureau 
of  Longitudes,  fairly  meets  the  objection 


under  consideration.  After  announcing  that, 
the  length  of  the  metre  having  been  fixed  in 
a  definite  manner  by  the  commission,  "  that 
length  neither  can  nor  ought  to  be  changed," 
he  proceeds  to  remark  :  "  With  respect  to 
the  simple  relation  which  was  attempted  to 
be  established  between  the  metre  and  the 
quadrant  of  the  meridian,  all  philosophers 
knew  from  the  beginning  that  such  relation 
must  necessarily  be  to  a  certain  extent  hy- 
pothetical "  ;  "  that  the  new  system  would 
bear,  in  its  birth,  the  impress  of  the  state  of 
contemporary  science  on  trite  question  of  the 
magnitude  and  figure  of  the  earth." 

The  fact  is,  the  idea  of  a  natural  standard 
in  an  absolute  sense  of  the  term  is  Utopian ; 
for  nothing  in  nature  is  invariable.  Every 
assumed  natural  standard  is  liable  to  the 
same  objection.  *  The  ascertained  length  of 
a  second's  pendulum  at  some  particular 
place,  and  the  computed  length  of  the  polar 
axis  of  the  earth,  are  liable  to  change  with 
the  progressive  improvements  in  methods  of 
measurements.  Nay,  more ;  we  have  every 
reason  to  believe  that  the  dimensions  of  the 
earth,  and  consequently  the  intensity  of  grav- 
ity at  its  surface,  are  not  invariable,  but  the 
subject  of  secular  changes.  Indeed,  all  at- 
tempts to  derive  an  invariable  standard  of 
length  from  some  fixed  dimension  in  nature, 
must,  from  the  very  nature  of  things,  fail. 
Thus  the  French  declared  that  the  metre 
prototype  is  a  certain  definite  and  assigned 
portion  of  the  earth's  quadrant — which  it  is 
not  ,  and  that,  if  lost  or  injured,  it  shall  be 
restored  to  the  same  length  in  conformity 
with  its  definition — which  cannot  be  done. 
In  like  manner,  the  British  Act  of  1824  de-  • 
clares  that  the  standard  yard  is  a  certain  defi- 
nite portion  of  the  length  of  a  second's  pen- 
dulum— which  it  is  not ;  and  that,  if  lost  or 
injured,  it  shall  be  restored  to  the  same 
length  in  conformity  with  the  definition — 
which  cannot  be  done.  These  are  lessons 
which  are  well  calculated  to  humble  the  pride 
of  our  philosophy,  and  signal  reproofs  of  the 
presumption  of  supposing  that  we  have,  in 
any  one  case,  arrived  at  the  last  stage  of  the 
journey  to  which  the  progress  of  knowledge 
is  perpetually  leading  us. 


585.] 


The  Metric  System. 


183 


With  regard  to  the  advantages  of  the  met- 
ric system  : 

First :  There  is  no  change  so  simple  in 
itself,  which  promises  to  yield  so  great  an 
amount  of  practical  advantage  to  the  great 
body  of  the  people,  as  the  adoption  of  a  pure- 
ly decimal  system  in  the  arrangement  of  the 
various  denominations  of  measures,  weights, 
and  money.  In  our  complicated  system,  it 
is  impossible  to  estimate  the  amount  of  la- 
bor thrown  away  every  year  by  the  people  of 
this  country  and  of  Great  Britain,  while  per- 
sisting in  performing  the  manifold  computa- 
tions necessary  to  the  gigantic  commerce 
and  industry  involved.  But  the  waste  of 
time  and  money  must  be  enormous,  while 
every  year  it  becomes  greater  and  greater. 
Were  the  different  measures,  weights,  and 
money  brought  into  harmony  with  the  fun- 
damental principle  of  our  common  arithme- 
tic, by  the  adoption  of  a  purely  decimal  ar- 
rangement, it  is  estimated  that  the  labor  of 
commercial  and  professional  calculations 
would  be  reduced  much  below  one-half  of 
what  is  now  expended  in  this  direction,  while 
the  risk  of  errors  would  be  diminished  in 
still  greater  ratio. 

The  British  system,  in  so  far  as  it  relates 
to  the  various  denominations  of  money,  is 
vastly  more  dislocated  and  complicated  than 
our  own ;  but  as  far  as  relates  to  measures  and 
weights,  our  system  is  equally  uncouth  and  in- 
coherent. For  example,  to  find  the  value  of 
5,760  yards  of  calico  at  3^  pence  per  yard, 
requires : 

By  practice 33  figures 

"  compound  multiplication 43  " 

' '  rule  of  three 44  " 

"  decimal  multiplication 14  " 

Again,  to  find  the  value  of  three  acres,  one. 
rood,  and  thirty-six  perches  of  land,  at  forty- 
seven  pounds,  fourteen  shillings,  six  pence 
per  acre,  requires,  by  the  ordinary  method, 
one  hundred  and  twenty-six  figures  ;  where- 
as, by  using  acres  and  decimals  of  an  acre, 
and  pounds  and  decimals  of  a  pound  (and 
carrying  the  approximation  to  three  places 
of  decimals),  only  thirty-three  figures  are  re- 
quired !  That  is,  the  result  is  secured  by 
writing  about  one-fourth  the  number  of 


digits  required  by  the  first  process ;  the  time 
required  for  performing  the  operation  by  the 
two  processes  would  be  nearly  in  the  same 
proportion.  In  view  of  this  condition  of 
things,  Sir  William  Thomson  very  justly  says: 
"  It  is  a  remarkable  phenomenon,  belonging 
rather  to  moral  and  social  than  to  physical 
science,  that  a  people  tending  naturally  to 
be  regulated  by  common  sense  should  vol- 
untarily condemn  themselves,  as  the  British 
have  so  long  done,  to  unnecessary  hard  labor 
in  every  action  of  common  business  or  scien- 
tific work  related  to  measurement  from  which 
all  other  nations  of  Europe  have  emancipat- 
ed themselves." 

Second :  Were  a  decimal  system  intro- 
duced, the  various  denominations  of  meas- 
ures, weights,  and  money,  increasing  and 
diminishing  by  a  uniform  scale  of  tens  and 
tenths,  the  labor  of  imparting  and  of  acquir- 
ing a  knowledge  of  all  the  arithmetic  neces- 
sary for  ordinary  commercial  purposes  would 
be  vastly  abridged.  Sir  John  Bowring  says 
that  in  China,  where  a  uniform  decimal  sys- 
tem is  in  use,  a  boy  at  school  becomes  a  bet- 
ter practical  arithmetician  in  a  month,  than 
a  boy  in  an  English  school  can  become  in  a 
year !  Perhaps  this  may  be  an  overdrawn 
picture  of  the  advantages  of  the  decimal  sys- 
tem ;  but  the  main  fact  is  undeniable.  Ac- 
cording to  the  results  obtained  by  the  inqui- 
ries of  the  International  Association  among 
school-masters,  it  appears  that  the  time  re- 
quired for  learning  arithmetic  would  be  in 
the  proportion  of  two  years  to  ten  months, 
or  as  twenty-four  to  ten.  De  Morgan  esti- 
mated the  time  saved  in  arithmetic  at  one 
half,  if  not  more.  Dr.  Farr  said  :  "  You  get 
rid  of  all  compound  arithmetic,  and  make 
calculations  simple  and  mechanical."  Mr. 
Barrett's  testimony  shows  that  the  time  spent 
in  education  would  be  shortened  two  years 
by  adopting  the  decimal  system. 

Third  :  The  advantages  of  the  metric  sys- 
te"m  to  all  classes  of  'practical  engineers  and 
machinists  cannot  be  overestimated.  Ac- 
cording to  the  metric  system,  the  numbers 
contained  in  a  table  of  specific  gravities  of 
various  substances  indicate  at  once,  without 
any  calculation,  the  weight  in  grams  of  a 


184 


The  Metric  System. 


[Aug. 


cubic  centimeter  of  each  substance;  also, 
the  weight  in  kilograms  of  a  cubic  deci- 
meter :  and  by  simply  moving  the  decimal 
point  three  places  to  the  right,  we  have  the 
weight  in  kilograms  of  a  cubic  meter. 

According  to  our  system,  to  find  the  weight 
in  pounds  avoirdupois  of  a  cubic  foot  of  any 
body,  we  should  have  to  multiply  the  specific 
gravity  of  the  body  by  62.4 — the  weight  of 
a  cubic  foot  of  water.  To.  find  the  weight 
of  a  cubic  yard,  another  multiplication  would 
be  required ;  and  to  find  the  weight  of  a  cu- 
bic inch,  still  another. 

The  inconveniences  and  losses  arising  from 
the  great  diversity  of  systems  of  measures, 
weights,  and  coins  among  the  chief  nations 
of  the  earth,  have  long  been  felt  and  ac- 
knowledged ;  but  they  are  becoming  greater 
and  more  evident  with  the  constantly  increas- 
ing facilities  for  international  communication, 
by  which  the  people  and  commodities  of  re- 
mote regions  are  brought  into  constant  and 
close  contact. 

The  collections  of  the  Department  of 
Measures,  Weights,  and  Coins  of  the  Paris 
Exposition  for  1867,  comprised  no  less  than 
sixty-seven  different  systems  of  measures, 
based  upon  sixty-two  different  units  ;  thirty- 
six  different  systems  of  weights  based  upon 
thirty-six  different  units  ;  and  thirty-five  dif- 
ferent standards  of  gold  and  silver  coin,  be- 
longing to  eighteen  different  monetary  sys- 
tems, based  upon  eighteen  different  units  or 
measures  of  value. 

Questions  of  metrical  reform  are,  like  oth- 
er political  and  economical  changes,  strictly 
practical  questions,  where  the  advantages  to 
be  gained  are  to  be  considered  in  connection 
with  the  inconveniences  which  they  will  oc- 
casion, as  well  as  the  practicability  of  enfor- 
cing them  when  made  ;  and  it  is  hardly  pos- 
sible to  avoid  a  signal  failure  in  attempting 
such  changes,  if  these  considerations  are  not 
kept  distinctly  in  view,  There  can  be  no 
question  that  the  progress  of  human  civiliza- 
tion demands  uniformity  in  the  systems  of 
measures  and  weights.  And  the  question  is, 
How  shall  this  demand  be  met  ? 

John  Quincy  Adams,  in  his  elaborate  and 
exhaustive  report  to  the  Senate  of  the  Unit- 


ed States,  in  1821,  very  justly  pronounces 
the  metric  system  "  an  approach  to  ideal  per- 
fection of  uniformity,"  and  predicts  that  it  is 
destined,  whether  it  succeed  or  fail,  to  "  shed 
unfading  glory  upon  the  age  in  which  it  was 
conceived."  Apart  altogether  from  the  source, 
whence  the  metric  system  first  originated,  we 
accept  it,  not  because  it  is  a  unit  derived  from 
nature,  but  because  it  is  a  unit  which  has  been 
adopted  with  entire  satisfaction,  for  a  period 
exceeding  a  half  century,  by  a  large  number 
of  civilized  nations.  But  one  great  recom- 
mendation of  the  metric  system  is  its  extreme 
simplicity,  symmetry,  and  convenience.  Its 
exact  decimal  progression  ;  its  power  of  sub- 
division and  multiplication  from  the  highest 
and  largest  to  the  smallest  and  most  minute 
quantities  ;  the  few  and  specific  names  by 
which  each  unit  is  distinguished  ;  their  anal- 
ogy and  natural  relation  to  one  another : 
these  are  the  merits  which  have  put  the  met- 
ric system  far  in  advance  of  any  other. 

It  has  been  urged  that  the  history  of  Brit- 
ish legislation  upon  the  metrical  reforms 
demonstrates  the  utter  futility  of  invoking 
the  aid  of  legislative  power.  But  the  reason 
why  British  laws  have  failed  to  secure  uni- 
formity is  not  because  the  people  did  not 
recognize  the  desirability  of  a  uniform  sys- 
tem ;  but  because  her  legislators  never  pre- 
sented to  the  public  any  motive  for  uniform- 
ity. The  Imperial  bushel  was  not  any  bet- 
ter than  the  Winchester  bushel,  or  any  other 
bushel ;  the  Imperial  gallon  was  scarcely 
more  convenient  than  any  of  the  other  gal- 
lons in  common  use ;  and  no  great  advan- 
tage was  gained  by  changing  the  standard  of 
weight  from  the  Troy  pound  to  the  avoirdu- 
pois pound,  so  long  as  both  weights  were 
recognized  as  legal. 

As  every  economy  of  labor,  both  material 
and  intellectual,  is  equivalent  to  actual  in- 
crease of  wealth,  the  adoption  of  the  metric 
system — which  may  be  ranked  in  the  same 
order  of  ideas  as  tools  and  machines,  rail- 
ways, telegraphs,  logarithms,  etc. — com- 
mends itself  in  an  economical  point  of  view. 
The  simplicity  of  the  relations  by  which  it 
connects  the  measures  of  surface,  of  capacity, 
and  of  weight  with  the  linear  base,  is  such 


1885.] 


Eager  Heart. 


185 


as  to  make  the  system  a  powerful  intellect- 
ual machine,  and  an  important  educational 
instrumentality.  The  universal  adoption  of 
this  system  would  unquestionably  confer  an 
immense  and  incalculable  benefit  upon  the 
human  race,  in  the  increased  facilities  it 
would  afford  to  commerce,  and  to  exactness 
in  matters  that  concern  the  practical  life  of 
humanity.  But  there  are  still  higher  motives 
for  its  adoption.  "  To  secure  that  severe  ac- 
curacy in  standards  of  measurement  which 
transcends  all  the  wants  of  ordinary  business 
affairs,  yet  which,  in  the  present  advanced 
state  of  science,  is  the  absolutely  indispensable 
condition  of  higher  progress,  is  an  object  of  in- 
terest to  the  investigators  of  nature  immensely 
superior  to  anything  which  contemplates  only 
the  increase  of  the  wealth  of  the  nations." 

Within  the  last  quarter  of  a  century,  the 
metric  system  has  made  encouraging  pro- 
gress. And  it  is  a  significant  fact,  that  every 
change  which  has  taken  place  has  thus  far 
consisted  in  replacing  the  values  of  the  meas- 
ures and  weights  in  common  use  by  adopt- 
ing other  values  from  the  metric  system. 
Within  the  last  ten  or  fifteen  years,  the  pro- 
gress towards  unification  has  been  more  en- 
couraging. In  December,  1863,  when  Mr. 
S.  B.  Ruggles  made  his  report  to  the  Secre- 
tary of  State  of  the  United  States,  it  was  esti- 
mated that  of  the  civilized  nations  of  Europe 
and  America,  about  one  hundred  and  thirty- 


nine  millions  of  people  were  using  the  metric 
system,  and  one  hundred  and  fifty-three  mil- 
lions were  not  using  it.  At  the  present 
time,  twenty-one  nations,  containing  an  ag- 
gregate population  of  more  than  three  hun- 
dred and  thirty-six  millions,  have  adopted 
the  metric  system  in  full;  while  a  popula- 
tion of  over  eighty-four  millions  have  adopt- 
ed metric  values. 

The  world  will  have  a  common  system  of 
measures  and  weights.  Great  Britain,  Rus- 
sia, and  the  United  States,  the  three  great 
nations  which  have  not  yet  adopted  the  me- 
tric system,  cannot  remain  long  isolated.  It 
may  cost  something  to  make  the  change ; 
but  it  is  equally  true  that  it  is  costing  us 
enormously  to  keep  up  the  present  confusion. 
Witness  the  army  of  clerks  ;  the  time  thrown 
away  in  schools;  the  unnecessary  brain  work. 
Its  money-value  cannot  be  estimated. 

But  whether  we  like  it  or  not,  there  are 
many  indications  that  our  people  will,  at  no 
distant  day,  adopt  the  metric  system.  Men 
of  science  use  it;  it  is  used  in  the  coast  sur- 
vey, and  to  some  extent  in  the  mint.  A 
great  many  architects  in  the  principal  cities 
of  our  country  indicated  their  opinion  by 
agreeing  that  they  would  use  it  after  July, 
1876.  It  is  very  questionable,  however, 
whether  this  promise  was  carried  out  at  the 
appointed  time,  by  any  considerable  number 
of  architects. 

John  LeConte. 


O  EAGER  HEART. 

• 

O  EAGER  heart,  that  speaks  out  thro'  the  eyes 
From  depths  of  truthfulness,  do  thou  beware  ! 

The  dawn  so  watched  with  hopeful  certainty 
May  come  to  thee,  alas,  and  bring  despair. 

Stretch  not  those  trembling  hands  too  fervently 

To  grasp  the  deep  fulfillment  of  thy  dreams  ; 
A  shadowy  phantom  might  arise  like  Fate 

And  strangling  darkness  overmatch  the  gleams. 

Down  in  thy  heart's  remote,  sad  bravery 

Reserve  a  quiet  stronghold  wide  and  deep. 
Teach  thyself  patience,  hope  with  doubt,  and  learn 

To  still  tumultuous  longing  into  sleep. 

Marcia  D.  Crane. 


186 


A  Silo  Plantation. 


[Aug. 


A  HILO  PLANTATION. 


ON  the  morning  of  the  second  day  from 
Honolulu,  the  passenger  for  Hilo,  looking 
landward  from  the  swaying  deck  of  the  "  Ki- 
nau,"  sees  close  upon  the  right  the  surf 
breaking  against  a  long  succession  of  old  lava 
cliffs,  separated  from  one  another  by  many 
narrow  inlets  which  the  streams  have  cut. 
Through  these  openings  he  may  perhaps 
catch  a  passing  glimpse  of  pretty  waterfalls, 
half  hidden  by  bread  fruit  and  pandanis 
trees,  sweeping  down  between  ferny  and 
grass-covered  banks,  with  clustered  cocoanut 
trees  in  the  foreground.  On  the  top  of  the 
cliffs  and  stretching  backward  from*  the  sea, 
lie  the  plantations,  making  with  their  alterna- 
tion of  light  green  cane-fields  and  grassy  pas- 
ture, clustered  buildings  and  tall  mill  chim- 
neys, a  wide  brocaded  ribbon  bordering  the 
sea.  Back  of  them  is  the  belt  of  woods,  an 
impenetrable  tropical  jungle  at  first,  but  grad- 
ually changing  in  character,  till,  at  an  eleva- 
tion of  five  or  six  thousand  feet,  it  gives  place 
to  open,  grass-covered  slopes.  And  topping 
all,  if  the  day  be  clear,  stands  the  summit  of 
Mauna  Kea,  dashed  with  snow.  From  that 
far  summit,  or  through  rifts  in  the  mountain 
sides,  came  down,  in  ages  too  old  for  any  man 
to  tell,  flow  after  flow  of  fiery  lava,  building 
the  base  of  the  mountain  out  into  the  sea. 
But  now,  for  long,  the  sea  has  been  taking 
its  slow  revenge,  cutting  the  land  backward, 
and  undermining  the  shore  cliffs,  while  its 
winds  and  rains  have  reduced  the  surface  to 
arable  soil,  and  sculptured  it  with  long  lines 
of  ravines. 

The  chances  of  seeing  the  summit  of  Mau- 
na Kea  clear  are  not,  however,  very  great ; 
for  Hilo  district  is  the  most  rainy  in  the  Is- 
lands. The  constant  trade  wind,  blowing 
directly  inland,  brings  against  the  cool  upper 
slopes  of  the  mountains  great  masses  of 
cloud,  just  ready  for  condensation,  and  the 
result  is  frequent  and  copious  showers.  To 
this  district  is  credited  that  story  of  Mark 
Twain's,  of  the  man  who  found  that  the  rain 


fell  in  at  the  bung-hole  of  a  barrel  faster  than  it 
could  run  out  at  both  ends,  and  finally  filled 
the  barrel.  By  actual  measurement,  howev- 
er, the  rain  falls  not  infrequently  at  the  rate 
of  an  inch  an  hour,  and  it  scarcely  provokes 
a  smile  when  a  boy  is  sent  out  in  the  rain  to 
measure  and  empty  the  gauge  so  that  it  shall 
not  run  over. 

The  rain  keeps  the  whole  country  as  green 
as  a  spring  wheat  field,  and  the  smallest 
streams  run  the  year  round.  A  Californian, 
used  to 

"  Half  a  year  of  clouds  and  flowers, 
Half  a  year  of  dust  and  sky." 

finds  the  flowing  water  and  the  seeming  con- 
stancy of  early  summer  an  especial  delight. 
He  will  miss  one  thing,  however:  there  are 
no  field  flowers  in  Hawaii,  nothing  in  the 
whole  circuit  of  the  year  like-  the  acres  of 
yellow  mustard  and  flaming  poppies  that 
mark  the  opening  of  the  summer  in  his  na- 
tive State. 

It  has  been  said  of  the  Islands  as  a  whole, 
that  there  is  no  pleasanter  place  to  visit,  and 
no  worse  place  to  live,  the  world  over.  This 
applies  a  fortiori  to  the  plantations.  On 
one  side,  trfe  characteristic  kindness  is  here 
more  kind,  and  the  hospitality  even  more 
hospitable,  if  such  a  thing  can  be;  but,  on  the 
other  side,  the  isolation  is  more  complete. 
Honolulu  is  seven  days  removed  from  con- 
tact with  the  rushing  current  of  the  world's 
affairs ;  the  pfantations  from  ten  to  forty 
hours  from  such  ripples  as  stir  the  capital. 
The  society  of  the  city  lacks  elements  that 
numbers  alone  can  give  ;  that  of  the  planta- 
tion is  restricted  to  those  Hying  on  it,  and 
to  such  neighbors  as  can  be  reached  over 
miles  'of  muddy  roads.  This,  perhaps, 
makes  the  guest  all  the  more  welcome ;  at 
all  events,  he  is  welcomed  royally,  and  ev- 
erything done  to  insure  his  pleasure. 

Let  us  imagine  ourselves,  then,  so  fortu- 
nate as  to  be  going  by  invitation  to  one  of 
the  plantations  we  have  just  passed.  When 


585.] 


A  Hilo  Plantation. 


187 


we  go  ashore  at  Hilo,  the  manager  will  be 
in  town,  and  presently  the  horses  will  be 
brought  up,  and  we  shall  ride  back  across 
the  tops  of  the  cliffs,  and  up  and  down  the 
gulches,  the  lower  ends  of  which  we  have 
seen.  In  the  first  five  miles  we  shall  cross 
seven  of  them,  all  but  two  of  which  at  some 
seasons  of  the  year  require  bridges.  We 
shall  all  go  on  horseback,  for  outside  of  Hi- 
lo town  wheeled  vehicles  are  practically  use- 
less. The  ladies  of  the  party  will  ride  astride, 
as  is  the  commendable  custom  of  the  coun- 
try. Constant  rain  means  almost  constant 
mud,  and  much  use  reduces  some  of  the 
roads  to  such  a  state-that  they  show  where 
travel  is .  least  safe,  and  the  actual  road  be- 
comes a  series  of  divergent  trails  through  the 
grass  on  either  side.  Part  of  the  road  near 
town  is  paved  with  stone  blocks,  but  the 
paving  is  not  over  a  good  yard  wide,  and  so 
broken  and  slippery  that  one  is  not  sorry  to 
see  it  end. 

At  last  we  come  within  sight  of  the  mill 
and  the  manager's  house.  The  latter  is  oft- 
en not  unlike  a  California  farm-house  of 
the  better  sort,  though  with  more  conces- 
sions to  fresh  air,  and  more  verandas.  But 
true  adaptation  to  the  climate  forbids  a  com- 
pact style  of  architecture,  and  the  most  com- 
fortable houses  are  really  sets  of  cottages 
connected  by  covered  porches.  Jn  small 
cottages,  shadily  situated  at  some  distance 
from  the  main  house,  live  the  book-keeper, 
engineer,  sugar  boiler,  and  some  of  the  tunas, 
or  gang  bosses.  If  such  a  plantation  were 
in  California,  they  would  all  be  quartered  in  a 
redwood  boarding  house,  where  the  windows 
jam,  and  the  smell  of  the  dinner  comes  up. 
through  the  partitions.  Near  by  are  the 
plantation  office  and  the  store,  which  latter 
might  for  all  the  world  have  been  transport- 
ed bodily  from  some  cross-road  village  in 
Napa  County,  except  for  the  bar :  the  use 
of  liquor  on  the  plantations  is,  as  far  as  pos- 
sible, prohibited.  A  little  further  off,  in 
groups  or  singly,  stand  the  houses  of  the 
field  hands,  and  within  easy  reach,  the  school- 
house.  The  mill  buildings  in  this  district 
are  usually  placed  near  tide  water,  and 
near  them  stand  the  sugar  store-house  and 


the  sheds  for  drying  the  "trash,"  or  crushed 
cane  stalks,  which  is  presently  to  be  used  for 
fuel.  From  the  mill  radiate  lines  of  flume 
to  the  various  fields  of  the  plantation  ;  the 
abundance  of  water  is  thus  used  for  trans- 
porting the  cane.  The  children  utilize  them, 
too,  for  a  sort  of  liquid  coasting.  They 
gather  a  bundle  of  brush  wood,  and  seated 
upon  it  in  the  water,  go  down  the  flumes  at 
a  good,  round  speed. 

Both  for  population  and  buildings,  a  plan- 
tation is  not  unlike  a  fair-sized  village.  No 
such  number  of  people  can  work  effectively 
at  anything,  or  even  live  at  peace,  without 
something  like  organized  government.  At 
the  head  of  affairs,  of  course,  is  the  manager. 
He  stands  as  the  representative  of  the  plan- 
tation to  the  owners  and  to  the  public ;  he 
directs  the  general  working  of  it,  manages  the 
finances,  and  like  other  successful  leaders, 
watches  the  details  of  everybody  else's  work. 
His  first  assistant  in  the  field  work  is  the 
overseer,  who  apportions  the  work  and  sees 
to  its  execution  ;  under  him  again  are  the 
lunas,  each  in  charge  of  from  thirty  to  fifty 
men  or  more.  In  the  mill  work  rhe  sugar 
boiler  takes  the  rank,  for  upon  the-  success 
of  his  work  depends  in  large  measure  the 
percentage  of  sugar  obtained. 

As  regards  the  condition  of  the  field  hands, 
much  has  been  written  and  much  misinfor- 
mation put  afloat.  The  fact  is,  that,  unusual 
cases  aside,  the  plantation  laborer  is  no  worse 
off  than  other  laborers  of  equal  skill  and  in- 
telligence in  other  parts  of  the  world.  Brief- 
ly the  case  stands  in  this  way :  a  laborer  con- 
tracts to  work  under  certain  conditions  for  a 
certain  sum  of  money,  part  of  which  is  usu- 
ally advanced  at  the  signing  of  the  contract. 
This  agreement  he  makes  voluntarily.  If, 
by  and  by,  he  fails  to  keep  his  part  of  the 
bargain,  the  law  obliges  him  to  do  so,  as  it 
obliges  any  man  to  make  good  his  contract. 
This  method  of  hiring  labor  is  on  the  whole 
no  more  oppressive  than  the  shipping  of 
sailors,  from  which  practice  it  actually  has 
grown  up.  Indeed,  the  laborer  has  the  ad- 
vantage of  the  sailor,  for  his  manager  has  no 
such  power  of  punishment  as  a  shipmaster 
exercises,  and  he  can  at  any  time  have  ready 


188 


A  Hilo  Plantation. 


[Aug. 


appeal  to  the  law.  No  doubt  managers  are 
•  sometimes  domineering,  as  all  employers 
may  be,  and  plantation  hands  are  sometimes 
exasperating  as  other  employes  frequently 
are;  yet,  on  the  whole,  good  feeling  seems  to 
exist  on  both  sides,  and  it  is  quite  common  for 
those  whose  time  has  expired  to  be  anxious 
to  recontract.  They  live  as  well  and  are  as 
well  housed  on  the  plantation  as  their  coun- 
trymen of  equal  ability,  whose  time  has  been 
served  out.  Their  children  are  educated,  an 
advantage,  by  the  way,  which  all  of  them  do 
not  seem  to  value,  and  they  have  medical 
attendance  free  of  cost.  Whatever  objection 
may  be  brought  against  the  system  in  the- 
ory, it  must  be  remembered  that  in  practice 
it  works  well.  Labor  must  be  cheap,  and 
cheap  labor  is  not  conscientious  nor  educat- 
ed, and  there  seems,  as  yet,  to  be  no  better 
and  fairer  way  of  establishing  the/mutual 
rights  and  duties  of  both  planter  and  laborer. 

Before  the  above  digression,  we  were  about 
to  dismount  before  the  house  of  our  host,  the 
manager.  Within,  you  will  soon  be  made  at 
home.  The  simple,  straightforward  welcome 
of  your  hostess  does  that,  and  they  all  have 
somehow  caught  that  prime  requisite  of  en- 
tertaining, the  art  of  helping  every  one  to  do 
as  he  pleases.  Whatever  the  plantation  af- 
fords is  the  guest's  upon  one  condition,  that 
he  enjoy  himself.  Does  he  fancy  exercise? 
the  horses  are  his.  Does  he  prefer  lotus- 
eating?  he  may  lie  all  day  in  a  hammock 
under  the  wide  veranda  roof,  and  watch  the 
sunlight  and  shadow  shift  on  the  ocean,  or 
the  gray  fringe  of  a  shower  trailing  in  and 
shutting  off  the  distant  points  of  the  coast 
long  before  the  rapid  drops  sound  on  the 
roof  above"  him;  and  when  the  shower  is 
over,  he  may  see  the  white  cloud-galleons 
sail,  and  the  vivid  green  flash  out,  above  the 
surf,  when  the  sunlight  falls  on  the  coast  ten 
miles  away.  If  his  indolence  is  not  too  great 
for  the  exertion  of  eating,  he  may  feast  on 
all  the  tropic  fruits  and  unlimited  sugar-cane, 
fresh  from  the  field,  and  not  hardened  by  a 
week's  sea-voyage. 

If  he  likes  the  bath,  there  is  the  stream 
below,  and  the  young  people  of  the  fam- 
ily always  ready  to  accompany  him.  In 


the  one  I  have  now  in  mind,  there  are 
two  large  pools  not  a  dozen  feet  apart, 
just  below  the  break  in  the  bed  of  the 
stream,  which  marks  its  backward  cut  from 
the  line  of  the  sea  cliffs.  Into  one  the  main 
stream  pours,  making  it  cool  as  may  be  in 
that  climate  ;  into  the  other  the  water,  com- 
ing slowly  by  a  little  offset  from  the  river 
some  yards  up  stream,  and  moving  slowly 
among  the  rocks,  falls  several  degrees  warm- 
er. In  either  of  these  one  may  simply  luxu- 
riate, or  he  may  imitate  his  guides  in  jump- 
ing over  the  fall,  or  from  the  over-hanging 
rocks  upon  the  bank  into  the  depths  below. 
Unless  he  is  more  than  ordinarily  expert,  he 
will  find  more  than  a  match  in  this  and  in 
all  the  swimmers'  feats  among  the  youngest 
of  his  companions. 

If  he  fancy  sea-bathing,  there  is  the  whole 
Pacific  before  him,  and  breakers  whose  curv- 
ing crests  invite  to  a  trial  of  the  surf  board. 
Any  six-foot  piece  of  plank  will  do  for  the 
trial.  It  looks  easy,  too;  just  wait  for  the 
wave  to  be  on  the  point  of  combing,  then 
throw  your  feet  backward  like  a  frog  till  you 
get  the  start,  and  away  you  go.  But  the  sea 
and  the  sailor  both  enjoy  hazing  a  green 
hand.  It  is  not  so  easy  to  dive  under  the 
breakers  as  you  go  out  with  so  large  a  thing 
as  a  board  under  your  arm,  and  provided  you 
finally  get  out  beyond  them  without  having 
one  comb  squarely  on  top  of  you,  it  requires 
the  judgment  of  an  expert  to  tell  just  when 
to  start.  If  you  start  too  soon,  the  wave  tips 
you  over ;  if  too  late,  it  glides  out  from  un- 
der and  you  have  your  kicking  for  your  pains. 
If  you  strike  just  the  nick  of  time,  and  steer 
•  well  so  as  not  to  fall  off  sideways,  you  go  in 
toward  the  shore  in  grand  style,  but  then  the 
chances  are  that  you  have  your  chest  tattoo- 
ed with  the  end  of  the  board  till  you  look  as 
though  you  wore  an  American  flag  for  a 
shirt  front. 

For  the  scientist,  the  plantation  is  also  full 
of  interest.  The  botanist  will  find  treasures 
in  the  woods  :  ferns  that  a  man  may  ride 
under  on  horseback,  and  never  stoop;  walk- 
ing ferns,  that  start  rootlets  and  frondlets 
,from  the  tips  of  the  fronds;  climbing  ferns, 
the  stems  of  which  cling  like  ivy  to  the  tree- 


LantalK. 


189 


trunks ;  others  with  fronds  like  ivy  leaves. 
Birdsnest  ferns  spread  out  fronds  as  large 
as  banana  leaves,  and  hang  all  covered  below 
with  lines  of  spore  dust,  like  great  rosettes  of 
green  and  brown,  in  the  crotches  of  the  trees. 
He  will  find  great  trees  bursting  into  flower- 
like  garden  shrubs,  and  mallow-like  trees 
in  thickets,  spreading  far  and  wide  a  tangle 
of  snaky  branches,  covered  with  yellow  and 
brown  flowers.  There  are  parasites  that 
wind  themselves  about  the  more  erect  stems 
of  the  ohia  trees,  and  hang  out  flame-colored 
brushes  of  flowers.  There  are  bananas  grow- 
ing wild,  and  native  palms,  and  vegetable  ab- 
surdities, and  beauties  enough  to  make  the 
botanist  crazy.  Besides  all  these,  there  are 
the  imported  plants,  already  acclimated,  many 
of  them,  and  ready  to  displace  the  ancient 
proprietors  of  the  soil. 

For  the  geologist,  there  are  lava  forma- 
tions scarcely  cold,  and  in  all  stages  of  disin- 
tegration and  soil-making ;  there  are  the 
first  beginnings  of  stratified  rock  and  coral 
limestone  in  formation ;  the  cliffs  before 
mentioned,  which  the  wind-driven  ocean  is 
gradually  eating  away,  and  the  streams  with 
their  falls  gradually  retreating  inland,  which, 
if  accurate  observations  could  be  obtained, 
might  give  the  approximate  age  of  the  dis- 
trict, and  the  time  when  the  fires  went  out 
on  Mauna  Kea.  In  the  matted  and  drip- 
ping forest,  and  along  the  shore,  he  may- 
find  near  kin  of  long  extinct  floras,  and  real- 
ize in  part  how  the  carboniferous  jungles  ap- 
peared. 

The  zoologist  also  will  find  on  land  a  lim- 
ited though  interesting  fauna,  but  in  the  sea 
no  end  of  beauty  and  instruction  :  sponges 
and  polyps,  cuttle-fishes  and  artistically  tint- 
ed crabs,  fishes  more  vivid  in  metallic  blues 
and  greens  than  could  be  painted,  others  rosy 
pink,  as  though  a  shattered  rainbow  had  fallen 
and  become  animated  in  the  sea ;  sharks,  too, 
and  broad-finned  flying  fish. 

For  the  sociologist  there  are  all  those  in- 
teresting questions  of  the  amalgamation  of 
widely  different  races,  the  adjusting  of  Euro- 
pean and  Asiatic  civilizations  with  the  relics 
of  barbarism,  the  peculiar  relations  of  labor 


and  capital,  the  government's  experience  in 
finance,  the  circumstances  of  the  present  re- 
action against  the  civilized  ideals  and  ways 
of  living  introduced  by  the  missionaries,  and 
the  fast  disappearing  remains  of  ancient 
Hawaiian  customs  and  building. 

Or  the  practically  disposed  guest  may  in- 
spect irrigation  and  bone-meal  fertilization 
without  stint;  and  especially  will  he  be  in- 
terested in  the  sugar-mills.  On  horse- back 
again,  he  will  pass  through  the  fields  of  grow- 
ing cane  to  where  the  cutters  are  at  work  cut- 
ting and  trimming  the  ripe  cane-stalks  with 
heavy  knives,  and  throwing  them  by  armfulls 
into  the  flume,  or  in  another  part  planting  the 
sections  of  stalk  from  which  new  plants  are 
started,  or  hoeing  the  weeds  from  the  older 
rows. 

He  must  visit  the  mill,  also.  The  cane 
which  he  has  just  seen  tossed  into  the  flume 
is  most  likely  there  before  him,  but  more  is 
constantly  coming  down.  Water  and  cane 
together  come  out  upon  a  wide  belt  of  wood- 
en slats,  which  lets  the  water  fall  through, 
but  moves  on  with  the  cane  to  the  crusher. 
This  consists  of  three  solid  iron  rollers  as 
large  around  as  a  barrel,  one  above  and  two 
below,  and  all  enormously  heavy.  They  are 
marked  lengthwise  with  little  grooves,  so  as  to 
catch  and  hold  the  cane,  and  connected  with 
heavy  cogwheels,  so  that  they  move  together. 
The  whole  thing  is  turned  most  frequently  by 
a  special  engine,  though  in  this  rainy  district 
water-power  is  sometimes  used.  At  the  ma- 
chine stand  two  men  with  great  knives,  to 
cut  such  pieces  as  do  not  start  between  the 
rollers  properly,  and  to  see  that  the  cane  is 
fed  in  regularly.  The  juice,  as  it  is  pressed 
out,  flows  into  a  little  trough,  where  a  strainer 
takes  out  the  bits  of  stalk  and  coarser  impur- 
ities, then  on  into  the  boiling  house.  There 
it  is  immediately  treated  with  lime  or  some 
other  preventative  of  fermentation ;  for  the 
juice  is  not  simply  sugar  and  water,  but  con- 
tains vegetable  substances  of  a  complex  na- 
ture, which  sour  with  great  rapidity.  In- 
deed, this  fact  is  taken  advantage  of  on  the 
sly  by  the  hands,  whp,  with  stolen  sugar,  or 
even  with  sweet  potatoes,  make  a  liquor  of 


190 


A  Hilo  Plantation. 


[Aug. 


no  mean  powers.  The  next  step  is  the  boil- 
ing of  the  corrected  juice,  which  is  done  by 
steam  heat  in  open  metallic  vats  in  the  newer 
and  better  mills,  and  first  by  direct  fire,  and 
afterward  by  steam,  in  some  of  the  older 
ones.  This  boiling  has  the  double  advan- 
tage of  catching  and  floating  to  the  surface 
certain  impurities  in  the  form  of  scum,  which 
can  be  easily  removed,  and  of  getting  rid  of 
a  portion  of  the  water.  When  this  process 
has  been  carried  as  far  as  practicable  in  this 
way,  the  removal  of  the  water  is  continued 
in  the  vacuum  pan.  In  the  early  manufac- 
ture of  cane  sugar,  the  water  was  simply 
boiled  away,  as  is  now  done  in  the  making 
of  maple  sugar,  but  the  risk  of  spoiling  the 
whole  caldron  full  as  the  syrup  nears  the 
point  of  crystallization  was  very  great,  and 
the  loss  considerable  by  chemical  changes  of 
the  sugar  itself  from  prolonged  heating.  But 
by  the  present  method,  all  this  is  in  a  great 
degree  avoided. 

The  vacuum  pan  is  a  large  cast  iron  cylin- 
der with  rounded  top  and  bottom,  furnished 
inside  with  coils  of  copper  pipe,  through 
which  hot  steam  is  passed.  Into  this  cylin- 
der the  boiled  juice  is  drawn  and  the  steam 
turned  on.  At  the  same  time  a  steam  air- 
pump  exhausts  the  space  above  the  liquid, 
and  by  the  well  known  laws  of  physics  so 
decreases  its  boiling  temperature  that  the 
former  danger  of  burning  the  sugar  is  quite 
removed.  The  point  to  which  this  part  of 
the  manufacture  is  carried,. differs  with  dif- 
ferent grades  of  sugar  and  in  different 
mills.  In  some  the  process  goes  on  until 
the  grain  of  the  sugar  is  formed,  but  more 
commonly,  and  with  the  lower  grades  of 
sugar  almost  universally,  the  graining  takes 
place  in  large  sheet-iron  tanks,  called  coolers, 
into  which  the  syrup  is  allowed  to  run  from 
the  vacuum  pan.  As 'it  stands  cooling  it 
might  well  pass  in  color  and  consistency  for 
thin  tar.  When,  after  some  time  of  stand- 
ing, the  grain  is  well  formed,  the  thick  liquid 
is  put  into  whirling  tubs  of  finely  perforated 
brass,  called  centrifugals.  Their  rapid  mo- 
tion turns  the  .dark  mass  light  colored,  by 
throwing  the  molasses  outward  through  the 
perforations,  and  leaves  the  sugar  pressed 


close  to  the  sides  of  the  machine,  dried  and 
ready  for  packing.  The  molasses  obtained 
by  this  process  is  after  a  time  put  through  the 
vacuum  pan  and  centrifugal  again,  and  yet 
a  third  time,  at  each  repetition  giving  a 
lower  and  darker  grade  of  sugar.  .  Some- 
times, while  the  sugar  is  in  the  centrifugal,  it 
is  further  whitened  and  purified  by  turning 
steam  upon  it,  or  by  pouring  in  water,  the 
object  being  to  wash  out  such  slight  traces 
of  molasses  as  still  remain.  Sugar  thus 
treated  is  known  as  washed  sugar,  and  for 
quality  and  appearance  is  scarcely  inferior 
to  refined  sugar.  The  finished  product  is 
packed  for  shipping  by  shoveling  it  into  jute 
bags  about  the  size  of  fifty  pound  flour 
sacks.  ,. 

An  improved  compound  vacuum  pan  has 
been  introduced  within  the  last  few  years. 
In  this  the  hot  vapor  which  arises  from  the 
liquid  in  the  first  pan  passes  through  the 
coiled  pipes  of  the  second,  causing  the  juice 
in  that  to  boil  also,  and  the  vapor  of  the 
second  boils  the  juice  in  the  third,  if  there  is 
a  third.  These  machines  are  called  the 
Double  or  Triple  Effect  from  the  number  of 
pans  used.  It  is  obvious  that  such  an  ar- 
rangement must  result  in  a  great  saving  of 
fuel,  and  in  an  improved  grade  of  sugar. 

Then,  in  the  evening,  when  the  manager 
sits  down  for  an  after-dinner  cigar,  he  can  tell 
you  tales  of  the  early  days  in  Hawaii :  of  ad- 
ventures by  shore  and  flood;  how  the  consti- 
tution was  adopted  in  spite  of  a  dictatorial 
king;  how  once,  in  early  days  on  Molokai, 
the  natives  came  across  from  the  opposite 
side  and  said  that  a  ship  with  sails  still  set 
had  come  ashore ;  and  how,  when  they 
crossed  the  island  and  boarded  her,  they 
found  her  empty,  save  for  a  few  casks  of 
liquor,  and  scuttled  into  the  bargain  (she 
had  been  left,  it  proved,  by  the  captain  and 
crew  to  sink  in  the  open  channel  as  she 
might,  while'  they  rowed  around  to  Honolulu 
to  collect  the  insurance  ) ;  and  how,  with  the 
saved  liquor,  the  whole  mob  of  natives  had 
a  general  and  prolonged  spree. 

Or  of  how  a  canoe  load  of  natives,  setting 
out  to  cross  between  two  of  the  islands,  were 
capsized,  and  all  drowned  except  two — an  old 


toses  in  California. 


191 


man  and  his  daughter  ;  of  the  lonely  swim- 
ming of  the  two  in  the  heaving  waste. 
Finally,  the  old  man  was  ready  to  give  up, 
and  begged  his  daughter  to  swim  on  and 
leave  him  ;  but  she  would  not,  and  made 
him  float  on  the  water  while  she  rubbed  and 
pressed  his  exhausted  limbs  and  body — 
"  lomied  "  him,  as  the  native  word  is.  Again 
they  swam  on  till  the  old  man's  strength 
again  failed,  and  the  rubbing  was  repeated  , 
and  all  this  the  daughter  did  even  a  third 
time.  And  when  at' last  the  old  man  died 
in  the  sea  from  sheer  exhaustion,  the  still 
faithful  girl  put  his  thin  arms  around  her 
neck,  and,  holding  them  with  one  hand, 
swam  with  the  other  till  they  stiffened,  and 
then  swam  on  till  after  I  dare  not  say  how 
many  hours,  she  brought  the  body  to  land. 
Or  he  may  tell  of  his  own  similar  experi- 
ence of  eight  hours'  swimming  for  his  life;  of 
dealings  with  superstitious  natives,  who  were 
actually  sickening  with  the  fear  that  some 
one  was  praying  them  to  death  ;  of  labor 
troubles  in  the  earliest  times,  before  proper 
legal  means  were  adopted  for  enforcing  con- 
tracts, when  the  imported  Chinese  turned 
out  to  be  full-fledged  land  pirates  and  refused 


to  work,  were  made  temporary  prisoners  in 
their  house,  replied  by  threatening  murder, 
which  they  were  about  to  commit  when  a 
well  directed  pistol  ball  in  the  leg  laid  up  the 
leader  and  put  an  end  to  the  mutiny. 

Social  pleasures  are  not  wholly  lacking; 
the  neighbors  surmount  the  difficulties  of  the 
roads,  and  call.  There  may  be  a  neighbor- 
hood dance  in  the  school-house  with  accor- 
deon  music  and  unlimited  jollity ;  or  evenings 
in  town,  ending  in  a  moonlight  ride  out  to 
the  plantation;  or  a  wedding  among  the 
hands,  with  a  cross-eyed  bride;  or  a  serenade 
on  the  birthday  of  the  overseer  from  the 
amateur  band  of  Hilo  organized  from  the  la- 
borers of  several  adjacent  plantations  ;  bath- 
ing picnics  on  Cocoanut  Island  in  Hilo  Bay  ; 
horseback  jaunts  to  Rainbow  Falls  and  the 
woods.  And  it  may  be  that  your  host  will 
find  time  to  act  as  your  guide  to  the  volcano, 
or  upper  slopes,  of  Mauna  Kea. 

But  with  all  the  beauty  of  the  scenery  and 
all  the  lavishness  of  hospitality,  you  will  go 
away  thankful  that  your  life  is  not  to  be  spent 
on  a  plantation,  and  hopeful  that  it  may  be 
your  good  fortune  again  to  visit  a  place  so  de- 
lightful. 

E.  C.  S. 


ROSES  IN  CALIFORNIA. 


LESS  than  a  hundred  years  ago,  there 
arose  for  the.  flower  lovers  of  the  newer 
world  a  floral  star  in  the  eastern  horizon,  a 
gift  from  the  Orient  to  the  Occident.  Not 
from  Eden  or  the  Euphrates,  and  the  hang- 
irtg  gardens  of  Babylon,  not  among  any  of 
the  recorded  flowers  of  the  ancient  world,  do 
we  find  trace  of  this  later  acquisition,  be- 
yond all  other  floral  gifts  to  this  century. 
From  its  home  in  the  fertile  valleys  of  India 
or  China,  where  the  wild,  five-petaled  rose 
had  been  known  for  centuries,  there  came 
to  Europe  a  primitive  form  of  the  tea  rose. 

We  have  no  authentic  account  of  the  orig- 
inal history  of  this  tea  rose,  and  the  earlier 
ones  were  single  or  nearly  so,  and  gave  little 
hint  of  the  possibilities  of  their  future,  save 


only  in  their  true  tea  fragrance,  which  has 
been  a  fixed  characteristic  in  all  later  addi- 
tions. The  first  double  one  of  any  value  was 
the  well  known  Devoniensis,  than  which 
even  now  we  have  few  more  sterling  kinds. 
Rosarians  number  the  varieties  of  the  tea  rose 
now  grown  at  over  six  hundred,  though  many 
puzzling  synonyms  occur.  The  characteris- 
tics of  certain  families  are  easily  determined, 
under  which  their  respective  descendants  may 
be  grouped.  It  is  this  group  of  roses  which 
is  most  largely  grown  in  California,  being 
adapted  to  the  climatic  conditions,  and  af- 
fording almost  constant  bloom,  while  in 
England  and  France  acres  of  glass  are  re- 
quired to  secure  immunity  from  frost  and 
severe  thermometrical  fluctuations. 


192 


Hoses  in   California. 


[Aug. 


Save  for  our  favorable  conditions,  these 
countries  would  be  formidable  competitors 
against  the  claim  made,  that  in  California  the 
rose  has  found  its  true  habitat.  A  genera- 
tion of  experience  has  given  to  continental 
rosarians  a  skill  not  lightly  to  be  valued, 
but  when  we  shall  have  attained  a  like  skill, 
with  systematic  endeavor  to  use  it  for  the 
highest  results,  the  question  will  no  longer 
be  a  mooted  one.  From  the  fickleness  of 
European  climates,  the  fatal  alternations  of 
heat  and  cold,  excessive  moisture  without 
counterbalancing  sunshine  making  the  use  of 
glass  a  necessity,  the  California  rose-grower 
turns  with  unalloyed  satisfaction  to  a  mini- 
mum of  these  conditions.  Especially  is  this 
true  of  localities  a  few  miles  distant  from  the 
sea  coast,  where  the  sea  breezes  are  softened. 
We  are  equally  removed  from  the  rigors  of 
Eastern  winters,  and  from  springs  that  tarry 
in  the  "  lap  of  Winter,"  leaving  too  short  a 
floral  season  for  anything  like  perfect  success, 
save  to  those  who  resort  to  conservatories, 
and  making  out-of-door  culture  a  practical 
impossibility  for  anything  more  than  the  brief 
summer  months.  At  no  period  of  the  year 
do  tr>e  florists  of  San  Francisco  fail  to  pro- 
cure garden-grown  roses  for  their  require- 
ments. From  sheltered  localities  adjacent 
to  the  city  come  at  all  seasons  buds  and  blos- 
soms of  great  beauty. 

In  Southern  California,  from  Point  Con- 
cepcion  to  San  Diego,  we  find  Marechal 
Niels  resting  their  golden  heads  on  the  mos- 
sy couches  in  the  florists'  windows.  Here 
the  Marie  Van  Houtte  takes  on  her  golden 
raiment  with  a  mantling  blush. of  carmine, 
such  as  is  not  seen  elsewhere.  The  royal 
kin  of  the  Duchesse  de  Brabant  to  remotest 
degree  show  linings  of  sea-shell  pink,  shad- 
ing to  amber,  beyond  the  power  of  brush  or 
palette.  While  the  demands  of  early  win- 
ter cause  comparative  scarcity  of  blooms  in 
the  immediate  neighborhood  of  the  metrop- 
olis, the  denizens  of  the  Southland  revel  in 
rose  gardens,  where  there  always  may  be 
found  some  venturesome  forerunners  of  the 
early  spring-time.  The  industrious  Safrano 
never  feels  called  upon  to  close  her  blinds 
or  take  a  vacation,  the  pure  white  Bella  makes 


a  specialty  of  winter  rose  buds,  and  the 
Duchesse  de  Brabant  affords  the  touch  of 
color  needed  in  a  winter  landscape — if  one 
can  imagine  such  a  thing,  with  sunny  skies 
and  green  hillsides.' 

Just  here  Nature  forgets  her  thrifty  winter 
economies,  and  expends  fortunes  of  color 
and  draperies  on  her  royal  favorites  ;  forgets 
wholly  her  chary  habits  of  growth  in  her 
Januaries  and  Februaries  elsewhere,  save 
when  in  sullen  mood  over  superabundant 
rain-drops,  atoned  for  in  a  sudden  burst  of 
sunshine  by  fabulous  growths  of  stem  and  leaf, 
and  incipient  buds.  It  is  here  that  the  court 
of  the  rose  kingdom  holds  its  revels,  where 
whole  troops  of  fairies  may  give  royal  ban 
quets  in  Marechal  Niel  roses  without  mar- 
ring their  royal  costumes,  or  pirouetting  dan- 
gerously near  the  circumference.  Professor 
Gray  advises  operas  and  kindred  patrons  of 
the  queen  of  flowers  to  center  there.  If 
"Mahomet  will  not  come  to  the  mountain, 
then  the  mountain  must  come  to  Mahomet." 

"All  seasons  are  its  own,"  is  true  of  the 
rose,  in  its  chosen  home  in  Southern  Califor- 
nia ;  but  even  here  its  perfection  is  reached 
only  in  a  few  favored  localities.  The  sea 
coast,  unlike  the  northern  portions  of  the 
State,  gives  here  the  best  results.  The 
soft,  moist  atmosphere  provides  a  bath  of 
dew-drops  all  the  early  hours  of  the  day — a 
luxury  not  lightly  to  be  estimated.  A  rose 
garden  at  Santa  Barbara,  perhaps,  illustrates 
as  perfectly  as  any  other  these  conditions. 
It  is  set  to  a  chromatic  scale  of  color,  as 
hopeless  of  reproduction  as  trie  famous  sun- 
rises of  that  locality  reflected  in  the  clear 
waters  of  the  bay — a  bewildering  kaleido- 
scope of  gold  and  crimson,  blended  wiih 
tender  tints  of  rose,  and  amber,  and  pearl. 
So  when  the  rose  festival  of  the  early  spring- 
time gathers  together  the  clans  of  flower  lov- 
ers and  the  treasures  of  their  gardens,  it  is 
not  an  open  question  as  to  "who  shall  be 
Queen  of  the  May."  For  several  years,  the 
attraction  of  those  months  has  been  this 
feast  of  roses.  At  first,  a  leading  object 
was  the  correction  of  nomenclature,  which 
had  become  a  hopeless  tangle  ;  now  it  as- 
sumes a  larger  place,  and  taxes  each  year 


585.] 


25  in  California. 


193 


the  taste  and  resources  of  every  florist  of 
note.  An  attraction  of  the  current  year  was 
in  arrangements  of  moss  and  turf  of  gener- 
ous extent,  laid  out  as  rose  gardens,  and  sup- 
plemented with  minor  growths  to  accentu- 
ate their  beauty.  A  toboggan  of  shaded  crim- 
son roses,  with  sliding  ground  of  white  La- 
marques,  was  a  striking  "novelty,"  arranged 
to  the  life  by  ladies  "to  the  manner  born." 
The  lavish  profusion  with  which  roses  are 
used  on  these  occasions  would  paralyze  an 
Eastern  or  a  European  florist.  Some  simple 
bank  or  side- decoration  will  require  five 
thousand  roses  of  one  shade  ;  another  con- 
trasting bank  as  many  of  crimson  shaded  to 
white. 

Ventura,  Los  Angeles,  San  Diego,  River- 
side, Pasadena,  and  many  another  town  and 
hamlet  could  provide  displays  which  would 
destroy  the  peace  of  rose-growers  of  other 
lands.  As  springtime  deepens,  the  central 
and  northern  counties  wheel  into  line,  and 
the  whole. State  is  crowned  with  roses  and 
heavy  with  fragrance.  Oakland,  Alameda, 
Haywards,  Niles,  San  Jose,  and  intermediate 
places,  are  filled  with  the  glories  of  rose 
gardens — a  gladness  to  every  beholder ; 
though  it  is  a  question  if  the  less  frequent  win- 
ter bud  and  blossom  is  not  more  perfectly 
appreciated  than  the  "embarrassment  of 
wealth  "  of  the  later  season.  The  Banksias 
on  the  trellis  are  .thro  wing  out  golden  spheres 
on  one  side  and  miniature  snow-wreaths  on 
the  other,  rivaling  the  Cloth  of  Gold,  the 
William  Francis  Bennett,  the  Niphetos,  and 
the  endless  array  from  Adam  to  Vicomte  de 
Gazes.  Every  bud  and  bloom  of  the  lesser 
lights  of  the  floral  world  is  eclipsed,  and  the 
carnival  of  roses  holds  undisturbed  for  many 
a  gala  day. 

This  picture  is  true  of  all  California  for 
the  spring  and  summer  months.  Santa 
Rosa  claims  precedence  over  her  sister 
towns,  though  the  unprejudiced  observer 
notes  as  lavish  a  display  at  Napa,  Sonoma, 
and  many  another  favored  locality.  Sacra- 
mento considers  herself  most  favored  in 
roses  at  this  present  season,  and  with  appar- 
ent reason.  Beside  the  mountain  roses  of 
the  early  spring-time,  barbaric  splendors  pale. 
VOL.  VI.— 13. 


Not  content  with  trellis  or  neighboring  cor- 
nice, they  reach  out  for  adjacent  tree-tops, 
covering  the  leafy  splendors  with  uncounted 
thousands  of  royal  bud  and  bloom.  In  the 
mad  strife  for  gold  some  decades  since,  an 
argonaut  of  '49,  in  a  homesick  hour,  planted 
a  branch  of  climbing  rose  at  his  cabin  door. 
Now,  deserted  cabin  and  tree  and  hillside 
are  a  wilderness  of  "  white  chalices  held  up 
by  unseen  hands,"  relieved  by  tangled  masses 
of  vines  and  tendrils,  fed  by  a  clear  stream 
that  murmurs  past  the  cabin  door.  The 
materials  are  all  here,  the  poetry  and  the 
pathos  all  ready  for  the  writer.  Old-world 
ruins,  overgrown  with  ivy,  winning  from  the 
pilgrim  and  tourist  willing  tribute  in  song 
and  story,  could  find  here  a  fitting  counter- 
part. 

An  effective  method  in  arrangement  of 
roses  is  often  seen  in  beds  cut  in  the  lawn, 
where  harmonizing  or  contrasting  colors  can 
be  satisfactorily  introduced.  These  beds  are 
usually  composed  of  Tea,  Noisette,  and 
Bourbon  Roses,  with  an  occasional  Hybrid 
Tea,  and  the  following  varieties,  from  habit 
of  growth,  symmetry  of  form,  and  free- 
dom of  bloom,  may  safely  be  arranged  to- 
gether :  Coquette  de  Lyon,  Catherine  Mer- 
met,  Marie  Van  Houtte,  Perle  des  Jardins, 
Sombrieul,  La  France,  Madame  Fernet,  La 
Jonquille,  Madame  Lambard,  William  Fran- 
cis Bennett,  Comtesse  Riza  du  Pare,  Sunset, 
La  Princess  Vera,  Coquette  des  Alpes,  Caro- 
line Kuster,  Cornelia  Cook,  Madame  Guillot; 
and  for  gardens  near  the  coast  and  cooler 
portions  of  the  State,  Safrano,  Madame  Fal- 
cot,  La  Sylphide.  In  Southern  California  the 
first  two  succumb  to  the  prevalent  sunshine, 
and  the  last  is  subject  to  mildew — and  a  sub- 
stitute in  that  case  is  much  better  policy 
than  a  battle.  A  retreat  is  often  the  better 
part  of  valor  in  rose  culture.  An  equally 
effective  arrangement  of  Hybrid  Perpetuals, 
with  a  border  of  low-growing  ones  for  spring 
and  autumn  blooming,  may  be  composed  of 
the  following  varieties :  Marie  Baumann,  Al- 
fred Colomb,  Baroness  Rothschild,  Marquis, 
de  Castellane,  Louis  Van  Houtte,  Marie 
Rady,  Etienne  Levet,  White  Baroness  Roths- 
child, Vulcan,  Xavier  Oliba,  Monsieur  E.  Y. 


194 


Hoses  in   California. 


[Aug. 


Teas,  Baron  Bonstetten,  Prince  Camille  de 
Rohan,  Abel  Caniere,  Fisher  Holmes,  Fran- 
c,ois  Michelon.  with  an  outer  edge  of  Pseonaia 
and  Madame  Frangoise  Pettit.  This  number 
calls,  of  course,  for  a  large  space,  but  a  se- 
lection therefrom  will  be  found  valuable  for 
a  smaller  one.  Special  care  has  been  given 
to  select  sorts  that  bear  well  our  large  allow- 
ance of  sunshine.  Many  choice  varieties 
are  failures  here  for  no  reason  but  that  they 
do  not.  An  experienced  florist  specially  rec- 
ommends Louis  Van  Houtte  and  Marie 
Baumann  as  free  from  this  objection  ;  also 
General  Jacqueminot,  and  Alfred  Colomb. 
In  the  shades  of  rose  color  the  more  perma- 
nent ones  are  Marquis  de  Castellane  and 
Rev.  J.  B.  Camm.  In  the  paler  shades  are 
recommended  Eugene  Verdier,  Monsieur 
Noman,  and  Captain  Christy.  To  be  avoid- 
ed where  brilliant  sunshine  is  the  rule,  are 
the  Verdier  type,  save  the  one  given  above, 
the  Giant  of  Battles,  the  Lefevres,  and  the 
Duke  of  Edinburgh  family. 

A  few  of  the  leading  florists  on  this  coast 
have  increased  the  value  of  this  article  by 
naming  to  the  writer  a  few  reliable  varieties 
for  their  several  localities.  For  the  imme- 
diate neighborhood  of  San  Francisco,  in  the 
constant  blooming  varieties,  are  given  Pau- 
line La  Bonte,  Safrano,  Claire  Carnot,  Isa- 
bella Sprunt,  Bon  Silene,  Gloire  de  Dijon, 
Marie  Van  Houtte;  for  Hybrids — General 
Jacqueminot,  Paul  Neyron,  John  Hopper, 
Cardinal  Patrizzi,  Jules  Margotten,  Madame 
Rivers,  Boule  deNiege;  for  Noisettes — Reve 
d'Or,  or  Climbing  Safrano,  Reine  Marie 
Henriette,  Gold  of  Ophir,  Aimee  Vibert, 
La  Marque,  Climbing  Devoniensis,  Marechal 
Niel,  Mrs.  Heyman,  Microphylla  ;  for  Bour- 
bons, Souvenir  de  Malmaison,  Paelona,  Her- 
mosa,  Madame  Bosanquet.  The  following 
remedies  for  insects  affecting  the  rose  in 
this  locality  are  kindly  added:  "For  green 
fly  in  the  spring,  syringe  with  whale-oil  soap 
and  tobacco  water  ;  for  red  spider,  syringe 
under  leaves  and  dust  with  sulphur."  Roses 
grown  out  of  doors  and  under  the  best  con- 
ditions, however,  give  comparatively  little 
trouble  in  this  direction.  Perhaps  the  most 
troublesome  enemy  is  an  insect  that  stings 


the  outer  leaves  of  opening  buds,  for  which 
no  remedy  is  given,  as  it  would  have  to  be 
like  the  famous  recipe  for  cooking  a  hare — ' 
"  First  catch  your"  bug,  then  kill  it.  Scale 
sometimes  annoys  old  plants;  for  this,  whale- 
oil  soap  is  a  remedy — but  probably  a  better 
one  is  a  new, plant. 

Another  enthusiastic  florist  gives  a  list  for 
interior  localities :  For  Teas — Bella,  Cather- 
ine Mermet,  Devoniensis,  Elise  Sauvage,  Isa- 
bella Sprunt,  Marie  Van  Houtte,  Madame 
Lombard,  Madame  Falcot,  Niphetos,  Perle 
des  Jardins,  Safrano,  La  Sylphide ;  for  Hybrid 
Perpetuals — Alfred  Colomb,  Baroness  Roths- 
child, Gen.  Jacqueminot,  Jules  Chretien,  Pae- 
onia,  Earl  of  Pembroke,  Heinrich  Schultheis, 
Madame  Vidot,  Merveille  de  Lyons ;  climb- 
ers —  Reine  Marie  Henriette,  La  Marque, 
Marechal  Niel;  Noisettes — W.  A.  Richard- 
son, Ophire,  Madame  Caroline  Kuster;  Bour- 
bons— Appoline,  Queen  of  Bedders,  Souvenir 
de  Malmaison  ;  for  winter  bloomers — W.  F. 
Bennett,  Sunset,  Madame  de  Watteville, 
Southern  Belle,  Bon  Silene. 

The  following  list,  irrespective  of  indi- 
vidual locality,  will  be  found  to  contain  valu- 
able sorts  of  constant  bloomers,  all  carefully 
tested,  largely  of  the  Tea,  Noisette  and  Bour- 
bon varieties,  and  particularly  adapted  to 
this  Coast.  Very  few  "  novelties "  will  be 
found,  as  they  await  the  decision  of  the 
court  of  California  florists,  and  at  present  are 
held  as  "  not  proven  "  :  Madame  Welche, 
Etoile  de  Lyon,  Madame  de  Watteville, 
L'Elegante,  Antoine  Mermet,  Sunset,  Red 
Souvenir  de  Malmaison,  La  France,  Cornelia 
Cook,  Bella,  Shirley-Hibbard,  Catherine  Mer- 
met, Comtesse  Riza  du  Pare,  La  Princess 
Vera,  Comtesse  de  la  Barthe,  Devoniensis, 
Gloire  de  Dijon,  Letty  Coles,  Madame 
Bravy,  Madame  Falcot,  Md'lle  Rachel,  Marie 
Van  Houtte,  Madame  Lam  bard,  Niphetos, 
Safrano,  Perle  des  Jardins,  Marie  Sisley,  Som- 
brieul,  Elise  Sauvage,  La  Jonquille,  Jaune 
d'Or,  Pauline  La  Bonte,  Arch  Duke  Charles, 
Agrippina,  Madame  Bosanquet,  Marie  Guil- 
lott,  Madame  de  Vatrey,  Madame  Villermoz, 
Rubens,  Homer,  Souvenir  de  Malmaison, 
Appoline,  Celine  Forester,  Comtesse  de 
Nadaillac,  La  Sylphide,  Chromatella,  W.  F. 


1885] 


loses  in  California. 


195 


Bennett,  W.  A.  Richardson,  Bon  Silene. 
Climbers  :  Marechal  Niel,  Claire  Carnot, 
Chromatella,  Madame  Marie  Berton,  La 
Marque,  La  Reine,  Solfaterre,  Setina,  Caro- 
line Goodrich — the  latter  a  fine,  red  climber 
after  the  style  of  General  Jacqueminot.  The 
yellow  and  the  white  Banksia,  though  bloom- 
ing but  once  a  year,  cannot  be  omitted. 
Among  Moss  roses,  the  so  called"  perpetuals 
have  not  proved  a  satisfactory  addition  ;  the 
older  varieties  are  still  the  best.  Among 
these  the  Comtesse  de  Murinais,  the  Ecla- 
tante  and  the  Crested  Moss  are  reliable  ;  the 
latter  was  found  on  the  walls  of  the  Convent 
at  Fribourg.  and  has  always  been  a  favorite, 
as  it  is  usually  free  from  mildew.  Of  the 
Hybrid  Teas,  La  France  and  Michael  Saun- 
ders  are  the  best,  nearly  all  of  the  others  fad- 
ing in  this  climate,  thus  proving  a  disappoint- 
ment. 

Concerning  seedlings,  several  florists  of 
our  State  are  making  valuable  experiments, 
and  their  seedlings  are  among  the  thousands 
in  number  ;  but  none  are  prepared  to  an- 
nounce new  varieties  as  yet,  though  some 
very  promising  ones  are  being  developed. 
Some  seedlings  fromComptesse  de  la  Barthe, 
La  Sylphide,  and  Safrano  are  of  especial 
promise,  and  we  shall  look  with  interest  for 
further  developments.  Careful  inquiry  shows 
that  much  interest  is  being  felt  here  on  this 
point,  and  the  future  will  show  valuable  re- 
sults. Some  promising  seedlings  are  being 
exhibited  at  the  Rose  Festivals  of  Southern 
California.  California  should,  with  her  long 
seasons  and  favorable  climate,  give  some 
prominence  to  these  experiments.  England 
and  France  send  out  yearly  large  numbers  of 
new  roses,  and  among  them  we  have  secured 
types  and  additions  of  permanent  value. 
Nearly  all  of  our  best  varieties  are  the  product 
of  the. last  twenty-five  years,  and  are  largely 
the  result  of  the  careful  experiments  of  the 
last  decade. 

Concerning  the  culture  of  roses,  we  have 
something  to  learn  from  other  nations.  Fair 
results  have  been  reached  with  so  little  labor 
on  the  part  of  the  grower,  that  we  have  paused 
there.  When  we  shall  have  reached  the 
maximum  of  care  bestowed  upon  French  and 


English  rose  gardens,  where  operations  are 
conducted  with  mathematical  precision  and 
unfailing  devotion,  we  shall  see  marvelous 
results.  When  we  shall  prepare  roses  for  ex- 
hibition two  years  in  advance ;  when  we  shall 
study  our  soils  and  conditions  with  a  seventh 
floricultural  sense,  born  of  an  intense  enthu- 
siasm for  our  work  ;  then  we  shall  see  results 
worthy  of  the  climatic  conditions  with  which 
nature  has  endowed  us.  Just  here  lies  our 
danger;  so  much  has  been  given  that  we 
allow  it  to  suffice,  and  are  satisfied  with  a 
thousandfold  less  than  we  might  receive. 

Regarding  the  pruning,  much  depends  on 
locality  and  variety.  The  cooler  climate  of 
the  coast  permits  a  standard  form,  and  higher 
trimming  than  in  the  warmer  valleys,  where 
the  heat  of  summer  requires  shade  for 
healthy  growth,  and  of  necessity  low  culture. 
During  periods  of  rest  the  old  wood  should 
be  removed,  leaving,  if  possible,  from  one  to 
three  upright  shoots  from  the  root.  A  mat- 
ter of  vital  importance  is  to  commence  train- 
ing the  rose  from  the  first  planting,  and  un- 
less one  is  hampered  .by  varieties  addicted  to 
slow  and  awkward  growths,  a  satisfactory  re- 
sult is  attainable. 

The  old  wood  should  be  cut  below  the 
ground ;  when  young  and  vigorous  shoots 
are  ready  to  take  its  place,  awkward  and 
straggling  side  growths  should  be  headed  in 
— though  in  this  regard,  prevention  is  better 
than  cure.  Sacrifice  bloom  rather  than  allow 
such  growths,  and  the  reward  will  come  in 
later  days.  In  climbers,  side  pruning  and 
a  selection  of  runners  will  be  all  that  can  be 
accomplished.  Beyond  all  these  conditions 
of  success  is  the  one  of  rapid  growth. 

When  insects  attack  a  rose  grown  out  ot 
doors  in  inland  localities,  it  is  usually  an  old 
or  an  unhealthy  plant.  If  the  root  finds  lux- 
urious plant  food,  the  top  will  show  splendid 
results.  An  English  florist  gives  an  excel- 
lent, formula  for  rose  planting:  Allow  the 
hole  to  be  eighteen  inches  in  depth,  and 
large  enough  to  contain  a  "  wheelbarrowful 
of  compost,  two-thirds  turfy  loam,  and  one- 
third  decomposed  manure,"  and  adds  that 
"  it  is  difficult  to  give  a*Hfce  too  good  a  soil." 
When  'California  rosarians  grow  their  roses 


195 


Roses  in   California. 


[Aug. 


after  this  fashion,  the  rest  of  the  floral  world 
will  accept  its  Waterloo. 

The  average  soil  required  must  be  a  strong, 
friable  one  by  nature,  or  made  so  by  appli- 
cation of  the  lacking  requisites.  Fine  results 
are  shown  on  our  heaviest  adobe  soils,  where 
careful  culture  and  ample  moisture  are  sup- 
plied, but  the  application  of  sandy  loam  and 
leaf  mould  or  decomposed  turf  greatly  bene- 
fits this  class  of  soils.  For  lighter  ones,  burnt 
clay  with  manures  of  all  kinds  are  valuable. 
A  clay  subsoil  is  invaluable  in  holding  both 
moisture  and  plant  food.  Fresh  manures 
should  be  liberally  applied  at  the  beginning 
of  the  rainy  season,  and  decomposed  ones 
as  liberally  in  the  spring,  for  a  mulching  dur- 
ing the  early  rains,  then  to  be  spaded  into 
the  ground.  If  desirable,  this  mulching 
may  be  replaced  by  lawn  clippings  in  warm 
localities.  A  marvelous  growth  of  Marechal 
Niel  may  be  secured  by  giving  this  treat- 
ment during  the  summer  months  also.  It 
will  bear  ten  or  twelve  inches  (not  too  near 
the  stalk),  with  a  generous  daily  supply  of 
water.  The  result  of  a  like  treatment  was 
twelve  feet  of  growth  in  one  summer,  and 
the  roses  were  wonderfully  beautiful.  The 
plant,  of  course,  was  a  budded  one. 

Concerning  the  expense  of  rose  gardens, 
the  range  is  as  varied  as  the  taste  and  means 
of  the  rose-grower  permit.  A  large  propor- 
tion come  into  life  and  beauty  very  much 
after  the  fashion  of  Topsy.  They  grow  from 
small  beginnings,  and  out  of  slowly  gathered 
experience.  California  is  a  land  of  experi- 
ments; it  is  still  delightfully  indefinite;  there 
is  as  much  of  floral  prospecting  to  be  done 
as  of  any  other  sort,  and  its  devotees  are  as 
persistent  and  undaunted  as  the  most  incur- 
able gold-seeker. 

The  favorite  varieties  cultivated  are  found 
among  the  lists  of  Tea  roses,  giving  as  they 
do  almost  constant  bloom.  Hybrid  Perpet- 
uals  form  less  than  a  tenth  of  the  ordinary 
rose  garden,  as  two  crops  at  most  are  all  that 
can  be  expected,  and  the  latter  a  small  one. 
Noisettes,  Bourbons,  and  Hybrid  Teas  form 
a  somewhat  larger  proportion.  The  ordinary 
varieties  of  these  are  supplied  by  florists  on 
the  coast  at  from  ten  to  fifty  cents  each,  ac- 


cording to  size  and  class.  New  varieties 
come  higher,  and  are  likely  to  be  cautiously 
ordered  until  they  have  established  a  well- 
grounded  reputation.  The  second  season 
from  planting  will  give  fine  results  from  even 
the  smallest  plants,  the  larger  ones  giving 
returns  at  once  if  carefully  planted  and  cared 
for.  Buds  of  winter-blooming  varieties — W. 
F.  Bennett,  Sofrano,  Sunset,  Bella,  Madame 
de  Walteville,  Bon  Silene,  Cornelia  Cook, 
and  others — have  always  a  commercial  value, 
regulated  mainly  by  frosts  and  operas.  Other 
exigencies  afford  fair  returns ;  a  conjunction 
of  these  two  will  afford  golden  ones. 

A  point  of  interest  in  this  view  of  the  sub- 
ject is  a  successful  venture  in  Southern  Cali- 
fornia, to  introduce  the  Provence  Rose  for 
extracting  the  well-known  attar  of  rose  of 
commerce.  Dr.  Hall — until  recently  a  res- 
ident of  France — has  a  plantation  of  these, 
and  other  perfumery  plants,  at  Carpenteria, 
a  suburb  of  Santa  Barbara.  It  is  proposed 
to  enter  upon  the  extraction  of  the  essential 
oil  as  soon  as  a  sufficient  stock  shall  have 
accumulated  ;  and  the  day  is  not  far  distant 
when  we  shall  add  to  our  exports  the  varied 
extracts  of  perfumery  plants,  among  them  the 
attar  of  rose. 

At  a  rose  festival  in  Santa  Barbara,  the 
question  was  propounded  as  to  how  one  not 
familiar  with  the  numberless  rose  family 
should  distinguish  a  Provence  rose  from  its 
countless  sisterhood.  The  inquirer  was  taken 
to  a  portion  of  the  hall  where  a  large  bowl  of 
this  fragrant  variety  stood,  and  thereafter  no 
difficulty  will  be  experienced  in  deciding  on 
the  locality  of  a  Provence  rose,  even  if  its 
form  or  color  is  forgotten.  In  these  it 
somewhat  resembles  our  native  Castilian,  but 
is  less  double,  and  smaller.  A  very  large  crop 
is  required  before  it  can  profitably  be  utilized. 

The  poetic  element  is  not  ordinarily 
wanting  in  any  direction  in  this  realm  of 
sunshine  and  'flowers,  where  beauty  is  a  birth- 
right and  her  kingdom  a  perennial  one.  It 
grows  in  the  eternal  silences,  is  fashioned 
without  sound  of  the  hammer  or  echo  of 
turmoil.  And  yet  one  touch  of  tenderness, 
one  note  of  pathos,  we  lack — we  have  no 
"last  Rose  of  Summer,"  around  the  memory 


1885.] 


Reminiscences  of  General  Grant. 


197 


3f  which  lingers  in  other  lands  so  much 
of  tender  sadness  —  a  death  march  in 
Nature,  whose  mournful  tones  hint  so  re- 
motely of  a  possible  resurrection  in  the  far- 
iistant  spring-time.  For  this  reason,  possi- 
Dly,  we  fail  to  realize  the  completeness  and 
perfection  of  this  kingdom  of  beauty.  An 
Eastern  winter  suddenly  transferred  to  our 
;ihore  would  bring  to  our  minds  an  intense 
realization  of  our  blessings.  Were  there  a 
single  month  of  impossible  rose-buds,  what 
,i  wail  would  extend  over  the  land. 

The  legends  of  history  interweave  the  rose 
with  the  palmy  days  of  Rome  and  Greece. 
The  classic  revels  were  incomplete  without 
giving  it  a  prominent  position.  The  white 
:-ose  among  the  ancient  Romans  was  called 
;he  "earth  star,"  and  decorations  in  which 
:t  prevailed  always  gave  a  hint  of  silence. 
All  conversations  held  there  were  "  sul> 
rosa."  Hence,  according  to  one  story,  this 
phrase,  as  a  synonym  of  confidential  inter- 
course. The  extravagance  of  the  entertain- 
ments of  this  era  were  very  largely  in  its  dec- 
orations of  roses.  The  fabulously  extrava- 
gant receptions  given  to  Marc  Antony  in- 
cluded other  fantasies  than  pearls  dissolved 


in  wine,  and  purple  and  golden  draperies. 
The  grand  saloon  was  carpeted  with  roses 
to  a  depth  of  eighteen  inches,  a  votive  offer- 
ing of  the  "  bloom  of  love."  Nero's  expen- 
diture of  a  hundred  thousand  dollars  for 
roses  to  decorate  a  single  feast  is  as  well 
known  as  his  other  less  innocent  vagaries. 
The  classic  laurel  wreath  often  divided  its 
honors  withachaplet  of  roses,  crowning  poets 
and  orators,  as  well  as  the  victors  at  the  Olym- 
pic games.  Naturally,  it  crowned  their  mar- 
riage feasts,  and  hid  the  somber  tomb  under  a 
wealth  of  beauty  and  fragrance,  special  be- 
quest being  made  for  this  purpose.  Several 
countries  have  adopted  it  in  its  various 
colors  for  national  emblems,  as  the  Great 
Seal  of  England  in  the  reign  of  Edward  iv. 
and  other  coinage  of  the  realm.  The  York 
and  Lancaster  strife,  in  the  reign  of  Henry 
vi.,  the  "  War  of  Roses,"  is  a  household 
word  at  this  day;  and  the  "White  Rose  of 
the  Stuarts  "  is  as  trite  a  remembrance.  Less 
well  known  is  the  record  of  a  poem  written 
by  Ronsard  on  the  emblematic  flower,  which 
brought  to  its  fortunate  writer,  as  a  gift  from 
Mary  Queen  of  Scots,  a  royal  rose  of  silver, 
valued  at  five  hundred  guineas. 

/.  C,   Winton. 


REMINISCENCES  OF  GENERAL  GRANT. 
GRANT  AND  THE  PACIFIC  COAST. 


GENERAL  GRANT  was  much  interested  in 
the  Pacific  Coast,  and  showed  great  atten- 
tions to  gentlemen  from  California  and  Ore- 
gon, always  extending  to  them  during  the 
years  of  his  Presidency  a  hearty  welcome  to 
the  White  House.  The  best  part  of  his 
greeting  was  its  unaffected  simplicity  and 
cordiality.  They  could  always  depend  upon 
him  for  assistance  in  any  legitimate  enterprise 
calculated  toadvancethe  interest  of  the  Coast. 
One  of  the  best  proofs  of  this  was  in  the  fact 
that  when  his  Attorney-General,  Ackerman,  of 
Georgia,  made  very  peculiar  decisions  against 
the  Oregon  Land  Grants,  which  would  have 
prevented  the  building  of  the  Oregon  and  Cali- 


fornia railroad,  Grant,  upon  being  made  aware 
of  Ackerman's  views  on  this  subject,  asked 
for  his  resignation,  and  appointed  ex-Senator 
George  H.  Williams,  of  Oregon.  He  felt, 
and  so  expressed  himself  at  the  time,  that  so 
important  a  subject  ought  to  be  left  in  the 
hands  of  a  man  who  was  well  acquainted 
with  the  needs  of  the  States  most  interested. 
Williams  made  an  excellent  Attorney-Gen- 
eral, and  his  name  was  sent  in  as  nominee 
to  fill  Chief  Justice  Sprague's  place;  but  the 
famous  "Landaulet  Story"  prevented  his 
confirmation.  General  Grant's  far-sighted  in- 
terest in  the  Pacific  States  is  also  shown  by 
the  frequent  allusions  he  made  during  the 


198 


Reminiscences  of  General  Grant. 


[Aug. 


late  years  of  the  war  to  the  desirability  of 
having  the  Union  and  Central  Pacific  rail- 
roads extend  a  branch  to  Portland  and  Puget 
Sound,  thus  doing  the  work  for  the  great 
Northwest  that  the  Northern  Pacific  has 
since  accomplished.  Some  time  in  1868 
the  General,  in  talking  over  the  subject  with 
Ben  Holliday  and  myself,  used  the  strong 
expression :  "  You  Oregonians  have  been 
fairly  robbed  of  a  railroad." 

Among  the  early  friends  of  Grant  on  this 
coast  were  the  late  Ben  Simpson,  of  Oregon, 
Collector  of  the  Port  and  State  Senator ;  also 
a  few  old  merchants  of  Oregon.  Captain  R. 
R.  Thompson,  of  this  city,  was  well  acquaint- 
ed with  Captain  Grant  in  Oregon. 

The  stories  which  have  been  extensively 
circulated  to  the  effect  that  young  Grant  led 
a  dissipated  life  while  on  this  coast,  may 
be  briefly  characterized  as  lies.  He  was  a 
nice,  quiet  fellow,  who  made  friends,  and 
stuck  steadily  to  his  business.  There  was  a 
story  told  in  many  parts  of  the  coast  to  the 
effect  that  Grant  lived  in  Humboldt  County 
for  some  years,  and  "  drove  a  mule  team,"  as 
an  imaginative  pioneer  once  was  heard  tell- 
ing a  group  of  men  on  Pine  Street.  Another 
story  oft.en  retailed  is  that  young  Grant  once 
kept  a  billiard  saloon  in  Walla  Walla;  still  a 
third  that  he  "went  to  the  mines,"  and 
owned  a  claim  on  the  Feather  or  upper  Sac- 
ramento; while  yet  a  fourth  is,  that  he  lived 
in  Stockton,  and  "  loafed  penniless  about  its 
muddy  streets  one  winter  in  the  early  fifties." 
These  stories,  and  similar  ones,  are  suffic- 
iently set  to  rest  by  the  evidence  of  George 
W.  Dent,  late  United  States  Appraiser,  and 
General  Grant's  brother-in-law;  also  by  the 
statements  of  Grant's  early  Oregon  friends. 

Grant's  arrival  on  the  Coast  was  in  1850. 
He  brought  government  supplies  and  stores 
for  use  at  Benicia,  where  he  deliverd  them 
to  the  Quartermaster  General.  His  regiment 
was  for  some  time  stationed  in  San  Francisco. 
At  this  time,  George  and  John  Dent  were  living 
at  Knight's  Ferry,  and  he  visited  them  there, 
during  his  first  furlough.  It  was  during  this 
visit  that  he  explored  the  Stanislaus  and  Tu- 


olumne  hills,  saw  the  miners  at  their  work, 
helped  the  Dents  build  a  bridge,  and  had 
what  he  afterwards  spoke  of  as  "one  of  the 
best  vacations  of  his  life."  While  in  San 
Francisco,  he  boarded  at  the  Tehama  House, 
which  stood  on  the  site  now  occupied  by  the 
Bank  of  California.  His  regiment  was  called 
to  Northern  California  and  Oregon  to  aid  in 
quieting  Indian  troubles,  and  shortly  after 
its  return  he  wrote  out  and  forwarded  his 
resignation,  immediately  after  which  he  pro- 
ceeded to  the  Eastern  States. 

Senator  Nesmith,  of  Oregon,  who  died  a 
few  months  ago,  was  a  prominent  member  of 
the  Committee  on  Military  Affairs  of  the  U. 
S.  Senate,  and  gave  his  hearty  support  to  all 
of  Grant's  measures.  During  the  darkest 
hours  of  the  great  General's  career,  Senator 
Nesmith,  one  of  the  best  known  of  war  Dem- 
ocrats, was  determined  to  sustain  him,  and 
Grant  often  made  his  headquarters  while  in 
Washington  at  the  Senator's  house.  Both 
Stanton  and  Halleck  were  often  opposed  by 
the  energetic  Senator,  but  no  one  ever  heard 
a  word  of  complaint  from  Grant,  whose  loy- 
alty to  the  ideals  of  military  obedience  was 
one  of  his  most  admirable  qualities.  Only 
President  Lincoln,  and  a  few  men  such  as 
Nesmith,  knew  how  strong  a  pressure  was 
brought  to  bear  against  Grant  at  this  time. 

Ben  Holliday  kept  house  on  E  Street,  in 
Washington.  He  was  then  President  of  the 
Oregon  and  California  railroad.  Among  the 
old  friends  who  often  assembled  there,  one 
would  often  see  General  Phil.  Sheridan,  Quar- 
termaster General  Ingalls,  now  in  Portland, 
Oregon,  and  General  Grant,  together  with 
any  other  old  Pacific  Coasters.  They  would 
sit  and  smoke,  and  talk  over  old  times  till 
past  midnight,  when  the  President's  friends 
would  accompany  him  to  the  door  of  the 
White  House. 

1  was  on  board  the  steamer  that  carried 
his  daughter,  Nellie  Sartoris,  across  New 
York  harbor,  on  her  way  to  England.  Grant 
showed  deep  feeling,  and  said  to  a  friend 
who  stood  near  me,  "  My  heart  goes  across 
the  ocean  with  that  girl." 

A.  M.  Loryea. 


1885.] 


Reminiscences  of  General  Grant. 


199 


GRANT  AND  THE  WAR. 


WHO,  twenty-one  years  ago,  could  have 
believed  that  as  a  united  and  harmonious 
people  we  should  mourn  the  death  of  the 
leader  of  the  national  armies  in  the  colossal 
struggle  then  going  on — that  for  such  a 
cause  the  outward  emblems  of  grief  would 
so  soon  enshroud  a  land  convulsed  by  dis- 
sension and  bloody  war  ? 

Unanimity  and  peace  seemed  to  have  de- 
parted never  to  return ;  and  our  unhappy 
country  was  rent  by  passions  so  fierce  and 
desperate  that  the  civilized  world  stood 
aghast  at  the  spectacle,  and  wondered  if  the 
fratricidal  war  would  stop  short  of  the  de- 
struction of  the  combatants.  The  land  was 
deluged  with  brothers'  blood.  Twenty-one 
short  years  have  passed,  and  a  united  and 
happy  people  mourn  the  death  of  the  most 
prominent  actor  in  that  fearful  struggle. 
The  South  unites  with  the  North  in  paying 
homage  to  the  chief  who  led  the  Union  forces 
to  victory.  The  East  and  West  alike'mourn 
his  loss. 

Though  such  incredible  change  has  come 
over  our  happy  land,  it  is  not  probable  we 
are  yet  competent  to  pass  in  just  review  the 
character  of  the  mighty  chief  who  handled 
an  army  of  a  million  men  with  such  easy 
skill  and  terrific  force.  The  sense  of  relief 
from  overwhelming  peril  is  still  upon  this 
generation.  The  hopes,  the  fears,  the  des- 
pair engendered  by  the  most  terrible  strug- 
gle ever  engaged  in  by  the  human  race  are 
still  too  fresh  in  our  recollection  for  us  to 
judge  calmly  and  dispassionately  the  char- 
acter of  the  man  who,  above  any  other,  was 
instrumental  in  saving  us.  His  life,  like  that 
of  Lee,  his  great  competitor,  remains  yet  to  be 
written.  To  those  who  have  followed  him 
with  friendly  but  critical  eyes  since  his  great 
victory  at  Donelson,  he  is  hard  to  understand. 
Such  simplicity  and  straightforwardness  of 
character;  such  obtuseness  of  vision  at  times, 
with  such  wonderful  prescience  at  others; 
such  an  infallible  judge  of  the  capacities  of 
his  military  subordinates,  and  such  an  easy 
dupe  to  transparent  wiles  of  others  ;  such 
surrender  of  self  and  entire  devotion  to  the 
cause  of  suppressing  the  rebellion,  with  such 


selfish  egotism  in  seeking  a  third  term,  after 
the  experiences  of  the  first  and  second,  and 
against  the  protest  of  the  country;  such  ex- 
traordinary capacity  and  incapacity,  have 
rarely  been  equaled,  and  need  the  hand  o 
a  master  for  their  correct  portrayal. 

Of  his  life  in  the  army  before  the  war  little 
is  known.  Colonel  Bonneville  (the  Captain 
Bonneville  of  Washington  Irving),  who  com- 
manded Grant's  regiment  at  one  time,  once 
told  the  writer  that  Grant  was  compelled  to 
leave  the  army.  The  truth,  no  doubt,  is  that 
army  life  on  our  frontier  posts  was  utterly 
distasteful  to  him.  He  took  no  interest  in 
his  duties  and  had  no  professional  pride. 
His  accomplished  Colonel  could  not  forgive 
the  apparent  insensibility  and  lack  of  inter- 
est on  the  part  of  his  subordinate,  and  mat- 
ters came  to  such  a  pass  that  Grant  sent  in* 
his  resignation.  One  would  suppose  his  sit- 
uation then,  with  a  young  family,  without 
money,  without  a  profession  or  business,  and 
no  capacity  for  business,  would  have  been 
most  depressing.  Yet  probably  he  did  not 
suffer  from  depression  of  spirits.  His  at- 
tempt at  farming  near  St.  Louis  was  a. failure 

During  the  war  his  persistent  refusal,  on 
all  occasions,  to  talk  was  the  cause  of  much 
comment.  His  enemies  said  he  couldn't 
talk,  and  the  loyal  element  of  the  North 
wondered  that  a  general  who  could  command 
armies  should  seem  unable  to  converse 
about  anything  except  horses.  But  this  ex- 
treme reticence  was  sometimes  laid  aside 
in  presence  of  a  congenial  spirit.  A  friend 
once  told  me  that  just  after  leaving  col- 
lege he  visited  a  brother  who  had  married  a 
sister  of  Mrs.  Grant,  and  was  living  near 
the  St.  Louis  farm.  The  young  man  spent 
much  time  with  the  future  general,  and 
found  him  an  excellent  talker.  He  said  that 
on  every  subject  which  came  up  for  discus- 
sion it  was  evident  Grant  had  thought,  and 
had  given  it  careful  consideration.  So  that 
the  impassiveness  and  taciturnity,  for  which 
he  was  so  famous  during  the  war,  did  not 
arise  from  lack  of  thought  or  ability  to  ex- 
press it.  A  gentleman  now  living  in  Grass 
Valley  knew  him  well  in  Galena,  and  bears 


200 


Reminiscences  of  General  Grant. 


[Aug. 


witness  to  the  General's  conversational 
powers  and  the  extent  and  variety  of  his  infor- 
mation. But  these  mental  stores  were  only 
exhibited  to  a  few  friends. 

In  Galena  his  father  allowed  him  a  salary 
of  $40  per  month.  His  poverty  and  his 
taciturnity  made  him  one  of  the  most  ob- 
scure men  of  the  town.  Did  he  suffer  as 
any  other  man  of  his  education  and  men- 
tal powers  would  have  suffered  under  such 
circumstances?  He  was  now  thirty-nine, 
an  educated  gentleman,  with  a  large  family, 
dependent  on  his  father,  who  paid  him  $40 
per  month  for  services  as  clerk  and  salesman 
in  a  leather  store.  The  war  broke  out,  and 
for  the  first  time,  so  far  as  known,  this  man 
was  really  roused. 

War  became  at  once  the  business  of  our 
people.  But  men  who  knew  anything  about 
war  were  exceedingly  scarce.  The  demand 
for  anybody  who  knew  anything  at  all  about 
military  drill  was  immense,  and  Grant  soon 
found  himself  drilling  a  company  of  volun- 
teers, and  soon  went  with  them  to  the  State 
capital  as  their  captain.  Regiments  were 
being  organized  faster  than  men  fit  to  com- 
mand them  could  be  found,  and  Grant,  as 
a  graduate  of  West  Point,  was  almost  imme- 
diately made  Colonel. 

Men  fit  for  Brigadiers  were  few,  and  this 
Colonel,  who  evidently  understood  his  busi- 
ness, and  was  quietly  and  sedulously  attend- 
ing to  it,  was  soon  promoted,  and  given  an 
important  command.  This  man  who  had 
served  in  the  army  for  eleven  years  with  in- 
difference to  its  duties,  by  the  chance  of  a 
great  rebellion  finds  himself  suddenly  restor- 
ed to  it,  with  high  and  independent  com- 
mand. He  who  disliked,  and  who  has  al- 
ways disiiked,  military  life  and  all  connected 
with  it,  finds  himself  at  the  head  of  an  army, 
and  determined  to  make  every  possible  use 
of  it  to  grind  the  rebellion  to  powder.  The 
impassive,  taciturn  man  is  thoroughly  arous- 
ed. The  nominal  Democrat,  who  had  ap- 
parently taken  no  interest  during  all  his  life 
in  his  government,  unless  to  denounce  the 
anti-slavery  agitation,  awakes,  and  with  cool 
head,  iron  will,  and  a  heart  devoid  of  fear  or 
doubt,  bends  all  his  powers  to  beat  the  ene- 
my in  the  fight.  He  recognizes  the  fact  at 


once,  that  to  prevent  the  disruption  of  the 
Union  all  the  energy  and  force  of  the  entire 
North  must  be  put  forth,  and  the  South  con- 
quered by  crushing,  overwhelming  blows  ; 
that  the  Southern  people  must  be  defeated 
in  battle  until  utterly  exhausted,  and  that  it 
was  only  by  constant  and  fearful  fighting 
the  South  could  be  exhausted  and  the  war 
closed. 

From  the  moment  he  took  the  field,  and 
long  before  the  rest  of  the  country  realized 
the  necessities  of  the  situation,  his  clearness 
of  vision  seemed  like  inspiration.  For  four 
bloody  years  he  was  a  representative  of  the 
Union  force  of  the  nation,  grim,  resolute, 
fearless,  undoubting. 

In  1864  it  seemed,  and  foreigners  thought, 
the  North  and  South  would  fight  to  their 
mutual  destruction.  They  compared  the 
two  sections  to  Kilkenny  cats.  Nast  pub- 
lished a  cartoon  of  a  noble  cat  (the  North) 
engaged  in  deadly  combat  with  the  black, 
short-tailed  cat  of  the  South,  with  Grant 
quietly  looking  on  and  remarking,  "Our 
cat's  tail  is  the  longer."  It  represented  in 
homely  manner  the  grim  determination  of 
which  Grant  was  the  embodiment,  to  fight 
it  out  at  any  cost.  That  he  made  mistakes 
as  a  General,  it  is  useless  to  deny.  That 
the  enemy,  40,000  strong,  should  march  up 
to  within  two  miles  of  his  army,  and  go 
into  camp  for  the  night,  without  his  know- 
ing it,  and  then  attack  him  all  unprepared 
the  next  morning,  is  unprecedented  in  the 
history  of  warfare.  But,  likewise,  it  is  un- 
precedented that  a  commanding  General, 
assailed  under  such  circumstances,  should 
be  as  cool  and  undisturbed  as  if  on  parade, 
and  as  resolved  to  fight  and  conquer  as  if  he 
were  the  attacking  party,  and  be  able  to  in- 
fuse his  resolution  and  self-confidence  into 
his  soldiers.  It  has  been  said  that  he  was 
not  a  Napoleon,  but  his  Vicksburg  campaign 
is  without  a  parallel  in  military  annals,  save 
only  in  Napoleon's  Italian  campaigns.  The 
military  critic  finds  it  hard,  in  these  portions 
of  their  careers,  to  award  the  palm  of  genius 
in  those  matters  constituting  a  master  in  the 
art  of  war.  The  conception  of  the  plan,  the 
estimate  of  the  movements  of  his  adversaries, 
the  celerity  of  his  own  movements,  the  rapid- 


1885.] 


Reminiscences  of  General  Grant. 


201 


ity  of  concentration  at  critical  points,  and 
the  terrific  force  with  which  he  delivered  his 
blows,  find  their  parallel  only  in  Napoleon's 
first  Italian  campaign.  Both  had  supreme 
self-confidence.  Though  Grant  was  acting 
against  the  advice  of  his  most  trusted  lieuten- 
ant, and  deliberately  placed  himself  where 
he  could  not  receive  the  despatches  from 
Washington  recalling  him,  yet  the  possibility 
of  defeat  or  failure  does  not  seem  to  have 
occurred  to  him.  When  he  commenced  his 
march  into  the  interior  of  Mississippi,  away 
from  communication  with  his  base,  he  had 
such  assurance  of  success  that  he  took  his 
little  boy  along,  not  doubting  that  the  lad 
would  see  the  defeat  of  the  enemy.  Any 
other  man  would  have  thought  that  perhaps 
he  himself  might  be  defeated  and  captured. 
He  always  expected  to  win  the  battle,  no  mat- 
ter what  the  situation.  After  Rosecrans'  fiasco 
at  Chickamauga  and  Chattanooga,  Grant's 
prompt,  energetic  measures  saved  the  army  at 
Chattanooga  from  starvation  and  possible  sur- 
render. But  the  enemy  were  then  in  plain 
sight  on  Lookout  Mountain  and  Missionary 
Ridge.  To  allow  it  to  remain  there  without 
attacking  it  would  have  been  contrary  to 
Grant's  principles.  The  enemy  occupied 
high,  almost  inaccessible,  ridges  in  strong 
force,  and  were  flushed  with  their  recent  vic- 
tory. No  other  General  in  Christendom 
would  have  thought  of  attacking  the  enemy 
in  front,  by  scaling  the  precipitous  heights 
in  the  face  of  a  numerous  and  resolute  foe. 

But  attack  he  did.  An  Alabama  brigade 
weakly  gave  .way  before  the  impetuous  Sher- 
idan, whose  division  poured  into  the  breach, 
and  the  astounded  Southern  Generals,  who 
anticipated  another  Fredericksburg,  suffered 
a  most  crushing  defeat. 

The  army  of  the  Potomac  had  had  a  suc- 
cession of  able  commanders.  Time  and 
again  that  army  had  moved  out  from  Wash- 
ington to  meet  the  enemy  between  it  and 
Richmond.  A  great  battle  followed,  and 
then  it  came  back  to  its  intrenchments. 
Grant  at  last  took  command.  He,  too,  march- 
ed against  the  enemy  blocking  his  way  to 
Richmond.  The  horrible  battles  of  the  Wil- 
derness followed,  with  the  advantage  on  the 
whole  on  the  side  of  the  Confederates.  Af- 


ter prolonged  bloody  and  resultless  fighting, 
Grant  found  it  impossible  to  cut  his  way 
through.  Did  he  return  to  Washington,  or 
retreat  ?  He  simply  moved  off  by  the  left 
flank,  and  continued  his  march  towards 
Richmond.  The  enemy  again  blocked  his 
way  at  Spottsylvania,  and  more  terrible  bat- 
tles followed.  Again,  finding  it  impossible 
to  make  headway  directly  toward  his  goal, 
he  moved  off  by  the  left  flank,  but  drawing 
nearer  to  Richmond,  "  determined  to  fight  it 
out  on  that  line  if  it  took  all  summer."  North 
Anna  then  witnessed  a  drawn  battle,  and 
another  movement  by  the  left  flank  to  Cold 
Harbor  followed,  where  Grant  was  repulsed 
in  a  terrible  assault.  Still  no  retreat,  but 
another  advance  across  the  James,  and  the 
siege  of  Richmond  was  begun.  Petersburg 
was  the  key  of  Richmond,  and  to  capture  it 
was  to  possess  the  capital  of  the  Confederacy. 
It  did  take  all  summer ;  it  took  all  winter ; 
but  Grant's  hold  was  never  relaxed.  Mary- 
land was  invaded,  and  Washington  threat- 
ened by  the  enemy,  but  all  to  no  purpose ;  for 
the  ponderous  hammer  was  kept  at  its  work. 
The  army  of  the  Potomac  slowly  beat  down 
the  barriers,  and  Petersburg  was  won.  There 
is  no  such  instance  in  history  of  tenacity  and 
unflagging  resolution.  What  must  have  been 
Lee's  sensations  as  he  saw  his  army  grad- 
ually shrinking  in  numbers  from  the  persist- 
ent and  unceasing  attacks  of  the  Union  forces ! 
Sherman's  vigorous  campaign  in  the  West 
prevented  his  being  reinforced,  and  narrowed 
the  source  of  his  supplies.  His  enemy  in 
front  was  determined  to  crush  him  at  all 
hazards,  and  by  steady,  sledge-hammer 
blows  was  crumbling  his  army  to  pieces. 
Desperation  ruled  the  Confederates,  from 
general  to  private,  after  the  battle  of  the  Wil- 
derness. Grant's  hand  was  on  the  throat  of 
the  rebellion,  and  with  iron  grip  and  relent- 
less purpose  he  held  on.  When  Lee's  lines 
south  of  Petersburg  were  broken,  and  his 
troops  were  in  full  retreat  for  Richmond, 
Grant,  as  soon  as  he  heard  it,  hastened  to 
stop  the  pursuit.  He  had  been  fighting  for 
almost  a  year  for  the  possession  of  this  city ; 
now  his  troops,  in  hot  pursuit  of  the  beaten 
Confederates,  could  almost  enter  the  city 
along  with  them.  He  refused  to  follow  them 


202.                             The  Picture  of  Bacchus  and  Ariadne.  [Aug. 

into  Richmond,  but  directed  his  generals  to  Vicksburg  campaign  and  the  pursuit  of  Lee 

push    with   all    possible  expedition   to   the  are  as  brilliant  in  conception  and  in  execu- 

west  along  the  Appomattox.     It  was  the  in-  tion  as  anything  in  military  history.     The 

spiration  of  genius.     By  following    Lee  he  great  soldiers  of  the  world  have  done  noth- 

would  have  quickly  captured  Richmond,  but  ing  more  brilliant. 

the  rebellion  would  not   have  been  ended.  With  the  crushing  of  the  rebellion,  Grant 

Lee  and  his  army  would  have  escaped.     The  did  a  work   not  only  entitling  him   to  the 

capture   of  cities  amounted    to  little   now,  gratitude  and  veneration  of  the  American 

so  long  as  armies  of  fighting  men  remained,  people,  but  he   did  a  work  for  civilization 

But  what  other  man  than  Grant  would  have  and  the  human  race,  which  will  entitle  him 

forborne  the  pleasure  of  entering  Richmond  to  the  love  and  respect  of  mankind  to  the 

in  triumph,  or  would  have  thought  of  stop-  remotest  time. 

ping  pursuit  by  his  flushed  and  victorious  A  country  saved  can  afford  to  judge  leni- 

troops  and  of  sending  them  on  a  forced  march  ently  the  man  who  did  so  much  to  save  it. 

across  the  country  ?     The  result  was  that  he  A  great  general  was  necessary  to  our  national 

kept  Lee  from  crossing  to  the  south  of  the  salvation,  and  we  found  him.     Now  that  he 

Appomattox,  and  by  hard  marching  headed  is  dead,  let  us  call  to  mind  the  hero  of  our 

off  his  retreat  and  forced  a  surrender.     The  victories,  and  forget  the  faults  of  after  years. 

Warren  Olney. 


THE  PICTURE  OF  BACCHUS  AND  ARIADNE. 

Paraphrase  from  a  Chant  by  Lorenzo  de  Medici. 

How  beautiful  is  Youth,  but  soon  it  flies  : 
Let  those  who  seek  delight,  seek  it  ere  long. 
Tomorrow  may  not  come  when  this  day  dies  : 

O  Youth  be  bold  and  strong  ! 

:-~m 

We  are  deceived  by  Time  which  hastens  by ; 
But  these  two,  bound  in  endless  love  and  deep, 
Forever  happy  are,  while  each  is  nigh ; 
And  on  their  joy,  sweet  nymphs  attendance  keep. 
Let  those  who  seek  delight,  seek  it  ere  long. 
O  Youth  be  bold  and  strong  ! 

Gay  little  satyrs  on  fair  nymphs  do  spy, 
And  snares  within  the  caves  and  woods  they  build ; 
Then,  thrilled  by  Bacchus  do  they  leap  full  high 
And  dance,  for  all  the  air  with  joy  is  filled. 

Let  those  who  seek  delight,  seek  it  ere  long. 
O  Youth  be  bold  and  strong ! 

Maidens  and  lovers  young,  let  Bacchus  live  ! 
Long  life  to  love  !     Let  each  one  play  and  sing  ! 
May  flames  of  love  the  heart  sweet  pleasure  give  ! 
Swift  end  to  pain  and  sadness  let  us  bring ! 

Let  those  who  seek  delight,  seek  it  ere  long. 

O  Youth  be  bold  and  strong  ! 
Tomorrow  may  not  come  when  this  day  dies. 
How  beautiful  is  Youth  !     How  soon  it  flies  ! 

Laura  M.  Marquand. 


1885.]      Early  Days  of  the  Protestant  Episcopal  Church  in  California.       203 


THE  BUILDING  OF  A  STATE  :— VIII.     EARLY  DAYS  OF  THE  PROTESTANT 
EPISCOPAL  CHURCH  IN  CALIFORNIA. 


AFTER  the  several  interesting  accounts  of 
the  circumstances  surrounding  religious 
teachers  in  the  early  days  of  California,  al- 
ready given  by  writers  who  were  actors  in 
those  stirring  times,  which  called  out  the 
force  of  a  real  Christian  manhood,  it  would 
be  superfluous,  to  say  the  least,  for  one  of 
another  generation  to  attempt  to  repeat  from 
other  sources  what  they  have  written  so  well 
from  memory.  On  this  account,  then,  with- 
out further  introduction,  the  writer  of  this 
sketch  begs  leave  of  the  indulgent  reader,  to 
pass  at  once  to  the  circumstances  by  force 
of  which  the  Church  was  established  in  Cal- 
ifornia. 

In  the  year  1848  a  request  from  six  of  the 
leading  members  of  the  Church  was  forward- 
ed from  San  Francisco,  then  a  tiny  village 
nestling  on  the  borders  of  our  noble  bay,  to 
the  Board  of  Missions  of  the  Protestant 
Episcopal  Church  in  New  York,  asking  that 
a  missionary  be  sent  to  them  to  minister  to 
their  spiritual  necessities.  In  answer  to 
this  request,  the  Board  of  Missions  sent  out 
the  Reverend  L.  Ver  Mehr,  who,  with  his 
wife  and  little  children,  undertook  the  long 
voyage  around  Cape  Horn,  reaching  San 
Francisco  September  8th,  1849. 

Meanwhile,  the  Reverend  Flavel  S.  Mines 
had  arrived  by  the  shorter  route  of  Panama, 
and  had  already  organized  Trinity  Parish, . 

On  the  arrival  of  Doctor  Ver  Mehr  it 
was  deemed  best  to  organize  Grace  Parish, 
and  steps  were  taken  to  provide  suitable 
buildings  for  Divine  worship.  The  congre- 
gations at  first  used  the  parlors  of  private 
residences  placed  at  their  disposal — Trinity 
congregation  worshiping  in  the  house  of 
J.  H.  Merrill,  Esq.,  and  Grace  congregation 
in  that  of  Frank  Ward,  Esq. 

It  was  not  long,  however,  before  the  two 
congregations  were  able  to  erect  modest 
chapels ;  which,  by  the  necessities  of  the  case, 
were  not  far  from  each  other,  on  Powell 


street.  In  these  simple  buildings  began  the 
parochial  history  of  the  mother  churches  of 
the  Diocese  of  California ;  and  at  the  sound 
of  their  bells,  calling  men  away  from  the 
wild  life  of  those  early  days  to  the  quiet  and 
calm  of  the  sanctuary,  came  many  a  rough- 
clad  miner  to  listen  to  the  dear,  familiar 
words  of  the  Church  service,  and  found  peace 
to  the  restless  heart,  beating  high  in  the  ex- 
citement of  the  time;  and  as  psalm  and  les- 
son, creed  and  collect,  were  offered,  the  mind 
went  back,/ over  the  long  journey,  to  the 
home  parish,  and  the  wanderer  bowed  once 
more  before  the  altar  of  the  village  church, 
and  with  the  dear  ones  far  away  prayed  in 
the  same  words,  and  felt  that  wondrous  bond 
which  exists  so  strongly  among  the  people 
of  our  Church,  making  each  one  with  the 
other  when  the  priest  stands  at  the  altar,  and 
we  acknowledge  our  faith  in  the  Commun- 
ion of  Saints.  To  these  modest  temples 
came  the  gold  seekers,  and  let  us  believe 
that  many  there  found  that  treasure  which 
moth  and  rust  cannot  corrupt,  which  the 
thief  cannot  steal. 

The  labors  of  the  two  earnest  clergymen 
were  blessed  so  abundantly  that  the  chapels 
soon  gave  way  to  churches.  Grace  Parish 
erected  a  well  planned  edifice  on  the  corner 
of  Powell  and  John  streets.  The  building 
still  stands,  but  is  no  longer  in  the  possession 
of  its  original  owners,  having  been  sold  many 
years  ago  to  a  congregation  of  colored  Chris- 
tians. Trinity  Parish,  toward  the  close  of 
the  same  year,  erected  a  church  building  of 
corrugated  iron  on  Pine  street  near  Kearny, 
on  a  site  now  covered  by  the  California 
Market. 

The  devoted  Rector  Flavel  S.  Mines  lived 
but  to  see  his  beloved  church  prosper  in  its 
new  location,  and  then  was  called  up  high- 
er. His  mortal  remains  were  reverently 
laid  beneath  the  chancel,  and  when  the  pres- 
ent church  was  built,  the  loving  hands  of 


204        Early  Days  of  the  Protestant  Episcopal  Church  in   California.     [Aug. 


those  to  whom  he  had  ministered  in  holy 
things  tenderly  bore  his  ashes  to  the  new 
Trinity  Church,  and  beneath  that  chancel 
the  first  Rector  of  the  Parish  awaits  the 
sound  of 

"  The  high  trump  that  wakes  the  dead." 
He  was  succeeded  by  the  late  Reverend  C. 
B.  Wyatt,  so  well  known   and  so  much  re- 
spected by  many  of  our  fellow  citizens   for 
his  virtues  and  successful  work. 

During  these  years,  however,  other  clergy 
came  to  the  coast,  and  the  services  of  the 
Church  were  established  in  Sacramento  dur- 
ing 1849.  St.  John's  Parish,  Stockton,  was 
founded  in  1850,  and  services  were  held  in 
Marysville  by  Reverend  Augustus  Fitch,  who 
was  obliged  to  leave  there  in  1852.  But  the 
difficulties  in  the  way  of  establishing  regular 
services  were  very  great ;  and  often  were  the 
bright  hopes  of  the  faithful  clouded  with 
grave  disappointment ;  so  that  in  1853  we 
find  the  standing  committee  confessing  very 
little  progress ;  that  the  work  was  standing 
still ;  and  that  the  deaths  of  devoted  clergy- 
men, and  the  departure  of  others — and  what 
was  infinitely  worse,  the  disciplining  of  others 
still  —  had  contracted  the  number  of  the 
clergy  very  materially. 

Jn  order  to  properly  understand  the  atti- 
tude of  the  Church,  it  will  be  necessary  to 
explain  that  a  Convention  had  been  called, 
and  met  on  the  evening  of  July  24th,  1850  ; 
the  result  of  which  was  a  body  of  canons,  a 
standing  committee,  and  the  election  of 
Bishop  Southgate  to  the  office  of  Bishop  of 
the  Diocese  of  California,  an  offer  which  he 
promptly  declined.  This  disappointment 
was  very  great,  and  as  the  general  Church 
took  no  steps  to  supply  a  Bishop  to  the  strug- 
gling little  Church  in  the  far  West,  the 
churchmen  were  much  disheartened  ;  and 
as  Doctor  Ver  Mehr  relates,  it  was  gravely 
proposed  by  one  of  the  members  of  the  late 
Convention  to  apply  to  the  Russo-Greek 
Church  ;  a  step  which,  of  course,  was  never 
seriously  considered. 

The  Convention  did  not  meet  again  until 
1853  ;  on  May  4th  of  that  year  the  Conven- 
tion re-assembled  in  Trinity  church  ;  Doctor 
Ver  Mehr,  in  the  absence  of  a  Bishop,  was 


elected  President,  and  Major  E.  D.  Town- 
send  was  chosen  Secretary.  Only  three 
clergymen  were  entitled  to  seats  :  Reverend 
Messrs.  Ver  Mehr,  Wyatt,  and  Chaplain  Jonas 
Reynolds,  U.  S.  A.  Four  parishes  were  rep- 
resented, Sacramento,  Stockton,  and  two 
from  San  Francisco.  The  principal  work 
of  the  Convention  was  the  alteration  and 
amending  of  the  canons  of  1850  ;  and  stren- 
uous efforts  towards  obtaining,  at  least,  an 
Episcopal  visitation,  were  made  by  the  mem- 
bers, both  clerical  and  lay. 

The  following  year,  however,  saw  all  these 
difficulties  as  to  the  Episcopate  solved  by  the 
arrival  of  a  missionary  bishop  for  Califor- 
nia. The  Right  Reverend  William  Ingraham 
Kip,  D.D.,  LL.D.,  had  been  consecrated  to 
his  high  office  on  the  Festival  of  SS.  Simon 
and  Jude,  Oct.  28th,  1853  ;  and  sailing  very 
soon  after  his  consecration,  he  reached  San 
Francisco  January  29th,  1854,  on  a  Sunday 
morning.  The  Bishop  began  his  ministry 
that  day,  attending  divine  service  both  morn- 
ing and  evening  at  Trinity  Church,  thenunder 
the  rectorship  of  Rev.  C.  B.  Wyatt.  The 
Bishop,  notwithstanding  the  fatigue  of  a 
perilous  voyage,  preached  twice  that  day. 

The  arrival  of  a  Diocesan  soon  placed  the 
Church  upon  its  scriptural  and  historical 
basis,  and  its  future  was  assured  and  began 
at  once  to  brighten.  In  his  first  address, 
delivered  to  the  Convention  of  1854,  which 
met  three  months  after  his  arrival,  the  Bish- 
op, in  referring  to  his  new  relation,  laments 
the  small  number  of  his  fellow-laborers;  but 
the  next  report  shows  that  the  body  of  clergy 
had  increased  to  one  Bishop  and  nine  priests, 
while  the  two  or  three  parishes  of  the  previ- 
ous year  had  increased  to  eight.  Certainly, 
the  work  began  to  look  more  encouraging, 
and  it  is  very  touching  to  read  these  early 
convention  reports,  and  learn  how  the  Bish- 
op and  his  clergy  went  from  point  to  point, 
over  great  distances,  journeying  by  land  and 
by  sea  to  reach  the  scattered  flock,  going 
fifty  miles  to  visit  the  dying  bed  of  a  sick 
man,  and  administer  the  consolations  of  re- 
ligion to  one  who  craved  the  Church's  priv- 
ileges ;  and  again,  a  little  later,  making  a 
like  journey  to  lay  away,  with  the  glorious 


1885.]      Early  Days  of  the  Protestant  Episcopal   Church  in   California.        205 


words  of  hope,  the  mortal  remains  of  the 
pilgrim  who  had  finished  the  journey  of 
life. 

It  would  be  unjust  not  to  notice  the  help 
given  by  faithful  laymen  to  the  efforts  of  the 
clergy.  Again  and  again  does  the  Bishop 
narrate,  in  his  annual  reports,  the  fact  that  in 
some  remote  place  an  earnest  lay  reader  is 
keeping  the  Church  together  by  reading  ser- 
vice on  the  Lord's  day  to  such  as  he  can 
gather;  and  many  a  record  can  be  found 
in  these  early  journals  of  Convention  of  the 
efficient  service  done  in  this  way  by  the  offi- 
cers of  the  regular  army,  who,  remembering 
that  greater  army  in  which,  too,  they  were 
soldiers,  would  act  as  lay  readers  here  and 
there,  where  necessary. 

The  strange  state  of  society  in  which  the 
work  of  the  Church  had  to  be  done  no 
doubt  interfered  very  much  with  any  perma- 
nent establishment  in  many  places,  at  one 
time  populous;  and  in  one  of  the  early  reports 
we  find  the  complaint  that  among  the  many 
difficulties  of  settling  a  clergyman  was  that 
of  making  sure  of  a  congregation.  Often  and 
again  it  would  happen  that  a  town  would  lose 
one-half  or  two-thirds  of  its  population  with- 
in a  few  days  or  weeks,  and  the  clergyman, 
who,  after  a  long  correspondence,  had  under- 
taken the  tiresome  and  expensive  journey 
from  the  East,  would  find  a  very  different 
state  of  affairs,  upon  his  arrival,  from  what 
he  had  been  led  to  expect ;  would  feel  much 
discouraged,  and  desirous  of  getting  back  to 
a  settled  community.  Again,  fire  and  flood 
would  undo  the  labor  and  dishearten  the 
congregation ;  not  unfrequently  would  the 
fire  fiend  burst  out  in  the  inflammable  little 
towns,  and  the  church  would  share  the  gen- 
eral ruin;  or,  in  the  river  towns,  the  levee 
would  give  way,  and  water  would  ruin  what 
it  did  not  sweep  away. 

Stranger  than  the  circumstances  were  the 
characters  who  followed  the  great  rush  of 
gold-seekers  to  the  coast.  Men  who  had 
not  succeeded  came  hither  in  hopes  of  meet- 
ing, by  some  bold  stroke  of  fortune,  a  suc- 
cess upon  these  distant  shores ;  and  as 
with  other  professions,  so  with  the  clerical. 
Eccentricity,  and  even  worse,  had  to  be  met 


by  the  ecclesiastical  authorities,  and  firmly 
repressed  ;  and  many  were  the,  difficulties  of 
this  sort,  which  rendered  the  Episcopal  vest- 
ments decidedly  warm.  For  example,  in  the 
way  of  eccentricity,  it  is  related  that  •  one 
clergyman  had  the  somewhat  personal  habit 
of  making  a  very  pointed  gesture  with  his 
prayer-book,  when  reading  the  command- 
ments, at  such  of  the  congregation  as  he 
thought  the  especial  commandment  might 
have  some  bearing  upon ;  the  effect  was  quite 
striking,  to  say  the  least,  and  by  the  victims 
considered  unpleasant. 

But  the  Church  did  not  neglect  educa- 
tional work  during  those  unsettled  days,  and 
we  find  that  Doctor  J.  L.  Ver  Mehr  and  the 
Reverend  J.  Avery  Shepherd  conducted  large 
and  successful  girls'  schools,  from  both  of 
which  came  some  of  the  loveliest  girls  of 
the  young  State,  who  now  are  matrons 
whose  praise  is  in  all  the  churches.  The 
Reverend  Mr.  Chittenden,  during  several 
years,  assisted  by  Mr.  Lowndes,  conducted 
the  San.  Francisco  College  for  boys,  with 
great  success. 

Thus  were  the  foundations  of  the  Church 
laid  upon  this  coast.  With  much  self-denial 
and  personal  self-sacrifice  has  our  Bishop 
labored  to  build  up  the  Diocese  to  which  he 
came  in  the  flush  of  early  manhood  one-and- 
thirty  years  ago.  Under  his  care  the  Church 
has  slowly  but  surely  made  its  way;  ever  a 
haven  of  rest  for'  the  weary,  she  has  never 
permitted  the  sound  of  political  strife  to  mar 
the  harmony  of  her  services,  but  faithful  to 
her  Lord,  has  proclaimed  the  everlasting 
gospel,  and  that  alone,  from  the  Sierras  to 
the  sea.  Many  of  those  who  were  his  fellow- 
workers  have  gone  to  their  long  rest,  while 
some  still,  even  in  this  State,  serve  the  God 
who  has  led  them  all  these  years.  And  now 
another  generation  has  grown  up,  and  men 
of  that  new  generation  are  standing  'about 
the  Bishop,  and  when  Convention  meets  from 
year  to  year  in  Trinity  Church,  and  through 
the  long  lines  of  white-robed  priests  and  dea- 
cons, the  now  venerable  Bishop  passes  to 
his  seat  near  the  altar,  we  may  well  believe 
that  old  faces,  seen  through  the  mist  of  years 
gone  by,  look  upon  him,  and  voices  now 


206 


Accomplished  Gentlemen. 


[Aug. 


heard  no  more  on  earth  sound  in  .his  ears, 
and  the  forms  of  faithful  fellow-workers  sur- 
round the  holy  altar,  as  he  recalls  that  con- 
vention of  the  Diocese  when  the  faithful  few 
came  together  to  celebrate  the  Eucharistic 
feast,  and  receive  from  their  new  Bishop, 
whose  years  of  apostolic  toil  lay  all  before 
him,  the  benediction  they  so  long  had  craved. 
And  now  for  many  years  has  the  seed 
been  sown,  and  the  sheaves  are  being  gath- 
ered in.  Far  down  the  long  vistas  of  the 
future  the  work  will  go  on,  long  after  the 
last  of  the  pioneer  clergy  has  fallen  asleep, 
after — the  toil  accomplished,  the  labor  well 


done — he  has  entered  into  rest.  Grace, 
mercy,  and  peace  be  multiplied  unto  them, 
whether  still  with  us,  or  dwelling  in  radiant 
light  with  the  Master  they  served  so  well. 
Their  labors  we  well  may  emulate,  their  vir- 
tues we  well  may  imitate;  their  mistakes  are, 
or  will  be,  buried  in  their  graves.  By  them 
the  founding  of  the  Church  was 
"  'Mid  toil  and  tribulation, 

And  tumult  of  her  war." 

May  we  of  later,  easier  days,  be  as  earnest, 
as  self-sacrificing,  as  true-hearted,  as  the  pio- 
neer clergy  of  our  Church,  who  built  our 
Zion  on  the  shores  of  the  sunset  sea. 

Edgar  /  Lion. 


ACCOMPLISHED   GENTLEMEN. 
POINTS  AS  TO  CALIFORNIA  EDUCATION. 


1.  Who  should  be  an  accomplished  gentle- 
man ?     Every  man.     The  President  of  the 
United  States,  or  any  hired  laborer,  should 
as  nearly  as  he  can  be  an  accomplished  gen- 
tleman. 

Nobody  will  deny  this  of  the  highest  po- 
sitions, lay  or  clerical,  professional,  political, 
commercial  or  mechanical.  Since  a  laboring 
man  in  America  is  liable  to  be  called  up 
to  the  highest  positions,  it  is  true  of  him. 
Where  a  laboring  man  can  never  become  a 
ruler,  he  might  with  less  obvious  unsuitable- 
ness  be  a  brute. 

Whether  this  standard  of  attainment  is 
reached  at  all,  and  the  degree  in  which  it  is 
reached,  must  depend  chiefly  upon  the  train- 
ing of  each  individual  before  he  becomes 
responsible  for  himself.  The  age  for  learning 
good  habits  in  everything — the  age  for  learn- 
ing everything — is  youth. 

2.  But  California  has  peculiar  needs  in 
respect  to  this  training.     A  cosmopolitan  com- 
munity, cast  together  under  the  extraordinary 
circumstances  which  formed  California,  and 
still  retaining  so  much  that  is  exceptional  in 
its  character,  as  California  society  does,  has 
special  need  of  a  cosmopolitan  quality   of 
training  for  the  young.     Now  a  cosmopolitan 


who  is  such  in  any  complete  sense,  is  an  ac- 
complished gentleman. 

Moreover,  California  causes  have  pro- 
duced strong  character  in  its  people.  The 
young  men  of  such  a  people  require  a  train- 
ing not  merely  cosmopolitan  in  its  scope, 
but  peculiarly  strenuous  and  efficient  in  its 
spirit  and  methods.  Strong — even  wild — 
young  men,  appropriately  trained,  make  the 
noblest  adults.  A  whole  university-full  of 
"  Mad  Bismarcks "  would  make  a  splendid 
lot  of  leaders  for  the  next  political  generation. 

j.  Education  for  the  Rich.  Some  useful 
object  in  life  is  much  more  requisite  now  for 
"higher  classes"  of  any  sort  than  for  a  long 
time  back.  In  Europe,  for  instance,  this 
need  is  felt.  -The  youth  of  royal  or  noble  or 
wealthy  families  are  on  system  trained  to  be 
infinitely  more  useful  citizens  than  in  the 
eighteenth  century.  In  fact,  Europe  is 
ahead  of  the  United  States  in  this  matter. 
No  want  is  more  distinctly  visible  in  this 
country  than  the  almost  total  want  of  an  Ed- 
ucation for  the  Rich.  The  poor  are,  in  this 
matter,  in  comparison  magnificently  provided 
for;  but  "the  rich  are  sent  empty  away." 
As  fast  as  great  fortunes  become  numerous, 
very  much  faster  does  the  folly  of  the  sons 


1885.] 


Accomplished  Gentlemen. 


207 


of  the  fortune-makers  stare  out  upon  society. 
A  fool  or  lout  is  displayed  with  horrid  prom- 
inence in  the  lurid  light  of  spendthrift  wealth. 
The  point  where  self-control  and  responsi- 
bility begin  is  where  the  young  man's  life 
ceases  to  be  under  daily  and  constant  super- 
vision. This  point  is  where  a  youth  goes 
away  from  home  for  business  or  study.  No 
clearer  demarcation  line  can  be  drawn  be- 
tween school  and  college  or  university  than 
that  arising  at  this  point,  and  conditioned  by 
this  assumption  of  self-control.  School  is  a 
continuation  of  home  ;  college  is  a  preface 
to  life.  Supervision  at  school  is  quasi-par- 
ental; at  college  it  is  (or  should  be)  quasi- 
public. 

4.  The  Earth,  An  important  element  for 
the  best  home  and  school  training,  far  too 
often  neglected,  especially  for  town  and  city 
youth,  is  the  earth  element.  Man  is  of  his 
mother,  the  Earth.  In  cities,  an  armor  of 
pavements  shuts  him  off  from  her  bosom, 
and  stairs  and  elevators  lift  him  away  from 
it.  Accordingly,  families  run  out  in  a  gen- 
eration or  two  of  city  life,  unless  there  is  a 
constant,  regular  recourse  to  the  country  for 
more  vitality.  The  city  is  a  sink-hole,  a  bot- 
tomless pit,  into  which  the  stream  of  rural 
health  and  strength  steadily  pours  and  dis- 
appears. The  story  of  Antaeus  and  Hercules 
is  (for  the  present  purpose)  an  allegory  of  the 
struggle  of  man  with  city  civilization.  As 
this  civilization  lifts  man  off  the  earth,  he 
weakens.  In  proportion  as  he  comes  back 
to  her,,  he  strengthens.  When  kept  quite 
off  her,  he  is  quickly  destroyed.  Therefore, 
all  youth,  and  city  youth  most  of  all,  should 
be  kept  as  much  and  as  long  as  possible  in 
constant  and  intimate  relations  with  the  old 
mother  Earth.  Thus  will  the  independent 
period  of  life  be  begun  with  a  maximum 
capital  of  vitality,  sure  to  be  exhausted  quite 
soon  enough  in  the  fervent  and  often  furious 
competitions  of  our  present  social  condition. 
This  does  not  mean  (as  a  scoffer  or  tramp 
might  argue)  that  one  should  (so  to  speak) 
locate  a  farm  upon  his  person.  The  doc- 
trine does  not  imply  anything  other  than  the 
most  delicate  cleanliness.  It  means  that  a 
boy  and  a  youth  should  as  much  as  may  be 


live  and  exercise  out-doors,  work  at  farming 
or  gardening,  walk  and  run  and  ride  and 
camp  out,  and  shoot  and  fish  and  sail  and 
swim. 

5.  Classical  or  Scientific  ?  The  best  edu- 
cation is,  to  learn  all  you  can,  both  of  know- 
ing and  doing.  To  this  end,  all  the  mastery 
should  be  gained  that  is  possible,  both  of 
language  and  of  fact.  It  is  needless  to  add 
in  habit  and  in  thought ;  for  good  training 
in  languages  and  in  facts  must  develop  right 
habits  and  thinking  power.  A  usual  descrip- 
tion of  these  two  departments  is  to  call  them 
classical  and  scientific.  There  is  a  strong 
tendency  at  present  to  advocate  a  supposed 
scientific  training  as  distinct  from  a  classical 
one,  and  to  substitute  modern  languages  for 
Latin  and  Greek.  But  Latin  and  Greek, 
while  they  have  sometimes  been  over-valued 
and  over-taught,  are  indispensable  parts  of 
an  accomplished  gentleman's  education,  and 
so  they  are  of  a  sound  scientific  education. 

Their  usefulness  in  learning  general  gram- 
mar, the  philosophy  of  language,  the  logic  of 
thought  and  speech,  cannot  be  equalled  by 
any  other  language  whatever.  English  can- 
not be  understood  without  Latin.  No  sci- 
entific nomenclature  can  be  extended,  or  mas- 
tered, or  used,  without  Latin  and  Greek. 
Neither  history,  literature  nor  philology  can 
be  competently  studied  in  any  full  and  com- 
plete sense  without  them.  Even  a  whole- 
sale grocer  or  a  mining  engineer  would  all 
his  life  be  a  shrewder,  and  wiser  practical 
man  for  having  a  good  knowledge  of  Latin 
and  Greek.  So  would  a  hired  laborer.  For 
if  he  have  the  abilities  and  attainments  which 
one  must  have  who  has  got  so  far  forward  as 
to  know  Latin  and  Greek,  it  is  morally  cer- 
tain that  he  can  soon  lift  himself  above  the 
undesirable  position  of  a  hired  laborer. 

6.  Preparatory  Schools.  High  grade  pre- 
paratory schools  are  a  necessary  introduction 
to  high  grade  collegiate  institutions.  There 
is  no  reason  in  the  nature  of  things,  why  the 
University  of  California  and  our  other  col- 
leges may  not  afford  an  education  in  every 
particular  at  least  as  good  as  any  other  insti- 
tution on  the  continent.  But  whatever  facil- 
ities these  institutions  may  have  within  them- 


208 


Accomplished  Gentlemen. 


[Aug 


selves,  that  equality  cannot  be  maintained 
without  preparatory  schools  as  good  as  any 
on  the  continent. 

Some  situations  are  good  for  an  academ- 
ical school,  and  some  are  not.  No  school 
can  render  the  best  service  in  a  city  except 
to  pupils  who  live  in  their  own  homes.  Such 
a  school,  in  fact,  should  be  as  far  away  from 
everything  except  the  country  as  it  can  be 
without  being  too  far. 

The  whole  atmosphere,  discipline,  life,  of 
such  an  institution  as  California  requires, 
should  not  only  teach  morality,  but  should 
be  morality.  American  life  needs  training  in 
honor  more  peremptorily  than  is  the  case  in 
any  other  community,  for  the  obvious  reason 
that  individual  freedom  is  greater.  Call  the 
total  of  influences  to  keep  a  man  pure  and 
noble,  one  hundred.  If  ninety  parts  of  this 
safeguarding  total  are  laws  enacted  from  out- 
side of  him,  he  needs  only  ten  of  personal 
honor  and  self-control.  But  in  America  not 
more  than  ten  parts  are  enacted  law;  in 
California  not  more  than  one  part.  There- 
fore, an  American  needs  to  be  governed  hine- 
tenths  by  his  own  self-control  and  by  consid- 
erations of  personal  honor ;  and  a  Californian, 
ninety-nine  hundredths.  Let  this  doctrine 
be  practiced  for  the  next  twenty-five  years, 
and  we  shall  see  clean  politics  in  California. 

Religion  should  be  taught  in  such  a  school 
so  as  not  to  destroy  the  religious  teachings 
of  any  home,  and  so  as  to  strengthen  the 
foundations  of  every  home  belief.  This  rule 
implies  not  indoctrination,  but  training  in 
right  life;  not  theology,  but  morality;  not 
sectarianism,  but  respect  for  all  sincere  be- 
lief; not  so  much  precise  drill  in  forms  and 
precepts,  as  the  influence  of  a  pure  moral 
atmosphere,  and  the  result  of  constant  guid- 
ance in  well-doing;  and  it  needs  the  regular 
and  serious  fulfillment  of  sufficient  institu- 
tional observances. 

THESE  reflections  are  suggested  by  an  oc- 
currence that  marks  a  positive  and  real  new 
departure  in  the  educational  history  of  Cali- 
fornia :  the  establishment  of  the  first  high 
grade  preparatory  school  of  that  particular 
class  which  is  so  designed  as  to  satisfy  all  the 


requirements  above  implied.  There  are  ex- 
cellent preparatory  schools  in  the  State,  but 
they  are  not  designed  to  fill  exactly  the  same 
place  as  the  strictly  rural,  select  family 
school,  which  has  hitherto  been  lacking  here, 
and  cannot,  therefore,  from  the  nature  of 
the  case,  meet  all  the  demands  just  outlined. 
Yet  no  State  is  properly  provided  with  pre- 
paratory education,  in  which  High  Schools 
and  large  Academies  are  not  supplemented 
by  these  select  schools,  that  the  needs  of 
all  classes  of  the  community  may  be  met. 
The  Pacific  Coast  holds  a  strong  and  grow- 
ing community.  One  such  school  will  quick- 
ly be  followed  by  more.  It  is  the  first  of  a 
class  which  marks  the  epoch  of  a  class.  It  is 
because  this  is  such  that  we  have  thus  passed 
in  review  the  onerous  and  difficult  elements 
of  the  complex  problem  that  any  such  in- 
stitution must  solve  ;  it  is  as  such  that  we  re- 
cord the  establishment  and  features  of  the 
new  institution  at  Belmont.  Its  site  is 
probably  not  inferior  in  natural  beauty  to 
any  in  California,  being  in  the  bosom  of  a 
lovely  little  valley  among  the  hills  near  Bel- 
mont. The  estate  would  have  been  acquir- 
ed by  the  late  Mr.  Ralston  for  a  residence 
instead  of  that  now  known  as  Belmont,  which 
he  did  buy,  and  which  is  now  owned  by  Mr. 
Sharon  ;  but  it  could  not  then  be  purchased. 
He  did,  however,  subsequently  buy  it,  and  it 
has  since  his  death  been  occupied  by  Mrs. 
Ralston.  The  property  possesses  a  curious 
assemblage  of  city  and  country  merits.  It 
lies  in  the  quiet,  rustic  solitude  of  its  valley, 
with  wooded  hills  all  around,  and  one  single 
picturesque  view  into  the  distance  eastward 
between  the  hills  across  the  southern  part  of 
San  Francisco  Bay.  And  the  land  is  thor- 
oughly underlaid  with  a  system  of  irrigation 
pipes;  a  reservoir  up  among  the  hills  secures 
a  perennial  water  supply;  and  the  gas-works 
on  Mr.  Sharon's  property  will  furnish  the 
second  of  the  two  chief  privileges  of  city 
housekeeping.  There  is  not  another  house 
in  sight  except  the  Belmont  mansion  across 
the  valley.  There  is  hardly  even  a  village 
at  the  railroad  station,  and  even  this  is  a 
mile  away  and  out  of  sight.  The  house  and 
offices  are  roomy,  elegant,  and  modern,  and 


1885.] 


The  Russians  at  Home  and  Abroad. 


209 


have  that  peculiar  solidity  and  thoroughness 
of  construction  which  seems  to  have  belonged 
to  all  the  buildings  erected  by  Ralston.  In 
short,  the  estate  is  a  lonely  country  farm, 
with  a  fine  city  house  on  it,  and  city  conven- 
iences all  over  it — a  singular  aggregation  of 
contradictory  attractions.  It  meets  the  het- 
•erogeneous  requirements  which  have  been  set 
forth  in  this  paper  after  a  fashion  which  could 
hardly  have  been  more  prophetic,  had  Mr. 
Ralston  consulted  the  writer  with  the  inten- 
tion of  preparing  the  place  for  a  boys'  school. 
The  reputation  of  Mr.  W.  T.  Reid,  the 
head  of  the  new  institution,  is  even  a  better 
guarantee  for  the  practical  merit  of  the  in- 
stitution than  are  locations  and  fittings  for 
its  mere  lodging.  Mr.  Reid,  as  everybody 
in  California  knows,  has  for  the  last  four 
years  been  President  of  the  University  of 
California.  As  such,  he  has  had  both  friends 
and  opponents ;  but  the  attitude  of  the  Bel- 
mont  School  towards  the  University  is  en- 
tirely friendly,  and  vice  versa,  so  far  as  the 
writer  knows;  and  both  friends  and  oppo- 
nents would  argue  that  Mr.  Reid  is  certainly 
no  worse  fitted  to  prepare  students  for  the 
University  in  consequence  of  having  been 
its  President.  His  previous  professional 
experience  as  assistant  in  the  famous  Boston 
Latin  School  and  as  principal  of  the  Boys' 
High  School  of  San  Francisco,  is  ample 
evidence  of  his  technical  fitness ;  and  it 
would  be  at  least  superfluous  to  indorse  him 
personally,  or  to  enumerate  the  offers  which 
he  has  declined  of  high  educational  posi- 
tions elsewhere,  from  a  laudable  ambition  to 


identify  himself  with  an  important  forward 
step  in  the  educational  improvement  of  this 
coast. 

Our  Academical  Problem.  Let  the  new 
Belmont  School  succeed,  and  let  a  compe- 
tent number  of  schools  of  like  high  aims  and 
abundant  and  appropriate  equipment  arise 
after  it,  and  one  of  the  most  important 
problems  for  California's  future  will  have 
been  solved.  The  gambling  era  of  Califor- 
nia is  closed.  The  increase  of  small  farms 
and  growing  variety  of  legitimate  industries 
will,  in  due  time,  answer  the  hoodlum  ques- 
tion, and  the  tramp  question,  and  the  Chi- 
nese question.  This  industrial  movement  is 
already  solidifying  perceptibly  the  very  foun- 
dations of  genuine  and  healthy  sociological 
conditions  in  California.  It  is  in  higher 
grades  of  improvement,  preeminently  in  edu- 
cational improvement,  that  we  must  trust  for 
the  symmetrical  completion  of  the  social  edi- 
fice. When  we  shall  possess  our  full  propor- 
tion of  means  for  the  higher  training  of  youth, 
objects  will  have  been  secured  which  no  in- 
dustrial conditions  could  attain.  To  solid 
and  legitimate  industrial  prosperity  will  be 
added  the  purity  of  politics,  the  reform  of 
abuses,  and  the  development  of  a  genuinely 
and  highly  cultivated  society.  Such  schools- 
as  the  Belmont  School  will  perform  a  work 
impracticable  by  any  other  agency,  playing 
an  important  part  in  supplying  to  American 
society  an  element  not  less  important  than 
any  other  whatever,  and  in  American  society 
peculiarly  necessary,  yet  hitherto  compar- 
atively lacking — accomplished  gentlemen. 


THE  RUSSIANS  AT  HOME  AND  ABROAD.1-4 


FOR  the  last  eighteen  months  we  have 
heard  little  of  the  Nihilists.  Attempts,  even, 
at  assassination,  seem  to  have  been  few  in 

!The  Russians  at  the  Gates  of  Herat.  By  Chas. 
Marvin.  New  York:  Charles  Scrihner's  Sons.  1885. 
For  sale  in  San  Francisco  by  A.  L.  Bancroft  &  Co. 

3  Russia  Under  the  Tzars.  By  Stepniak.  Rendered 
into  English  by  Wm.  Westall.  New  York  :  Charles 
Scribner's  Sons.  1885.  For  sale  in  San  Francisco  by 
A.  L.  Bancroft  &  Co. 

VOL.  VI.— 14. 


number,  and  in  the  rare  cases  of  which  we 
have  had  intelligence,  not  directed  at  either 
the  Czar  or  any  of  the  higher  Russian  offi- 

8  The  Russian  Revolt.  By  Edmund  Noble.  Boston : 
Houghton,  Mifflin  &  Co.  1885.  Tor  sale  in  San  Fran- 
cisco by  Chilion  Beach. 

4  Afghanistan  and  the  Anglo-Russian  Dispute.  By 
Theo.  F.  Rodenburgh,  Bvt.  Brig.  Gen.  U.  S.  A.  New 
York  :  G.  P.  Putnam's  Sons.  1885.  For  sale  in  San 
Francisco  by  Strickland  &  Pearson. 


210 


The  Russians  at  Home  and  Abroad. 


[Aug. 


cials.  At  first  glance  it  would  appear  that 
the  leaders  of  the  revolt,  either  exhausted  by 
past  efforts,  or  finally  borne  to  earth  by  the 
repressive  measures  of  the  government,  had 
abandoned  their  terrible  enterprise. 

At  a  superficial  view,  such  would  seem  to 
be  the  case ;  but  to  those  acquainted  with 
Russia  beneath  the  surface  it  has  long  been 
apparent  that  Nihilism — or  that  revolution- 
ary movement  which  is  known  to  us  of  the 
West  by  the  name  of  Nihilism,  but  which  is 
far  broader  in  reality  than  Nihilism  alone 
— is  chronic  in  the  Russian  body  politic,  and 
that  whatever  pause  may  come  in  the  efforts 
of  the  revolutionists  will  prove  to  be  but  a 
breathing-time,  after  the  expiration  of  which 
their  fight  against  absolutism  will  be  renewed 
with  greater  vigor  than  before.  To  make 
this  clear  to  the  American  mind  seems  to 
have  been  the  object  of  Mr.  Edmund  Noble 
in  writing  his  monograph,  "The  Russian 
Revolt,"  and  to  his  task  he  seems  to  have 
brought  a  knowledge  of  Russian  history,  a 
familiarity  with  Russian  ideas  and  ways  of 
thought,  acquired  on  the  ground,  and  hence 
of  the  greatest  value  both  to  author  and 
readers  For,  far  as  we  are  removed  from 
the  great  Slav  Empire  in  material  distance, 
we  are  much  further  separated  in  traditions, 
habits  of  thought  and  social,  political  and  in- 
dustrial ideas;  indeed,  the  Slav  has  little  more 
in  common  with  the  Anglo-Saxon  (save  his 
color)  than  has  the  latter  with  the  Chinaman. 

Thus  it  is  that  a  protracted  residence  in 
Russia,  such  as  Mr.  Noble  seems  to  have 
had,  has  been  of  inestimable  benefit  in  fitting 
him  for  the  task  which  he  has  so  successfully 
accomplished.  He  has  been  enabled  to  enter 
into  Russian  life,  to  study  types  and  charac- 
teristics ;  and  as  a  result  has  given  to  our 
public  by  far  the  clearest,  most  intelligent, 
and  concise  account  and  explanation  of  the 
Russian  revolt  so  far  written  in  English. 

It  is  interesting  to  speculate  upon  the  future 
of  Russia,  social  and  governmental.  No  peo- 
ple has  ever  been  placed  under  similar  condi- 
tions. Growing  with  the  growth  of  the  Em- 
pire, and  gaining  strength  with  each  of  its 
extensions,  an  autocratic  system  has  fastened 
itself  upon  the  Russian  people,  which  is  op- 


posed to  every  one  of  its  traditions,  to  the 
whole  genius  of  the  race; — one  which,  in  this 
last  quarter  of  the  nineteenth  century,  pre- 
sents to  the  world  a  most  astounding  paradox 
— seventy-five  million  people  looking  back, 
while  all  the  rest  of  the  world  is  looking  for- 
ward And  singularly  enough,  the  very  for- 
ces which  elsewhere  have  contributed  to  the 
growth  of  popular  liberty,  have  in  Russia 
proved  the  most  efficient  allies  of  despotism ; 
the  influence  of  Byzantine  Christianity  (as 
Mr.  Noble  shows)  has  steadily  contributed 
toward  the  growth  and  perpetuation  of  the 
autocratic  system,  so  that  not  the  army,  but 
the  Church,  is  its  strongest  support. 

Could  a  vote  today  be  taken,  of  the  intel- 
ligence and  education  of  Russia,  upon  the 
maintenance  of  Czarism,  it  is  probable  that 
not  one-tenth  of  these  would  be  found  sup- 
porting it ;  but  unfortunately,  Russian  intel- 
ligence and  education  are  concentrated  with- 
in a  very  small  proportion  of  the  whole  peo- 
ple. Despotism  finds  its  stronghold  among 
the  brutish  millions  who  still  look  up,  from 
the  murk  of  ignorance  which  the  Church  and 
autocracy  have  caused,  to  the  Czar  as  their 
"  Little  Father,"  and  upon  whom  all  effort  at 
enlightenment  seems  lost.  Aware  of  nothing 
better,  they  remain  true  to  the  present  sys- 
tem. 

And  what  a  system  it  is!  The  late  Em- 
peror is  credited  with  the  remark:  "There 
is  only  one  man  in  Russia  who  does  not 
steal,  and  I  am  that  man."  But  dishonest 
business  and  administrative  methods  are 
the  least  among  the  evils  for  which  Czar- 
ism  is  responsible.  There  is  absolute 
concurrence  of  opinion  among  all  observ- 
ers, that  the  repressive  measures  of  the  gov- 
ernment are  crushing  out  the  intellect  of 
Russia.  Both  "  Stepniak  "  and  the  author  of 
"  The  Russian  Revolt "  are  united  upon  this. 
Says  the  former  : 

"  The  despotism  of  Nicholas  crushed  full-grown 
men.  Tho  despotism  of  the  two  Alexanders  did  not 
give  them  time  to  grow  up.  They  threw  themselves 
on  immature  generations,  on  the  grass  hardly  out  of 
the  ground,  to  devour  it  in  all  its  tenderness.  To 
what  other  cause  can  we  look  for  the  desperate  ster- 
ility of  modern  Russia  in  every  branch  of  intellectual 
work  ?  Our  contemporary  literature,  it  is  true,  boasts 


1885.] 


The,  Russians  at  Home  and  Abroad. 


211 


of  great  writers — geniuses,  even — worthy  of  the  high- 
est place  in  the  most  brilliant  age  of  our  country's  lit- 
erary development.  But  these  are  all  men  whose 

active  work  dates  from  the  period  of  1840 

The  new  generation  produces  nothing,  absolutely 
nothing.  Despotism  has  stricken  with  sterility  the 
high  hopes  to  which  the  splendid  awakening  of  the 
first  half  of  the  century  gave  birth.  Mediocrity 
reigns  supreme.  We  have  not  a  single  genius  ;  not 
one  man  of  letters  has  shown  himself  a  worthy  inher- 
itor of  the  traditions  of  our  young  and  vigorous  liter- 
ature. As  in  letters,  so  it  is  in  public  life 

The  present  regime  chooses  its  victims  from  the  flower 
of  the  nation,  taking  all  on  whom  depend  its  future, 
and  its  glory.  It  is  not  a  political  party  whom  they 
crush  ;  it  is  a  nation  of  a  hundred  millions  whom 
they  stifle. 

"  This  is  what  is  done  in  Russia  under  the  Tzars; 
this  is  the  price  at  which  the  Government  buys  its 
miserable  existence."  [p.  237.] 

Says  the  latter : 

"It  (the censorship)  not  only  prevents  the  forma- 
tion of  healthy  public  sentiment ;  it  discourages  think- 
ing ;  by  trammeling  expression,  it  makes  journalism 
frivolous  ;  it  forms  a  serious  hindrance  to  educational 
processes,  and  by  menacing  them  with  heavy  losses 
makes  newspaper  enterprises  the  most  precarious  of 
all." 

Loss  of  free  institutions,  the  ascetic  for- 
malism and  tyranny  of  the  Byzantine  Church, 
the  crushing  out  of  all  individual  activities, 
burdensome  taxation  to  support  a  corrupt 
bureaucracy,  harassing  restriction  upon 
thought  and  free  movement — these  are  the 
characteristics  of  the  autocratic  system. 
What  wonder  is  it  that  under  the  accumulat- 
ed burden  of  woes  such  as  these,  borne  for 
generations,  the  thinking  minds  of  Russia 
become  warped  and  half-insane,  declaring 
that  "  the  old  must  be  totally  destroyed,  to 
give  place  to  the  new."  All  allowance  being 
made  for  partisanship,  it  is  impossible  to  read 
the  evidence  furnished  by  the  Nihilist  publi- 
cations, first  of  the  rottenness  of  the  system, 
then  of  the  horrors  which  Czarism  perpe- 
trates in  its  fight  against  the  revolt,  without 
a  feeling  of  horror  that  such  things  should 
exist  in  a  community  calling  itself  civilized. 

Listen  to  the  report  of  a  special  official  of 
the  Ministry  of  Justice,  sent  into  the  prov- 
ince of  Orenburg  to  investigate  the  tribu- 
nals there,  and  who,  it  is  needless  to  say,  was 
promptly  removed  from  office  upon  making 


it — this,  by  the  way,  being  beyond  question 
trustworthy  : 

"  I  lived  in  an  atmosphere  of  appalling  groans  and 
sighs.  I  liberated  innocent  persons  who  had  been 
kept  in  prison  by  the  Executive  years  after  they  had 
been  acquitted  in  open  Court,  and  who  had  been  se- 
cretly tortured  ....  I  pass  over  an  infinite  num- 
ber of  cases,  and  come  to  the  last  of  all.  I  was 
making  my  customary  round  of  the  district  prisons, 
when  I  noticed  an  abnormal  excitement  among  the 
prisoners  at  Ilezk.  I  instituted  an  inquiry,  and 
found  that  two  months  previously  all  the  prisoners 
had  been  led  out  to  an  open  space  outside  the  town 
gates,  and  then  beaten  with  such  inhuman  cruelty 
that  the  populace  wept  bitterly  at  the  sight.  First 
they  were  flogged  till  tMey  lost  consciousness,  then 
water  was  poured  over  them  till  they  recovered,  then 
the  warders  beat  them  with  what  was  readiest  at 
hand  ....  The  ground  was  stained  with  blood,  like 
the  floor  of  a  shambles. " 

The  mind  revolts  at  the  thought  that  a  sys- 
tem which  makes  possible  crimes  like  these, 
can  last.  Bad  as  it  is  now,  even,  the  immediate 
future  gives  little  hope  for  the  better.  Yet, 
while  the  ignorant  devotion  of  the  peasant 
is,  for  the  present,  the  safeguard  of  Russian 
autocracy,  "  none  the  less  "  (to  quote  again) 
"  is  it  doomed.  The  forces  that  undermine 
it  are  cumulative  and  relentless.  Not  ter- 
rorism, or  nihilism,  or  socialism,  is  it  that 
feeds  these  forces,  but  civilization,  national 
enlightenment,  individual  awakening."  What 
hope  is  there  for  the  increase  of  these? 

The  personality  of  "Stepniak,"  and  of 
men  like  "Stepniak,"  is  the  reply.  This 
book,  "  Russia  under  the  Tzars,"  the  title  of 
which  is  something  of  a  misnomer,  is  the 
most  scathing  indictment  and  denunciation 
of  a  governmental  system  that  has  appeared 
in  the  world  for  decades.  Making  all  allow- 
ance for  partisan  prejudice,  for  hatred  of  a 
government  which  has  condemned  many  of 
his  friends  and  co-workers,  preachers  of  lib- 
eral ideas,  to  punishment  worse  than  death, 
for  indignant  and  (possibly)  intemperate  ut- 
terances, there  yet  remains  here  a  mass  of 
testimony  from  Russian  official  sources,  from 
the  very  lips  of  officials  themselves,  more 
than  sufficient  to  damn  forever  in  the  eyes 
of  the  world  the  autocratic  system  of  Russia. 
If  any  of  our  readers  have  in  the  past  won- 
dered at  the  vitriolic  hatred  which  the  Nihil- 


212 


The  Russians  at  Home  and  Abroad. 


[Aug. 


ists  feel,  and  by  word  and  deed  have  ex- 
pressed toward  their  oppressors,  let  them  read 
"  Stepniak's  "  chapters  on  the  "  Troubetzkoi 
Ravelin  "  and  "  After  Judgment,"  and  their 
wonder  will  cease.  The  recital  bears  inter- 
nal marks  of  truth,  and  is  calculated  to  rouse 
all  one's  pity  and  indignation — pity  for  the 
victims  of  an  awful  tyranny,  indignation  at 
its  methods  and  its  crimes. 

It  may  be  objected  to  "  Stepniak's  "  work, 
that  it  gives  little  explanation  of  or  reason 
for  the  more  striking  facts  of  Nihilism,  its 
devoted  followers,  its  self-sacrifice,  its  almost 
superhuman  repression  of  individuality  in 
work  for  the  common  cause;  but  these  con- 
cern more  especially  the  psychological  side 
of  the  subject,  with  which,  we  imagine, 
"  Stepniak "  would  say  he  has  little  to  do. 
The  student  of  race  traits  may  concern  him- 
self with  these,  may  speculate  as  to  this  won- 
derful display,  in  an  age  unused  to  the  sight 
of  the  heroic  virtues,  of  traits  which  find 
their  parallel  among  the  early  Christian  mar- 
tyrs alone.  Not  the  ablest  or  clearest-mind- 
ed students  of  Nihilism  have  as  yet  made 
the  reason  of  these  clear;  "  Stepniak  "  seems 
to  accept  all  this  magnificent  self-sacrifice  as 
not  to  be  wondered  at — as  to  be  expected, 
indeed,  of  a  race  which  asserts  that  it  has 
nothing  to  learn  from  the  West,  and  to  have 
deliberately  confined  himself  to  the  political 
and  social,  rather  than  to  the  psychological, 
aspects  of  the  question. 

He  is  not  hopeful ;  that  spirit  of  pessimism, 
one  of  the  most  marked  traits  of  the  Russian 
character,  appears  in  his  forecast  of  the 
nearer  future.  It  is  to  the  intelligent  public 
opinion  of  the  world,  indeed,  that  "Step- 
niak "  looks  for  the  first  modification  of  Rus- 
sian tyranny.  After  stating  the  case  as  fol- 
lows : 

"  Strange  spectacle  I  Here  are  a  State  and  a  Gov- 
ernment calling  themselves  national  and  patriotic, 
which  systematically,  from  year  to  year,  do  things  that 
the  most  barbarous  conqueror  could  do  only  in  some 
sudden  access  of  wild  rage  and  stupid  fanaticism.  For, 
without  a  shadow  of  exaggeration,  the  exploits  of  our 
rulers  can  be  compared  with  those  of  the  celebrated 
Caliph  of  Egypt  alone.  Surely,  in  no  other  country 
was  such  a  government  ever  seen.  If  all  we  have 
exposed  were  not  proved,  and  doubly  proved,  by 


heaps  of  official  documents,  we  might  be  tempted  to 
disbelieve  it.  But  it  is  all,  unhappily,  only  too  true  ; 
and  what  is  still  worse,  will  always  be  true  as  long  as 
the  autocrat  lives  in  Russia." 

He  proceeds: 

"This  anomalous  condition  of  so  great  a  country 
as  Russia  cannot  last.  In  one  way  or  another  the 
catastrophe  must  come — that  is  what  everybody  says 
at  present.  Some  accurate  observers  find  many  points 
of  likeness  between  modern  Russia  and  France  before 
the  Revolution.  There  is  a  great  deal  of  analogy 
indeed.  .  .  .  The  material  condition  and  moral 
dispositions  of  the  masses  are  not  unlike,  either. 
There  is,  however,  a  point  of  great  difference,  on 
which  we  must  dwell  a  moment,  because  it  contrib- 
utes greatly  to  quicken  and  intensify  the  decomposi- 
tion of  the  Russian  State,  and  to  the  approaching  of 
the  ultimate  crisis.  It  is  the  political  position  of 
Russia. 

"The  despotic  France  of  the  eighteenth  century 
had  around  her  States  as  despotic  as  herself.  Russia 
has  for  neighbors  constitutional  states.  Their  consti- 
tutions are  very  far  from  being  the  ideal  of  freedom. 
But  in  any  case  they  prevent  their  Governments  from 
being  in  open  war  with  the  whole  country.  .  .  .  All 
the  Governments  do  their  best  to  promote  general 
progress,  which  turns  to  their  advantage.  •  In  Russia 
this  progress  is  either  stopped  or  is  extremely  slow, 
from  the  check  it  encounters  on  every  hand  from  the 
Government. 

"Now,  being  indissolubly  united  with  the  other 
European  States  by  political  ties — being  obliged  to 
sustain  an  economical,  military,  and  political  compe- 
tition, .  .  .  Russia  is  evidently  obliged  to  ruin  her- 
self more  and  more.  .  .  .  The  longer  this  competi- 
tion lasts,  the  more  it  becomes  disastrous  and  difficult 
to  sustain  for  the  Russian  state.  The  political  crisis  is, 
therefore,  much  nearer,  more  forcible  and  immediate 
than  the  social  one.  And  the  actual  position  of  Rus- 
sia in  this  point  presents  us  a  great  analogy  with  the 
position  of  Russia  herself,  in  the  period  which  pre- 
ceded the  reform  of  Peter  the  Great.  The  autocracy 
plays  now  the  same  part  as  regards  culture,  as  the 
Moscovite  clericalism  played  in  the  sixteenth  and  sev- 
enteenth centuries.  After  being  the  instrument  of 
the  creation  of  Russian  political  power,  it  is  now  the 
cause  of  its  gradual  destruction.  If  the  autocracy  do 
not  fall  under  the  combined  effects  of  interior  causes, 
the  first  serious  war  will  overthrow  it.  ...  The  de- 
struction of  the  autocracy  has  become  a  political  as 
well  as  social  and  intellectual  necessity.  It  is  required 
for  the  safety  of  the  State,  as  well  as  for  the  welfare 
of  the  Nation."  [pp.  362-3.] 

The  reader  of  "The  Russian  Revolt," 
and  "Russia  under  the  Tzars,"  will  see 
that  the  American  publicist,  studying  from 
the  outside,  and  the  Russian  agitator,  work- 
ing from  the  inside,  arrive  at  much  the  same 


1885.] 


The  Russians  at  Home  and  Abroad. 


213 


conclusions.  These  are  :  first,  that  Czarism 
has  come  to  its  period  of  decadence ;  that 
however  long  that  period  may  extend,  still 
the  system  is  hopelessly  rotten,  and  its  down- 
fall only  a  question  of  time ;  and  second, 
that  this  downfall  will  be  brought  about  nei- 
ther wholly  by  the  efforts  of  the  Nihilists — 
classing  as  Nihilists  all  agitators,  whatever 
may  be  their  schemes — nor,  indeed,  by  any 
particular  development  of  circumstance-now 
to  be  foreseen. 

If  impending  changes  in  the  world's  social 
order,  which  so  many  acute  thinkers  declare 
are  soon  to  come  about,  are  to  be  of  the  co- 
operative or  socialistic  kind  ;  if,  as  Chamber- 
lain, leader  of  the  English  radicals,  lately  de- 
clared before  the  "  '80  Club,"  "it  belongs  to 
the  State  to  protect  the  weak,  to  provide  for 
the  poor,  to  redress  the  inequalities  of  our 
social  system,  and  to  raise  the  average  en- 
joyments of  the  majority  of  the  population  "; 
then  will  Russia's  autocratic  system  be  suc- 
ceeded by  one  adapted  to  the  needs  of  the 
new  regime.  For — as  every  student  of  her 
affairs  points  out — nowhere  in  all  history  does 
a  more  grotesque  contrast  present  itself  than 
between  her  popular  institutions  and  her  gov- 
ernmental ideas.  The  former  are  absolutely 
socialistic  and  democratic;  and  on  these  as 
a  basis,  rests  the  dead  weight  of  an  irrespon- 
sible despotism.  When,  therefore,  this  breaks 
or  is  broken  down,  Russia  has  but  to  return 
to  the  traditions  of  the  past  to  be  in  line  with 
the  necessities  of  the  future. 

The  inheritor  of  Anglo-Saxon  ideas,  of  the 
spirit  of  independence,  of  individuality,  of 
self  reliance,  which  has  done  so  much  for 
civilization,  will  be  slow  to  believe  that  any 
species  of  socialism,  as  distinguished  from 
individualism,  is  to  be  the  foundation  of  the 
future  social  order.  But  we  are  living  in  a 
period  of  change,  when  the  masses  are  quick 
to  grasp  and  assent  to  novel  ideas ;  and  it 
must  be  admitted  that  in  Europe  the  doc- 
trines of  Lasalle  and  Carl  Marx  are  every 
day  making  advance.  In  their  essential 
points,  too,  the  State-insurance  and  coopera- 
tive measures  which  Prince  Bismarck  has 
been  so  vigorously  advocating  are  socialism, 
pure  and  simple,  though  directed  by  a  strong 


central  authority.  It  would  be  strange,  in- 
deed, if,  from  the  communistic  ideas  of  the 
Russian,  the  Latin  and  Germanic  mind  were 
to  take  lessons  in  the  adjustment  of  society 
to  new  conditions. 

Of  course,  all  this  is  in  the  distant  future; 
for  the  present  the  Russian  problem  is 
how  to  do  away  with  a  despotism  which, 
though  rotten  at  the  center,  displays  a 
wonderful  degree  of  vigor  at  its  borders. 
Just  as  the  power  of  old  Rome  extended 
itself,  seeming  well-nigh  irresistible,  long 
after  central  authority,  honey-combed  with 
corruption,  had  become  so  hopelessly  weak- 
ened that  it  was  the  sport  of  palace  in- 
trigue or  Pretorian  revolt,  so  do  Russian 
conquest  and  influence  ever  expand  in  wid- 
ening circles.  The  mot  of  Napoleon,  that 
Europe  in  a  century  would  become  Repub- 
lican or  Russian,  is  seen  now  to  have  been 
nonsense ;  had  the  remark  been  made  of 
Asia  and  the  contingency  limited  to  Rus- 
sianization,  we  might  regard  it  as  prophetic. 
And  if  recent  advices  from  St.  Petersburg 
are  trustworthy,  and  the  war  party  there  real- 
ly believes  that  the  conflict  between  England 
and  Russia  is  to  come  not  later  than  autumn 
of  the  present  year — equivalent  to  saying 
that  Russia  has  determined  upon  war — then 
we  of  America  may  sit  as  spectators,  watch- 
ing the  great  despotism  and  the  "  crowned 
republic  "  as  they  fight  for  the  control  of  a 
continent. 

If  Mr.  Marvin,  author  of  "  The  Russians 
at  the  Gates  of  Herat,"  has  done  no  other 
service  to  his  countrymen,  at  least  they  owe 
him  thanks  for  this  :  he  has  clearly  shown 
how  hopeless  must  be  the  effort  of  England 
to  hold  Afghanistan  as  a  "  buffer  "  between 
her  possessions  and  Russia's  in  Central  Asia. 
He  convinces  us  that  their  boundaries  must 
become  coterminous,  and  that  once  for  all 
England  ought  either  to  occupy  Afghanistan, 
or  abandon  it  as  a  costly  folly,  and  maintain 
herself  behind  those  splendid  natural  de- 
fenses on  the  north  of  India. 

The  idea,  generally  prevalent,  that  Rus- 
sian advance  means  in  every  instance  a 
national  longing  for  an  outlet  on  the  ocean, 
is  not  confirmed  by  a  study  of  the  Central- 


214 


The  Russians  at  Home  and  Abroad. 


[Aug. 


Asian  situation.  Undoubtedly  the  intelli- 
gent desire  for  possession  of  some  seaport 
open  the  year  round,  and  within  their  own  ab- 
solute control,  has  impelled  Russian  states- 
men toward  occupying  territory  round  about 
the  Persian  Gulf.  Moreover,  the  Russian 
branch  of  the  Slavic  race  looks  upon  Constan- 
tinople as  its  natural — and  national — proper- 
ty, and  longs  for  the  time  when  no  treaty  of  Ber- 
lin shall  stand  in  the  way  of  its  conquest.  But 
as  regards  the  present  Russian  movement  in 
Central  Asia,  Mr.  Marvin  is  probably  right 
when  he  declares  that  it  is  almost  solely 
prompted  by  the  desire  to  worry  England  into 
future  concessions  when  for  the  next  time 
Russia  makes  war  upon  Turkey.  Constan- 
tinople is  the  objective  point,  and  not  British 
India. 

No  Englishman  of  the  present  day  has 
had  better  opportunities  to  study  this  ques- 
tion, and  no  other  has  devoted  more  time  to 
it.  In  every  instance  heretofore,  where  he 
has  ventured  upon  prediction,  the  result  has 
justified  his  statement.  So  he  may  be  re- 
garded as  an  authority,  and  the  English  peo- 
ple should  thank  him  for  putting  the  case 
so  plainly  to  them,  and  pointing  out  the  inev- 
itable— that  England  and  Russia  must  soon- 
er or  later  meet  in  Central  Asia,  as  foes  or 
as  friends.  And  sound  statesmanship  would 
seem  to  dictate  that  Afghanistan  should  be 
left  to  its  barbarians  and  its  fate,  and  that 
England  should  content  herself  with  taking  a 
firm  stand  upon  her  own  territory.  Such  was 
the  counsel  of  Sir  Charles  Napier,  such  the 
advice  of  the  ablest  man  who  has,  within  the 
present  century,  administered  thegovernment 
of  India — Lord  John  Lawrence.  But  that 
this  advice  will  be  taken  by  the  "  home  au- 
thorities "  is  more  than  doubtful.  India  is 
cursed  with  a  bureaucracy  which,  for  its  own 
purposes,  and  to  subserve  its  own  ends,  has 
determined  that  England's  Asiatic  policy  shall 
be  warlike.  Russophobists  in  doctrine,  with 
careers  only  to  become  brilliant  by  war  with 
somebody,  the  administrators  of  the  Indian 
civil  and  military  service  strain  every  nerve 
to  keep  the  relations  of  Russia  and  England 
in  a  chronic  state  of  embroilment.  War  is 
their  opportunity. 


We  do  not  overlook,  in  taking  this  view  of 
the  Central  Asian  question,  the  provocations 
of  which  Russia  has  been  guilty  in  the  course 
of  her  Asiatic  advance.  A  concentrated 
power,  administered  by  a  single  will,  amen- 
able to  no  criticism,  and  answerable  to 
nobody ;  remorseless,  untruthful,  making 
solemn  engagements  with  deliberate  inten- 
tion of  violating  them  when  opportunity  for 
further  gain  arrives  ;  as  England  surveys  this 
"  Northern  monster,"  there  is  little  wonder 
that  the  desire  for  a  fight,  which  shall  settle 
the  status  of  things  Asiatic  for  a  century  at 
least,  arises  in  the  nation's  breast.  And 
whatever  prejudice  we  may  entertain  against 
England,  growing  out  of  her  superciliousness, 
or  her  treatment  of  us  during  the  rebellion,  in 
any  contest  between  Anglo-Saxon  civilization 
and  Slavic  semi-barbarism,  our  sympathies 
must  be  with  our  own  kindred  by  blood.  It 
is  only  the  fact  that,  as  the  fight  must  come, 
we  hope  to  see  it  entered  into  by  England 
under  advantageous  conditions,  that  leads 
her  well-wisher  to  pray  that  it  may  take  place 
where  she  will  not  be  crippled  by  distance, 
or  by  those  physical  disadvantages  which,  to 
an  on-looker,  make  her  success  on  the  Asi- 
atic upland  seem  almost  impossible. 

And  now,  at  home  and  abroad,  what  are  we 
to  expect  for  the  Russians?  Let  us  be  frank 
and  say,  neither  Russian  nor  foreigner  can 
tell !  The  intelligent  author  of  "The  Russian 
Revolt  "  can  only  "hope."  "  Stepniak,"  too, 
sees  clearly  the  dangers,  the  difficulties  of  re- 
form, the  foulness  of  the  governing  power — 
and  he,  too,  "hopes"  that  European  influence 
may  in  time  amend  and  change  the  despotism, 
and  liberalize  it.  But  "  hope  deferred  mak- 
eth  the  heart  sick,"  whether  the  heart  of 
men  or  of  a  nation.  It  is  true  enough  that 
Russian  expansion  began  with  the  establish- 
ment of  Czarism  ;  that  this  autocracy,  this 
wielding  of  the  power  of  a  hundred  millions 
of  human  beings  by  a  single  will,  is  fraught 
with  menace  to  the  peace  of  the  world ;  that 
the  Slav  character  is  not  essentially  warlike, 
and  that,  once  let  despotism  be  overthrown, 
any  danger  to  the  West  from  its  ambition  or 
lust  of  conquest  would  once  for  all  be  taken 
away,  the  Russian  people  then  devoting  i  t 


1885.] 


Educational  Reports. 


215 


self  to  internal  problems.  But  in  this  pres 
ent  decade  any  correction  of  Russian  evils 
from  the  outside,  whether  peaceful  or  by 
force,  is  hardly  to  be  looked  for.  Western 
Europe  does  not  dread  Russia ;  a  Czar  who 
fears  to  face  his  own  subjects  is  not  to  be 
feared  by  others. 

But,  as  has  been  stated  heretofore,  the 
downfall  of  Czarism,  or  at  least  its  modifica- 
tion, is  inevitable.  The  system  is  too  glaringly 
anomalous,  too  much  in  opposition  to  the 
spirit  of  the  age,  long  to  exist  in  this  modern 
world  of  ours.  The  trend  of  the  time  is 
toward  Democracy  ;  not  any  Chinese  wall  of 
caste  prejudice,  of  religious  teaching,  of  bay- 
onet-points and  piled-up  cannon,  can  avail 
against  the  desire  of  humanity  for  more  per- 
fect liberty,  for  freedom  of  individual  effort. 
And  while  the  constitution  of  Russian  soci- 
ety, with  its  mtr  and  the  zemstvo,  socialist  by 
tradition,  will  modify  and  amend  democratic 
teachings  and  ideas,  fitting  these  to  race  sur- 
roundings and  race  peculiarities,  it  cannot 
be  doubted  that  in  Eastern  as  well  as  West- 
ern Europe  democracy  will  win. 

But  not  speedily.  For  as  "Stepniak" 
points  out,  all  the  resources  of  the  empire, 
all  material  aids,  all  the  discoveries  of  sci- 
ence, are  under  the  control  of  the  Czar  and 


Czarism.  And  eighty  million  peasants,  sep- 
arated into  sluggish  little  communities  that 
only  exist  for  themselves,  and  only  ask  to  be 
left  to  themselves,  begging  the  tchinovnik  to 
corne  for  taxes,  or  recruits  for  the  army,  as 
rarely  as  possible,  look  to  the  "Little  Father" 
to  some  day  dispossess  all  land-owners,  and 
give  to  them  absolute  control  of  the  soil  of 
Russia.  For  generations  nothing  is  to  be 
expected  from  these.  The  change  will  come 
through  circumstances  that  we  cannot  now 
apprehend  ;  by  union,  perhaps,  of  foreign 
influence  and  the  effort  of  popular  intelli- 
gence, ripe  even  now  for  reform  ;  or  by  pal- 
ace intrigue,  misdirected  and  inaugurating 
a  revolutionary  movement  which  it  cannot 
control.  Fortunate  will  it  be  for  the  world 
and  the  Russian  people  (and  under  all  the 
circumstances  hardly  to  be  expected)  if  it  be 
consummated  without  tearing  to  pieces  the 
very  structure  of  society  and  shedding  oceans 
of  innocent  blood. 

By  comparison  with  this — the  future  of 
the  Russians  at  home,  the  reform  of  the  des- 
potic system  which  rests  upon  a  hundred 
millions  of  God's  creatures  as  the  plagues  of 
old  rested  upon  Egypt — how  insignificant 
becomes  the  question  as  to  who  shall  con- 
trol the  barren  uplands  of  Afghanistan  ! 

S.  B.  W. 


EDUCATIONAL  REPORTS.— II. 


WE  noted  last  month  the  most  significant 
lesson  of  the  educational  reports  then  under 
notice  :  viz,  the  absolute  dependence  of  the 
schools  upon  the  quality  of  the  teacher,  and 
the  extent  to  which  in  this  country  we  lack 
such  active  interest 'in  common  schools  on 
the  part  of  the  most  qualified  class  (outside 
of  those  actually  engaged  in  the  work)  as 
would  compel  excellence  in  the  teachers. 
Circular  7,  1884,  brings  this  out  again  even 
more  effectively.  It  is  a  report  upon  the 
teaching  of  physics,  by  Professor  Wead,  of 
Michigan  University.  It  embraces  a  series 
of  questions  sent  out  to  Normal  School 
teachers,  teachers  of  secondary  schools  (high 


schools  and  academies)  and  college  profes- 
sors, as  to  the  desirability,  practicability,  and 
method  of  teaching  physics,  first,  in  the  ele- 
mentary schools,  second,  in  the  high  schools, 
and  third,  in  colleges ;  the  answers  to  these 
questions,  and  some  studies  of  European 
experience  in  the  matter. 

Professor  Wead  sums  up  the  answers  as 
being  with  much  unanimity  in  favor  of  phy- 
sics in  the  elementary  schools,  in  very  rudi- 
mentary form,  with  much  experiment ;  again 
in  the  secondary  schools,  by  the  inductive 
method  as  far  as  possible,  with  laboratory 
work  ;  and  still  again  in  college. 

The  answers  themselves,  however,  do  not 


216 


Educational  Reports. 


[Aug. 


quite  bear  him  out  in  this  summary.  It  is 
true,  a  majority  of  them  approve  this  course  ; 
but  there  is  a  very  considerable  dissent,  and 
— what  Professor  Wead  fails  to  note,  in  esti- 
mating the  answers  received  solely  by  num- 
ber instead  of  weight — one  of  importance. 
Professor  Hastings,  of  Johns  Hopkins  Uni- 
versity, for  instance,  holds  that  physics  should 
not  be  taught  in  the  primary  schools ;  that 
in  the  secondary  schools  it  may  be  taught, 
but  chiefly  for  information,  not  discipline, 
with  a  text-book,  and  without  laboratory 
work ;  and  that  very  little  physics  should 
be  required  for  admission  to  college  courses  : 
while  Professor  Rowland,  of  the  same  Uni- 
versity, advises  the  deductive  method,  and 
puts  the  price  of  apparatus  such  as  would  do 
for  laboratory  work  of  any  value  at  $2,000  to 
$5,000 — a  price  that  practically  prohibits  the 
work  in  secondary  schools.  Professor  Hast- 
ings adds :  "  The  only  disadvantages,  as  far  as 
my  experience  goes,  depend  on  imperfect 
teaching.  For  that  reason  I  should  advise 
confining  the  high  school  course  chiefly  to 
a  study  of  phenomena";  and  Professor 
Rowland  :  "  Under  no  circumstances  should 
the  study  of  physics  be  attempted  without 
demonstration  given  with  quite  complete  ap- 
paratus, as  I  believe  a  positive  injury  results 
from  any  other  course." 

Professor  Henshaw,  of  Amherst,  also 
places  the  cost  of  proper  apparatus  at  $i,- 
ooo  to  $5,000,  and  discourages  requiring 
physics  in  preparation  for  college,  as  "  pre- 
vious work  generally  starts  the  student 
wrong,  and  must  be  undone " ;  and  like- 
wise holds  that  in  the  elementary  schools 
the  whole  work  should  be  devoted  to  the 
elements  of  a  good  English  education. 

Still  more  do  the  extracts  from  English 
reports  on  the  subject  show  the  same  fear  of 
smattering  at  the  subject  with  incompetent 
teaching  and  inadequate  apparatus,  if  it  be 
attempted  at  all.  Mr.  Wilson,  of  Rugby, 
"says  that  the  modern  pressure  on  the 
schools  has  led  to  a  distracting  variety  of 
studies,  that  'tends  to  eliminate  the  close 
study  of  detail  and  the  drudgery  that  is  es- 
sential in  all  good  work.'  The  best  twenty 
per  cent,  of  our  scholars  know  more  when 


they  leave  us,  but  they  have  less  power  of 
acquiring  knowledge  than  former  students." 
"  Methods  of  teaching  are  very  important, 
but  the  teacher  is  of  far  more  importance." 

Reverend  W.  Tuckwell,  head  master  of 
Taunton  College  School,  says  :  "  My  experi- 
ence has  shown  forcibly  the  unexpected 
value  of  general  culture  in  teaching  special 
subjects.  The  man  who  knows  science  ad- 
mirably, but  knows  nothing  else,  prepares 
boys  well  for  an  examination ;  but  his  teach- 
ing does  not  stick.  The  man  of  wide  cul- 
ture and  refinement  brings  fewer  pupils  up  to 
a  given  mark  within  a  given  time,  but  what 
he  has  taught  remains  with  them  ;  they  nev- 
er forget  or  fall  back." 

R.  B.  Clifton,  F.  R.  S.,  professor  of  ex- 
perimental philosophy  at  Oxford,  testified 
to  a  commission  :  "  I  see  no  harm  in  doing 
that  [physics  teaching  in  the  secondary 
schools],  but  it  requires  to  be  done  with 
very  great  care,  and  it  requires  an  ex- 
tremely skilled  person  to  do  it 1 

think  the  way  the  teaching  has  been  given 
is  calculated  to  do  considerable  harm,  judg- 
ing by  the  results From  experience, 

I  should  prefer  that  a  student  should  come 
to  me  with  no  knowledge  of  physics  at  all, 
unless  he  has  learned  thoroughly  what  he 

professes  to  know The  phenomena 

about  which  they  have  learned  do  not  appear 
to  have  a  different  effect  upon  their  minds 
from  that  which  would  be  produced  by  a  con- 
juring trick."  W.  B.  Carpenter,  M.D.,  F. 
R.  S.,  testified  :  "  We  find  practically  that 
in  natural  philosophy  especially,  at  the  matri- 
culation examination,  the  preparation  is  ex- 
tremely bad  ....  and  very  great  ignorance 
is  shown  of  the  subjects — an  ignorance  aris- 
ing from  the  want  of  the  power  of  applying 
their  minds  to  them." 

Right  Rev.  James  Fraser,  who  had,  as  a  com- 
missioner of  schools,  spent  some  months  in 
Americastudying  our  methods,  "finds  that  far 
too  many  studies  have  been  introduced  into 
the  American  schools,  and  that  the  introduc- 
tion of  the  scientific  studies  worked  mischiev- 
ously ;  '  a  sufficiently  exact  knowledge  is  not 
retained,  the  forces  of  the  mind  get  dissipated, 
and  the  pupil  has  not  learned  how  to  acquire 


1885.] 


Educational  Reports. 


217 


exact  knowledge  afterwards  in  any  subject ; 
in  fact,  the  system  produces  a  disinclination 
to  take  up  any  subject  with  a  view  of  accu- 
rate knowledge.' "  A  committee  of  the  Brit- 
ish Association,  consisting  of  eminent  phys- 
icists, reported :  "  No  very  -desirable  results 
can  be  looked  for  from  the  general  intro- 
duction of  physics  into  school  teaching,  un- 
less those  who  undertake  to  teach  it  have 
themselves  made  it  the  subject  of  serious 
and  continued  study."  In  the  London 
"Journal  of  Education,"  Mr.  R.  E.  Steele 
writes,  taking  it  for  granted  that  a  special 
"  science  master  "  must  be  employed,  as  spe- 
cial teachers  of  music  or  drawing  are  with  us. 

Yet,  in  spite  of  all  this  timidity  as  to  the 
teaching  that  can  be  had,  there  is  an  all  but 
unanimous  agreement  that  if  proper  teaching 
were  possible,  and  if  time  could  be  had,  phys- 
ics in  high  schools  would  be  a  very  good 
thing,  or  even  in  primary  schools.  That 
some  science  is  desirable,  from  the  very  low- 
est schools,  is  generally  conceded  ;  whether 
physics  or  something  else  is  a  different  ques- 
tion. The  child  should  be  taught  to  observe 
nature  and  know  her  ways,  and  reason  for 
himself  about  them.  Botany,  as  the  best 
classified  of  the  sciences,  and  the  one  that 
deals  with  the  prettiest  objects,  is  the  one 
most  readily  thought  of  for  the  purpose. 
Several  scientific  men,  however,  object  to  it 
that  it  is  purely  classificatory,  and  does  not 
teach  the  child  the  impulse  of  experiment; 
he  learns  to  observe,  but  not  to  interrogate 
nature.  Others  set  down  the  classificatory  as 
the  only  science  a  child  can  advantageously 
study.  Reverend  J.  M.  Wilson,  of  Clifton  Col- 
lege, pronounces  both  to  be  right — -botany 
as  the  teacher  of  observation,  physics  as  the 
teacher  of  experiment. 

Probably  this  last  judgment  is  the  true  one, 
and  physics  and  botany,  properly  taught, 
should  lay  the  foundations  for  the  study  of  na- 
ture in  the  child's  mind;  but  this  is  not  to  our 
present  point,  which  is  to  call  attention  to  the 
injustice  done  the  conservatives  as  to  scien- 
tific education,  in  supposing  them  to  be  op- 
posed to  it.  As  a  general  thing,  they  believe  in 
it  as  strongly  as  does  any  one,  but  hold  a 
higher  standard  than  do  others  as  to  what 


does  constitute  proper  scientific  education, 
and  despair  of  its  being  at  present  practica- 
ble. Their  ground  is  simply  that  new 
things  would  better  not  be  taught  at  all  than 
made  a  pretense  of.  And  that  the  majority 
of  primary  teachers  could  do  no  more  than 
make  a  pretense  of  physics,  is  certain  :  on  the 
strength  of  an  elementary  course  in  it  them- 
selves, they  would  feel  competent  to  under- 
take to  wake  in  children  the  mental  powers  that 
this  profound  mental  science  is  to  train.  It  is 
against  this  sort  of  bungling  that  the  conserv- 
atives protest.  Nothing  ought  to  be  taught 
to  a  child  by  a  person  who  is  not  himself 
more  than  a  primary  pupil  in  it.  The  young 
girls  who  undertake  to  teach  reading,  writing, 
and  elementary  arithmetic  to  little  children 
know  these  things.  They  know  them  as 
well  as  any  college  professor  does.  More- 
over, they  are  things  which  the  child  is  to 
actually  learn  —  not  merely  to  learn  a  few 
illustrations  of,  but  to  make  himself  absolute 
master  of,  so  that  the  boy  of  fourteen  may 
know  them  as  well  as  the  wisest  scholar. 
Therefore,  the  understanding  from  the  first 
is,  that  in  taking  hold  of  these  things,  busi- 
ness is  meant,  and  therefore  in  these  things 
there  is  safety. 

The  other  point  that  must  impress  the 
reader  of  this  report  is,  that  in  England  the 
difficulty  of  improper  teaching  is  at  once  so 
much  better  realized,  and  so  much  less  in- 
superable ;  and  this  simply  because,  through 
Royal  and  other  commissions,  University 
local  examinations,  and  many  other  such 
agencies,  a  subject  of  this  sort  receives  the 
careful  and  interested  consideration,  not 
only  of  teachers,  but  of  the  foremost  scien- 
tists in  the  kingdom  (if  it  were  a  question  of 
literary  studies,  it  would  be  the  foremost 
men  of  letters) ;  that  such  men  are  appealed 
to  and  respond  to  the  appeal,  and,  with  the 
backing  of  the  government,  with  which- 
their  influence  weighs  for  much,  can  carry 
into  effect  measures  looking  to  the  preven- 
tion of  slip-shod  teaching,  and  the  accom- 
plishment of  reasonably  good  teaching. 

Passing  over  Mr.  Philbrick's  report  on 
city  schools  in  the  United  States,  and  a 
pamphlet  with  regard  to  "  Arbor  Day  "  and 


218 


Educational  Reports. 


[Aug. 


tree-planting,  both  of  which  contain  much 
that  is  very  important,  but  not  of  close  bear- 
ing upon  the  line  of  thought  we  are  now  fol- 
lowing, we  will  close  with  an  extract  from  a 
speech  upon  Southern  education,  addressed 
to  Southerners,  by  Mr.  Mayo,  a  well-known 
worker  for  education  in  that  section. 

"  But  I  am  told  that,  with  the  uttermost  that  can  be 
be  expected  even  under  favorable  circumstances,  the 
amount  of  money  that  can  be  set  apart  for  education 
in  the  average  Southern  community  must  be  small, 
and  the  people  may  well-nigh  be  discouraged,  when 
they  have  done  their  best.  All  this  I  have  seen,  and 
am  not  discouraged  myself;  for  the  upshot  of  all  I 
know  about  education  is,  that  but  one  thing  is  abso- 
lutely necessary  to  a  good  school.  That  one  absolute 
essential  is  a  good  teacher  ;  and  a  good  teacher  every 
school  may  have  if  the  people  will  begin  to  spend  at 
the  soul  end  and  develop  the  material  accessories 
therefrom.  I  am  not  indifferent  to  the  great  assist- 
ance that  may  be  derived  from  a  model  school-room, 
improved  school  books,  and  the  various  illustrative 
apparatus  which  adorns,  sometimes  even  encumbers, 
the  teacher's  desk.  But  all  this  is  a  '  body  of  death  ' 
till  breathed  upon  by  the  spirit  of  the  true  instructor, 
and  a  real  teacher  can  bring  around  himself  at  least 
a  temporary  body,  until  the  people  are  able  to  give 
the  fit  clothing  to  his  work. 

"  General  Garfield,  returning  to  his  alma  mater, 
Williams  College,  Massachusetts,  which  for  many 
years  was  known  chiefly  by  the  great  teaching  of 
President  Hopkins,  said,  at  Commencement  dinner  : 
'  I  rejoice  with  you  over  the  new  surroundings  of  our 
old  college  :  these  beautiful  buildings,  large  collec- 
tions, ample  endowments,  and  the  improvements  of 
this  beautiful  town.  But  permit  me  to  say  that,  if  I 
were  forced  to  elect  between  all  this  without  Dr.  Hop- 
kins, and  Dr.  Hopkins  with  only  a  shingle  and  a 
piece  of  chalk,  under  an  apple  tree,  he  on  one  end 
of  an  oak  log  and  I  on  the  other,  I  would  say,  My 
university  shall  be  Dr.  Hopkins,  president  and  col- 
lege in  one.' 

"  May  the  South,  in  its  new  '  building  for  the  chil- 
dren,' learn  from  the  dismal  American  experience  of 
the  past  to  put  its  first  money  into  the  teacher,  and 
keep  putting  it  in,  until  teachers  and  children  per- 
suade the  people  to  give  an  outward  temple  fit  for 
the  dwelling  place  of  the  new  spirit  of  life  that  has 
been  born  in  their  midst. 

"  I  have  in  mind  a  picture  of  a  noble  school-house, 
in  a  prosperous  Northern  town,  going  to  wreck,  with 


broken  windows,  battered  doors,  the  walls  disfigured, 
the  yards  a  litter,  and  the  school  itself  a  nursery  of 
bad  manners  and  clownish  behavior.  The  trouble  is  a 
knot  of  'eminent '  citizens,  whoinsist  on  keeping  in  the 
central  room  a  quarrelsome  woman,  .  .  .  whose  ob- 
stinate conceit  and  selfishness  make  havoc  of  every 
good  influence  therein.  ...  I  remember  another 
school,  in  the  Southland,  where  one  of  the  gentlest  of 
gentlemen  and  bravest  of  captains,  at  the  close  of  the 
war,  gathered  about  him  a  crowd  of  wild  little  col- 
ored children  in  a  deserted  house,  and  '  kept  school ' 
so  beautifully  that,  out  of  their  own  poverty,  the  col- 
ored people  developed  his  dilapidated  shanty  into  a 
neat  and  commodious  school-house,  where,  with  the 
help  of  the  older  children,  he  was  giving  instruction, 
in  his  faded  old  soldier  clothes,  such  as  I  never  knew 
until  my  school  days  had  gone  by.  A  good  teacher 
carries  his  school  in  himself.  His  own  life  and  daily 
'  walk  and  conversation '  are  an  hourly  '  object  les- 
son '  in  morals  and  manners  ;  his  fullness  of  knowl- 
edge supplies  the  lack  of  text  books  ;  his  fertile  brain 
and  child-like  spirit  blossom  anew  every  day  into 
some  wise  method  of  imparting  truth  or  awakening 
faculty  ;  and  his  cunning  hand  brings  forth  devices 
for  illustration  more  effective  than  cabinets  of  costly 

apparatus 

"  I  know  a  hundred  neighborhoods,  where  a  good, 
womanly,  Christian  colored  girl  has  gone  from  her 
academical  course  at  Fiskor  Hampton,  and  so  toiled 
with  the  children  and  prevailed  with  their  parents 
that  she  has  not  only  gotten  over  her  head  a  good 
school-house,  but  built  up  around  her  a  '  new  depar- 
ture '  in  a  Christian  civilization.  If  you  have  only 
money  enough  to  procure  the  best  teacher  that 
can  be  had,  take  the  teacher,  gather  the  children, 
and  begin  to  push  for  the  millennium.  If  there  is  no 
fit  interior,  begin  in  God's  school-house  of  all-out- 
doors. Somebody  will  give  your  new  school  elbow 
room  under  a  tree,  and  the  wondrous  library  of  nature 
will  spread  its  open  leaves  before  you.  Let  the  teach- 
er instruct  the  boys  to  fence  in  a  campus,  and  the 
girls  to  plant  flowers  therein,  and  make  ready  the 
place  for  building.  Ere  long  the  most  godless  or 
stupid  of  parents  will  take  a  big  holiday  to  build  you 
as  good  a  house  as  they  are  able,  and  that  humble 
temple  of  science  may  be  so  adorned  by  the  genius 
and  grace  that  you  can  coax  out  of  thirty  children 
and  youth  that  is  will  become  an  invitation  to 
better  things.  One  book  is  enough  in  a  school,  if 
the  teacher  knows  what  to  do  with  a  book,  while 
the  Congressional  Library  is  not  enough  for  a  pe- 
dant .  .  .  who  only  turns  the  crank  of  a  memory 
machine." 


1885.] 


Etc. 


ETC. 


As  we  go  to  press,  the  city  stands  draped  with 
mourning  in  memory  of  a  man  whom  it  is  in  one 
sense  no  exaggeration  to  call  the  foremost  citizen  of 
the  country.  That  is,  he  was,  on  the  whole,  more  of 
a  figure  in  the  general  mind  than  was  any  other  man. 
His  name  has  somehow  penetrated  to  every  nook  and 
cranny  of  the  land,  as  the  name  of  no  other  man  who 
has  served  the  country  in  this  generation  has  done. 
When  one  considers  that  this  popular  esteem  is  based 
almost  entirely  on  services  twenty  years  past,  it  is 
surprising  to  find  that  an  infant  class,  say,  of  rustic 
babies,  whose  little  memories  hold  no  trace  of  so  re- 
cent an  event  as  Garfield's  funeral,  and  who  have  not 
the  remotest  idea  of  the  name  of  any  president  of  the 
United  States,  as  such,  can  call  out  "General 
Grant "  in  unison,  in  answer  to  any  simple  question 
concerning  him;  or  that  grown  rustics  who  remem- 
ber all  our  other  public  men  as  scarcely  more  than 
names,  make  "Grant"  a  household  word.  It  is 
probable  that  this  is  not  true  of  the  less  slowly  moved 
and  less  tenacious  city  population — one  admiration  is 
there  displaced  by  newer  ones,  .and  politics  makes 
heroes  as  well  as  war;  but  it  is  doubtless  safe  to  say 
that  there  never  has  been  a  time  this  twenty  years  when 
General  Grant  did  not  seem  to  the  people — counting 
in  all  classes  from  highest  to  lowest — the  greatest 
figure  in  the  country. 

THIS  is  largely  a  mere  matter  of  tribute  to  military 
glory.  The  successful  soldier  commands  an  admira- 
tion from  all  classes  that  success  in  no  other  line 
could  possibly  win  him.  In  the  case  of  civil  war, 
which  taxed  the  energies  of  the  whole  country,  mili- 
tary achievements  must  be  even  more  universally 
followed  by  the  public  mind  and  make  a  much  pro- 
founder  impression  than  when  a  general  wars 
abroad.  To  a  younger  generation,  even  to  those  who 
themselves  participated  in  the  war,  but  have  since 
been  in  callings  that  kept  the  mind  full  of  new  inter- 
ests, it  is  impossible  to  realize  the  figure  the  war  still 
cuts  in  the  thoughts  of  a  great  number  of  people.  It 
is  not  rustics  alone  to  whom  wars  seem  the  only  in- 
cidents of  national  life,  and  soldiers  the  only  heroes ; 
nor  is  it  school-boys  alone  who  suppose  they  hav  e 
learned  the  history  of  the  world  when  they  have 
learned  the  battles:  that  the  historians  themselves 
are  only  beginning  to  suppose  anything  else,  shows 
how  general  is  the  adoration  of  the  soldier.  And — 
although  it  must  be  acknowledged  that  the  states- 
man, the  teacher,  the  preacher,  the  editor,  may  do  a 
greater  thing  than  conquer  in  just  war,  for  they 
may  and  repeatedly  do  achieve  the  same  ends  without 
war — still  it  is  inevitable  that-  the  victories  of  cab- 
inet or  press  should  show  tamer  and  smaller  than 


those  of  the  foughten  field,  with  their  appalling,  their 
almost  incredible  accompaniments  of  human  exertion 
and  daring  and  death.  The  pen  may  be  mightier 
than  the  sword,  but  the  sword  must  always  look 
larger  and  shine  brighter. 

IT  is  not,  however,  entirely  to  his  military  glory, 
that  General  Grant's  persistent  hold  upon  the  mind 
of  the  people  is  due.  There  has  always  been  a  pe- 
culiar sympathy  between  him  and  the  people.  There 
is  no  class  from  whom  he  has  not  commanded  in  the 
main,  at  least,  a  certain  cordiality  of  feeling,  while 
from  an  unusually  large  number  this  has  amounted 
even  to  affection.  Yet  no  man  was  ever  more  de- 
ficient in  the  glib  tongue  and  suave  arts  by  which  pub- 
lic favor  is  won.  It  was  not  necessary  that  he  should 
have  these:  his  military  achievements  gave  him  pub- 
lic favor  in  the  first  place,  and  he  kept  it  largely  by 
virtue  of  silence,  simplicity,  and — perhaps  most  of 
all — an  evident  amiability,  and  liking  for  the  people. 
Many  men  who  have  loved  the  people,  desired  fer- 
vently their  good,  labored  and  died  for  it,  have  yet 
never  had  their  affection.  Such  men  have  loved  the 
people  more  than  they  have  liked  them:  either  they 
have  been  aristocrats  in  taste  and  feeling,  in  spite  of 
democratic  sympathy,  or  they  have  made  demand  upon 
the  people  for  a  higher  quality  of  mind  and  morals  than 
they  possessed,  and  have  been  discontented  with  them 
as  they  are.  Jeremiah  was  never  a  popular  favorite. 
The  public  is  far  better  pleased  to  be  liked  than  to 
be  loved:  and  it  was  always  evident  to  the  people 
of  this  country  that  Grant  liked  them  ;  he  was  con- 
tent with  them  as  they  are,  valued  their  attentions, 
felt  himself  one  of  them.  To  a  very  surprising  degree 
he  remained  a  man  of  the  people  through  all  circum- 
stances of  political  elevation  and  the  surroundings 
of  wealth  and  distinction. 

His  civil  history  has  been  a  remarkable  instance 
of  enduring — even  invincible — gratitude  on  the  part 
of  a  republic.  For  twenty  years  the  country  has  felt 
that  it  could  not  do  too  much  for  Grant.  Station 
and  money  have  been  freely  at  his  disposal,  and 
though  his  life  closed,  pathetically  enough,  in  phys- 
ical and  mental  misery,  and  sense  of  betrayal,  it 
would  not  have  been  so  could  any  liberality  of  friends 
have  averted  these  troubles.  The  sorrow  and  pain 
of  the  last  months  of  his  life  must  be  deeply  regretted 
by  every  one;  yet  in  adding  a  strong  touch  of  pathos 
to  his  memory,  they  have  done  much  to  perpetuate, 
after  his  death,  the  affection  he  received  in  life  from 
the  great  mass  of  his  countrymen. 

A  CONTRIBUTOR  in  this  number  deprecates  the 
admission  of  European  influence  to  this  country  bjr 


220 


Etc. 


[Aug. 


means  of  travel.  But  we  should  say  that  our  country 
must  be  the  worse  for  learning  from  Europe  only  so 
far  as  the  things  it  learns  are  evil,  and  the  better  for 
learning  whatever  is  good.  To  refuse  to  learn  from 
Germany  what  music  is,  and  what  university  educa- 
tion is,  or  from  England  what  standards  of  commer- 
cial and  political  integrity  a  great  nation  must  ob- 
serve, or  from  France  a  high  esteem  for  science, 
would  be  to  deserve,  indeed,  the  epithet  "Philis- 
tine." The  true  patriot  is  not  he  who  thinks  every- 
thing best  in  his  own  country,  but  he  who  is  willing 
to  spend  himself  to  make  everything  best  there;  and 
as  a  preliminary  to  doing  this,  it  is  necessary  to  know 
what  are  his  country's  defects,  and  what  lessons  the 
experience  of  any  other  country  has  to  offer  toward 
mending  them.  The  students  who  go  abroad,  pos- 
sess themselves  of  the  treasures  of  learning,  of  taste, 
or  of  goodness,  which  exist  in  other  countries,  and 
bring  them  back  to  add  to  our  home  store,  are 
thereforefpatriots — better  patriots  than  if  they  had 
opened  some  commercial  channel  for  the  influx  of 
thousands  of  dollars  to  our  treasury.  The  loiterers 
who  go  abroad  and  bring  back  from  the  stores  of  the 
old  world  lessons  of  self-indulgent  idleness,  or  of  val- 
uing men  for  what  they  seem  instead  of  what  they  are, 
are  unpatriotic  and  hurtful  to  the  commonwealth. 
But,  is  not  this  difference  in  the  freight  which  they 
bring  back  to  this  country  due  to  the  difference  in 
the  men  themselves,  and  in  the  intention  with  which 
they  went  abroad  ?  It  was,  therefore,  in  the  American 
citizen  who  left  us  for  foreign  sojourn,  not  in  the  for- 
eign land,  that  the  seeds  of  evil  lay.  And  it  is,  per- 
haps, open  to  question,  whether  the  man  who  goes 
abroad  without  any  serious  purpose,  becomes  ener- 
vated by  the  greater  opportunities  for  selfish  enjoy- 
ment offered  in  older  countries,  and  withdraws  him- 
self from  active  participation  in  American  life,  is  any 
loss  to  that  life.  In  many  cases  he  remains  abroad, 
and  the  country  certainly  can  dispense  with  him. 

YET  we  must  not  do  injustice  to  the  patriotism  of 
a  class  of  men  who  fall  very  generally  under  sus- 
picion of  foreign  sympathies.  There  are,  in  Eastern 
cities,  a  number  of  highly  accomplished  and  educated 
men,  of  blameless  personal  character  and  fastidious 
taste,  who  do  not  conceal  a  certain  distaste  for  much 
in  American  life,  and  a  high  regard  for  much  in  for- 
eign life.  Yet  the  last  few  years  have  shown  the 
strongholds  of  these  men  to  be  also  the  strongholds 
of  a  great  readiness  to  take  hold  with  vigor  and  self- 
sacrifice  in  the  practical  work  of  bettering  American 
life.  A  very  different  class  are  the  wealthy  and  indo- 
lent, who  like  European  life  for  the  greater  skill  in 
spending  money  for  personal  satisfaction  that  it 
teaches ;  or  who  have  a  childish  vanity  in  imitating  the 
little  tricks  and  customs  of  foreign  fashion,  and  veneer- 
ing with  the  surface  habits  of  that  fashion  their  own 
ignorance  and  emptiness.  The  man  or  woman  who 
comes  into  possession  of  money,  without  having  any 
qualities  in  himself  that  teach  him  how  to  spend  it, 


is  a  mournful  object  at  best,  and  a  menace  to  the 
public  good  ;  and  whether  he  does  worse  to  waste  it 
at  home  or  abroad,  is  open  to  question. 

MR.  EMERSON  said  some  stern  things  of  travel. 
But  Mr.  Emerson  was  himself  a  highly  appreciative 
traveler,  who  enjoyed  immensely  his  sojourn  in  Eng- 
land. Mr.  Longfellow  wrote 

"  Stay,  stay  at  home,  my  heart,  and  rest, — 
Home-keeping  hearts  are  happiest." 

But  Mr.  Longfellow  delighted  in  European  travel,  and 
plundered  European  fields  incessantly  for  the  mate- 
rial with  which  he  raised  American  poetry  higher 
than  the  previous  generation  had  deemed  possible. 
And  the  Greeks  who  made  Greece  great  by  "  stick- 
ing fast  to  where  they  were,  like  an  axis  of  the  earth," 
would  never  have  made  Greece  great  without  the 
help  of  Egypt.  Emerson,  who  never  states  one  side 
of  a  truth  alone  without  stating  somewhere  else  the 
other  side,  has  defined  well  enough  the  true  limits  of 
this  matter  of  travel :  that  the  wise  and  useful  life 
should  be  anchored  firmly  in  some  parent  soil,  yet 
swing  thence  with  a  long  tether ;  should  love  the 
home  land  and  the  home  hearth,  yet  know  and  ap- 
preciate all  others,  with  no  snobbish  deference  to  the 
foreign  because  it  is  foreign,  nor  blind  attachment  to 
the  native  because  it  is  native.  If  there  is  in  all  this 
world  any  good  thing  to  be  had,  let  us  not  fail  to  pro- 
cure it  for  our  country  for  lack  of  a  generous  and  ap- 
preciative search.  But  by  all  means,  let  the  purvey- 
ors of  foreign  things  for  our  country  be  the  wise  and 
earnest,  and  let  us  discourage  the  harmful  importa- 
tions brought  by  the  ignorant  and  self-indulgent. 

That  Little  Baby  That's  Dead. 

"  O  TEACHER,"  exclaimed  a  pupil  of  mine  one  morn- 
ing, "Will  you  excuse  me  if  I  am  late  to  school?  I 
want  to  take  a  cross  for  that  little  dead  baby." — "  What 
little  dead  baby?"  I  asked. — "Oh,  that  little  baby 
that's  dead." 

Poor  little  baby  that's  dead  ! 

Little  it  matters  to  you 

What  was  the  name  that  you  had, 

Now  your  short  journey  is  through  ; 

Careless  of  flower-strewn  bed 

Is  that  little  baby  that's  dead. 

Lilies  and  roses  and  all, 

Twined  in  a  cross  white  and  fair — 

Since  you  have  'scaped  from  life's  thrall 

Never  a  cross  will  you  wear. 

Many  a  sorrow-bowed  head 

Might  envy  the  baby  that's  dead. 

Not  for  the  baby  a  tear, — 
Surely  the  baby  is  blest ; 
But  in  that  bosom  where  first 
Lay  the  dear  darling  at  rest, 
Anguish  unspeakable  bled 
When  that  little  baby  was  dead. 

Flora  De  Wolfe. 


1885.] 


Book  Reviews. 


221 


August. 

TAKE  up  thy  rich  and  wondrous  garments 
Oh  August,  queen  of  months,  and  turn  away. 

Bend  not  thy  face,  serene,  commanding, 
Nor  let  the  fragrance  of  thy  presence  stay. 

I  cannot  bear  thy  proud,  calm  beauty 

Here  in  these  hard-trodden  streets  of  trade  : 

Thy  place  is  in  the  woods  and  meadows, 
Amid  the  hills,  or  lakes  in  sunshine  laid. 


Depart  and  leave  me  to  my  longing, — 
Or  take  me  unto  thy  still  realms  with  thee  : 

The  very  trees  toward  thee  are  bending, 
And  crouching  lies  the  great,  pale  sea. 

Here  I  will  rest  me  in  thy  sylvan  kingdom 
Where  no  unquiet  sentiments  intrude  : 

Thy  courtier  days  may  now  pass  lightly, 
Pass  lightly  by,  nor  irritate  my  mood. 

H.  C. 


BOOK   REVIEWS. 


Samuel  Adams.1 


THIS  is  one  of  the  better  written  of  the  "American 
Statesmen  Series."  It  tells  an  interesting  story  in  a 
straightforward  manner,  with  only  a  slight  show  of 
not  very  profound  pedantry  in  the  matter  of  the 
"  folk-mote."  The  epoch  is  one  of  ever-living  inter- 
est, and  a  well-handled  popular  presentment,  with 
Samuel  Adams  thrown  into  relief  as  a  leading  figure, 
we  consider  very  timely.  The  character  of  the  revo- 
lutionary struggle  can  hardly  be  understood  without 
a  comprehension  of  Samuel  Adams's  services  therein. 
And  Mr.  Hosmer's  chief  merit  is  in  having  given  an 
available  account  of  them.  That  Adams  was  the 
"father  of  Independence,"  he  has  given  substantial 
proof. 

We  regret  that  Mr.  Hosmer  is  not  able  to  idealize 
the  character  of  Adams  from  his  work,  and  present 
us  with  a  clear  analysis  of  him  as  an  individual.  The 
apparent  materials  for  this  are  scanty ;  but  we  believe 
that  the  real  materials  are  adequate,  and  that  the  in- 
dividual might  have  been  found  reflected  in  his  work. 
Samuel  Adams,  preeminently  among  the  rather  arbi- 
trarily selected  statesmen  of  this  series,  seems  to  us 
a  figure  that  gave  opportunity  for  a  sketch  that  might 
have  been  a  permanent  contribution  to  American  lit- 
erature. We  regret  that  Mr.  Hosmer  could  only 
quote,  and  could  not  fully  realize,  the  following  opin- 
ion of  John  Fiske's  :  "  A  man  whom  Plutarch,  if  he 
had  only  lived  late  enough,  would  have  delighted  to 
include  in  his  gallery  of  worthies,  a  man  who,  in  the 
history  of  the  American  Revolution,  is  second  only  to 
Washington,  Samuel  Adams." 

But  as  an  historical  narrative,  in  biographical  style, 
the  work  is  well  done.  Mr.  Hosmer  has  made  good 
use  of  historical  materials ;  he  often  shows  a  fine  dis- 
criminating sense,  and  writes  with  impartial  justice. 
Historically,  the  most  instructive  portion  of  the  book 
is  that  in  which  he  deals  with  the  five  years  of  Thom- 
as Hutchinson's  prominence  in  colonial  history.  This 
is  the  backbone  of  the  narrative,  and  Mr.  Hosmer 

1  Samuel  Adams.  By  James  K.  Hosmer.  "Ameri- 
can Statesmen."  Boston:  Houghton,  Miffiin  &  Co. 


here  displays  his  best  powers  of  historical  writing 
and  of  critical  judgment.  He  summarizes  as  follows 
the  main  facts  of  Hutchinson's  career  : 

"Born  in  1711,  he  left  Harvard  in  1727,  and  soon 
made  some  trial  of  mercantile  life.  From  a  line  of 
famous  ancestors,  among  them  Mrs.  Anne  Hutchin- 
son,  that  strong  and  devout  spirit  of  the  earliest  days 
of  Boston,  he  had  inherited  a  most  honorable  name 
and  great  abilities.  He  was  a  Puritan  to  the  core  ; 
his  wealth  was  large;  his  manners  conciliated  for  him 
the  good  will  of  the  people,  which,  for  a  long  time, 
he  never  forfeited.  He  became  a  church  member  at 
twenty-four,  selectman  of  Boston  at  twenty-six,  and 
at  thirty  was  sent  as  agent  of  the  province  to  London 
on  important  business,  which  he  managed  success- 
fully. For  ten  years  after  his  return  he  was  repre- 
sentative, during  three  of  which  he  served  as  speaker. 
In  particular,  he  did  good  service  in  the  settlement 
of  the  province  debt  in  1749.  For  sixteen  years  he 
was  member  of  the  Council,  and  while  in  the  Council 
he  became  judge  of  the  probate,  lieutenant-governor, 
and  chief-justice,  holding  all  these  offices  at  once.  It 
is  shooting  quite  wide  of  the  mark  to  base  any  accu- 
sation of  self-seeking  on  the  number  of  Hutchinson's 
offices.  The  emoluments  accruing  from  them  all 
were  very  small  ;  in  some,  in  fact,  his  service  was 
practically  gratuitous.  Nor  was  any  credit  or  fame 
that  he  was  likely  to  gain  from  holding  them  at  all 
to  be  weighed  against  the  labor  and  vexation  to  be 
undergone  in  discharging  their  functions.  A  more 
reasonable  explanation  of  his  readiness  to  uphold 
such  burdens  is  that  the  rich,  high-placed  citizen  was 
full  of  public  spirit.  That  he  performed  honorably 
and  ably  the  work  of  these  various  offices,  there  is  no 
contradicting  testimony.  As  a  legislator,  no  one  had 
been  wiser.  As  judge  of  probate,  he  had  always 
befriended  orphans  and  widows.  As  chief-justice, 
though  not  bred  to  the  law,  he  had  been  an  excellent 
magistrate  Besides  all  this,  he  had  found  time  to 
write  a  history  of  New  England,  which  must  be  re- 
garded as  one  of  the  most  interesting  and  important 
literary  monuments  of  the  colonial  period — a  work 
digested  from  the  most  copious  materials  with  excel- 
lent judgment,  and  presented  in  a  style  admirable  for 
dignity,  clearness,  and  scholarly  finish." 

By  contrast,  too,  with  Hutchinson,  Mr.  Hosmer  is 
enabled  to  bring  out  more  strongly  the  attitude  of 
Adams  at  the  time  of  the  "Massacre."  With  an- 
other extract,  we  commend  the  book  to  all  American 
readers.  Mr.  Hosmer  says  : 


222 


Book  Reviews. 


[Aug. 


"It  was,  however,  as  a  manager  of  men,  that  Sam- 
uel Adams  was  greatest.  Such  a  master  of  the  meth- 
ods by  which  a  town-meeting  may  be  swayed,  the 
world  has  never  seen.  On  the  best  of  terms  with  the 
people,  the  ship-yard  men,  the  distillers,  the  sailors, 
as  well  as  the  merchants  and  ministers,  he  knew  pre- 
cisely what  springs  to  touch.  He  was  the  prince  of 
canvassers,  the  very  king  of  the  caucus,  of  which  his 
father  was  the  inventor.  His  ascendency  was  quite 
extraordinary,  and  no  less  marked  over  men  of  ability 
than  over  ordinary  minds.  Always  clear-headed  and 
cool  in  the  most  confusing  turmoil,  he  had  ever  at 
command,  whether  he  was  button-holing  a  refractory 
individual  or  haranguing  a  Faneuil  Hall  meeting,  a 
simple  but  most  effective  style  of  speech.  As  to  his 
tact,  was  it  ever  surpassed?  We  have  seen  Samuel 
Adams  introduce  Hancock  into  the  public  service, 
as  he  did  a  dozen  others.  It  is  curious  to  notice  how 
he  knew  afterwards  in  what  ways,  while  he  stroked 
to  sleep  Hancock's  vanity  and  peevishness,  to  bring 
him,  all  unconscious,  to  bear — now  against  the  Bos- 
ton Tories,  now  against  the  English  ministry,  now 
against  prejudice  in  the  other  colonies.  Penniless  as 
he  was  himself,  it  was  a  great  point,  when  the  charge 
was  made  that  the  Massachusetts  leaders  were  des- 
perate adventurers,  who  had  nothing  to  risk,  to  be 
able  to  parade  Hancock  in  his  silk  and  velvet,  with 
his  handsome  vehicle  and  aristocratic  mansion.  One 
hardly  knows  which  to  wonder  at  most,  the  astute- 
ness or  the  self-sacrifice  with  which,  in  order  to  pre- 
sent a  measure  effectively  or  to  humor  a  touchy  co- 
worker,  he  continually  postpones  himself,  while  he 
gives  the  foreground  to  others.  Perhaps  the  most 
useful  act  of  his  life  was  the  bringing  into  being  of 
the  Boston  Committee  of  Correspondence  ;  yet,  when 
all  was  arranged,  while  he  himself  kept  the  laboring 
oar,  he  put  at  the  head  the  faltering  Otis.  Again 
and  again,  when  a  fire  burned  for  which  he  could  not 
trust  himself,  he  would  turn  on  the  magnificent 
speech  of  Otis,  or  Warren,  or  Quincy,  or  Church, 
who  poured  their  copious  jets,  often  quite  uncon- 
scious that  cunning  Sam  Adams  really  managed  the 
valves,  and  was  directing  the  stream." 

Books  on  Correct  Speech.1 

THE  little  manuals  of  advice  on  behavior,  speech 
and  so  on,  which  from  time  to  time  undertake  to 
teach  the  public,  are  likely  to  be  opened  by  the  dis- 
creet critic  with  very  little  cordiality  of  expectation. 
The  better  class  of  them  contain  very  much  that  is 
sensible,  and  that  it  is  well  to  preach  to  the  young  or 
other  uninstructed  persons  ;  but  it  is  nearly  impossi- 
ble to  find  one  unvitiated  by  a  few  pieces  of  pedantic, 
misleading,  or  even  positively  erroneous  teaching. 
If  it  were  practicable,  or  were  worth  the  while,  to 
go  straight  through  a  book  of  this  sort,  noting  every 
one  of  these  failings,  and  then  cheerfully  recommend- 
ing the  residue  to  readers,  it  would  be  a  simpler  mat- 
ter. As  it  is,  we  can  only  say  that  such  books  as 
Discriminate,  or  its  predecessor,  ' '  Don't, "  are  valua- 
ble more  in  the  teacher's  hands  than  the  pupil's,  or 

1  Discriminate.  A  Companion  to  "Don't."  A  Manual 
for  Guidance  in  the  Use  of  Correct  Words  and  Phrases 
in  Ordinary  Speech.  By  "  Critic."  New  York:  D.  Ap- 
pleton  &  Co.  1885. 

How  Should  I  Pronounce?  By  William  Henry  P. 
Phyfe.  New  York  and  London:  G.  P.  Putnam's  Sons. 
1885. 


those  of  the  "general  reader."  Yet,  even  one  who 
depended  upon  the  book's  teachings  implicitly,  with- 
out the  advantage  of  a  teacher  to  tell  him  where  to 
distrust,  would  learn  far  more  that  was  right  than 
wrong  from  Discriminate,  and  might,  therefore,  be 
better  off  with  than  without  it.  This  discriminating 
between  words  is  really  an  important  matter,  and  the 
slovenly  confusion  among  them  into  which  newspa- 
pers,"  the  spread  of  general  information,"  and  other 
social  conditions,  are  leading  us,  is  ruinous  to  the 
language.  The  discriminations  between  "ability" 
and  "capacity,"  and  between  "aggravate"  and 
"irritate,"  or  "provoke,"  are,  for  instance,  worthy 
of  attention  ;  so  between  "allude,"  "speak  of,"  and 
"  mention."  Neglect  of  the  distinction  between 
"in"  and  "into,"  and  between  "should"  and 
"  would,"  amounts  to  positive  error,  and  yet  is  so 
common  as  to  deserve  attention  in  a  book  of  this 
sort.  (A  happy  instance  of  the  correct  use  of 
"would"  and  "should,"  requoted  from  R.  G. 
White  in  this  connection,  is  worth  pausing  to  quote 
yet  again  : 

"  How  long  I  shall  love  him  I  can  no  more  tell, 
Than,  had  I  a  fever,  when  I  should  be  well. 
My  passion  shall  kill  me  before  I  will  show  it, 
And  yet  I  would  give  all  the  world  he  did  know  it; 
But  oh,  how  I  sigh  when  I  think  should  he  woo  me, 
I  can  not  refuse  what  I  know  would  undo  me  !  ") 

But  it  seems  out  of  place  to  add  to  warning  against 
these  confusions,  which,  though  downright  errors,  are 
possible  even  to  good  speakers,  such  primary  school 
blunders  as  "think  for,"  "lay  down"  (for  lie),  "do 
like  I  do,"  "  those  kind,"  "  leave  her  be,"  and  even 
"  he  done  it."  An  opposite  fault  is  the  insertion  of 
over-fine,  fussy  distinctions,  or  positive  assertion  on 
mooted  points.  Thus,  "  a  setting  hen,"  is  prohibit- 
ed— we  must  say  "sitting  "  ;  we  must  not  say  "  right 
there,"  but  "just  there,"  nor  "you  are  mistaken," 
but  "you  mistake."  But  if  these  instances  be  a  trifle 
pedantic,  what  of  soberly  telling  us  that  we  must  not 
say  "a  bad  cold,"  but  "  a  severe  cold,"  nor  "at 
night,"  but  "  by  night,"  nor  "all  over  the  country," 
but  "over  all  the  country?"  These  things  are  sim- 
ply an  obtuse  failure  to  "discriminate"  between 
idiom  and  error.  Any  healthy  language  will  grow 
spontaneously  into  irregularities;  every  form  of  in- 
flection, every  figurative  word,  every  abstract  word, 
in  our  language  was  once  what  a  pedant  could  have 
called  an  error.  Language  ought  of  right  to  be 
used  freely  and  flexibly,  and  allowed  its  natural  de- 
velopments :  there  is  a  total  difference  between  such 
use  of  it,  and  its  murder  by  slovenly  confusions ;  yet 
what  rule  there  is  for  recognizing  this  difference,  we 
cannot  say — there  is  no  short  road  to  doing  so.  Nor 
will  such  books  as  this  teach  it ;  yet  in  the  hands  of 
a  good  teacher,  "Discriminate  "  would  be  very  useful. 
How  Should  I  Pronounce  proves  not  to  be  exactly, 
as  its  name  would  lead  one  to  expect,  of  the  class  of 
books  to  which  "Discriminate"  belongs.  It  is  a 
sound  and  careful  manual,  intended  largely  for  col- 


1885.] 


Book  Reviews. 


223 


lege  use,  upon  the  whole  subject  of  English  pronun- 
ciation, scientifically  treated.  Its  chief  defect  is  that 
it  is  somewhat  too  long  for  its  subject :  the  warmest 
friend  of  correct  pronunciation  and  vocal  culture  can- 
not expect  many  hours  to  be  taken  from  a  college  or 
high  school  course  for  this  certainly  important  but 
still  minor  matter.  The  preface  observes,  rightly 
enough,  that  the  exact  ground  of  this  manual  has 
never  been  covered  :  the  existing  books  are  either 
mere  lists  of  words  usually  mispronounced,  or  ex- 
haustive scientific  treatises  upon  some  one  branch  of 
the  subject,  as  Tyndall  on  sound,  or  Meyer  on  the 
physiology  of  the  vocal  organs.  We  should  think, 
however,  that  for  practical  purposes  the  ground  here 
covered  was  too  wide.  After  many  general  remarks 
in  an  introduction,  there  are  taken  up,  chapter  after 
chapter  :  the  physical  nature  of  sound,  with  consid- 
eration of  media,  wave  motion,  musical  tones,  pitch, 
intensity,  timbre,  echo,  and  resonance ;  the  physiol- 
ogy of  the  vocal  organs  and  leading  principles  of  their 
use,  and  the  organ  oi  hearing ;  an  analysis  of  artic- 
ulate sounds  ;  of  English  sounds ;  alphabetic  sym- 
bols, with  account  of  their  historical  devolopment 
and  present  varieties ;  the  English  alphabet,  its  de- 
fects, and  diacritical  marks;  and  three  chapters  more, 
in  which  the  subject  of  English  pronunciation  is  spe- 
cifically treated.  While  we  think  that  much  of  this 
should  have  been  left  to  physics  or  philology,  where 
it  belongs,  and  that  the  introduction  of  matter  only 
allied  to  the  subject  cumbers  a  special  treatise,  and 
wearies  instead  of  interesting  the  pupil,  we  must  not 
fail  to  say  that  it  is  all  good,  if  it  were  in  its  place ; 
and  of  the  most  of  it,  not  even  this  qualification  need 
be  made. 

Mr.  Phyfe  sets  down  the  number  of  sounds  that 
vocal  organs  could  make,  and  a  trained  ear  distin- 
guish, at  over  a  thousand  (including  indistinguishable 
shades,  the  vocal  organs  can  produce  an  infinite 
number).  A  thousand  seems  a  high  number,  consid- 
ering that  Mr.  Ellis,  whose  ear  must  be  highly  trained, 
has  distinguished  only  four  hundred.  Even  this  will 
seem  to  be  an  enormous  number,  when  one  remem- 
bers that  most  alphabets  contain  only  twenty-odd 
letters,  which  were  originally  supposed  to  cover  the 
sounds  of  their  respective  languages.  In  fact,  how- 
ever, the  inadequacy  of  the  alphabets  is  not  so  ridic- 
ulously great,  for  not  more  than  a  hundred  sounds 
are  practically  used  in  human  language,  and  not  more 
than  forty  are  apt  to  be  used  in  any  one  language. 
The  fundamental  sounds,  common  to  all  languages, 
are  some  twenty,  and  upon  these  the  alphabets  are 
based.  English,  with  an  alphabet  of  twenty-four 
letters  (for  c  and  q  are  purely  superfluous),  has  forty- 
two  sounds.  Thirty-six  of  these  are  recognized  by 
every  one,  but  six  are  "shade- vowels,"  which  are 
not  merely  undistinguished  in  the  speech  of  all  but 
the  educated,  but,  we  venture  to  say,  absolutely  un- 
distinguishable  by  the  ear  of  the  majority  of  the  Eng- 
lish-speaking people ;  even  among  educated  people 
it  is  only  those  of  fine  and  highly  trained  ear  that 


can  readily  distinguish  the  whole  six — as,  for  in- 
stance, the  difference  between  "wr-gent"and  "er- 
mine," between  o  in  "only"  and  in  "old." 

The  book  closes  with  a  list  of  one  thousand  words 
frequently  mispronounced.  Some  of 'these  mispro- 
nunciations are  solecisms  too  gross  to  be  properly  in 
the  list,  such  as  "ar'tic"for  "arctic,"  "ar-e"for 
area":  the  most  of  them  are  not  uncommon,  even 
among  educated  people  who  have  taken  no  special 
pains  to  ascertain  the  best  usage,  and  have  had  less  than 
the  very  best  opportunity  to  hear  it ;  thus  "ar'oma" 
for  "  aroma,"  cayenne  as  "  kl-en  "  instead  of"  ka-en," 
(cayenne)  "chasti'sement"for  "chas'tisement,"  "op'- 
ponent "  for  "opponent  ":  some  of  them  are  only  tech- 
nically mispronunciations,  being  such  according  to 
the  dictionaries,  but  not  according  to  usage.  In  some 
instances  the  dictionaries  fix  unaccountably  upon  pro- 
nunciations which  are  even  grotesquely  out  of  accord 
with  the  usage  of  most  educated  people,  as  for  in- 
stance, Worcester's  preference  of  "banana"  over 
"banana,"  Webster's  of  "apurn"  over  "aprun" 
(apron),  and  the  "Ashea"  (Asia),  and  "dizonest"  (dis- 
honest), of  both  dictionaries.  Nor  is  it  of  any  use  for 
the  dictionaries  to  try  to  enforce  the  traditional  pro- 
nunciation "bwoo-y"  (buoy),  so  long  as  vocal  organs 
remain  constituted  as  at  present;  nor  have  years  of  in- 
sistence persuaded  English-speaking  people  to  say 
either  "  dog  "  or  "  God."  The  folly  of  attempting  to 
prune  one's  speech  according  to  thedictionary,  no  mat- 
ter how  much  against  the  grain,  is  evident  from  the  ex- 
perience of  those  who  train  themselves  to  say  "dyn- 
amite," only  to  find  that  the  next  edition  of  the  dic- 
tionary makes  their  achievement  an  affectation,  and 
the  customary  "dynamite"  correct.  Our  author, 
however,  is  not  responsible  for  the  dictionaries  ;  and 
it  is,  indeed,  a  great  satisfaction  to  have  grouped  to- 
gether in  this  list  all  the  cases  in  which  one  must 
refuse  submission  to  them,  as  well  as  a  very  great 
number  in  which  they  are  undoubtedly  to  be  obeyed. 

Briefer  Notice. 

The  Philosophy  of  a  Future  State\  a  thin  pam- 
phlet, gives  a  brief,  direct,  and  intelligent  summary  of 
the  philosophic  objections  to  current  beliefs  as  to  im- 
mortality.  Mr.  Augustin  Knoflach's  ingenious  and 

serviceable  series  of  German  lessons2  in  periodical  in- 
stallments already  noticed  in  THE  OVERLAND,  has 

reached  its  eighth  number. The  pretty  series  of 

"  Contes  Choises,"  published  by  William  R.  Jenkins, 
has  taken  a  somewhat  new  departure  in  its  fifth 
number:  instead  of  a  French  reprint,  an  original 
American  story  (in  the  French  language,  of  course) 
is  issued,  Peppino,**.  tale  of  Italian  life  in  New  York, 

1  The  Philosophy  of  a  Future  State.     A  Brief  Dem- 
onstration of  the  Untenability  of  Current  Speculations. 
By  C.  Davis  English.     Philadelphia:  Edward  Stern  £ 
Co.     Boston  :  Cupples,  Upham  &  Co.     1885. 

2  German  Simplified.     By  Augustin  Knoflach.     New 
York:  A.  Knoflach.     1885. 

8  Peppino.  Par  L.  D.  Ventura.  New  York:  Wil- 
liam R.Jenkins.  1885. 


224 


Book  Reviews. 


[Aug. 


written  by  a  teacher  of  languages  in  Philadelphia. 
Another  little  French  book  from  the  same  pub- 
lisher, in  conjunction  with  a  Boston  one,  is  Anecdotes 
Nouvelle,^  which  is  intended  to  supply  easy  and  amus- 
ing reading  and  recitations  for  classes. Mrs.  Kate 

Wiggin,  of  this  city,  has  just  published  a  pretty  col- 
lection of  Songs  and  Games  "  for  Kindergartens  and 
Primary  Schools  ";  they  are  those  which  have  been 
from  time  to  time  composed  or  arranged  to  meet  the 
needs  of  the  kindergartens  under  her  care,  and  which 
have  been  long  used  with  satisfaction  in  these.  They 
are  preceded  by  a  few  general  suggestions  from  ex- 
perience as  to  their  use  in  kindergartens,  and  then 
grouped  under  the  heads  of  Ring  Songs,  Prayers 
and  Hymns,  Beginning  and  Closing,  Songs  of  the 
Gifts,  Marching  Songs,  Christmas  Songs,  Miscel- 

1  Anecdotes  Nouvelle.   Lectures  Faciles  et  Amusantes, 
et  Recitations.     Boston:  Carl  Schoenhof.     New  York: 
William  R.  Jenkins. 

2  Kindergarten  Chimes;  A  Collection  of  Songs  and 
Games  Composed  and  Arranged  for  Kindergartens  and 
Primary  Schools.     By  Kate  Douglas  Wiggin,  Califor- 
nia Kindergarten    Training    School,    San    Francisco. 
Boston:  Oliver  Ditson  &  Co.     1885. 


laneous,     Games. It    will   be   remembered    that 

one  of  the  latest  numbers  of  Houghton,  Mifflin  & 
Co.'s  "American  Men  of  Letters"  series  was  by 
Professor  Beers,  upon  the  subject  of  Nathaniel  Par- 
ker Willis— reviewed  lacely  in  THE  OVERLAND.  It 
did  the  best  possible  by  its  subject,  and  undoubtedly 
revived  a  passing  interest  in  this  not  altogether  insig- 
nificant author,  who  was  so  significant  in  his  time  : 
probably  no  one  read  it  without  a  desire  to  look  a 
little  at  some  of  the  prose  and  poetry  there  spoken 
of.  Willis's  poetry  is  not  altogether  obsolescent;  two 
or  three  of  his  poems  figure  in  almost  every  collec- 
tion, and  almost  every  one  who  read  Professor  Beers's 
memoir  of  him  knew  something  of  them.  But  his 
prose  had  passed  almost  out  of  sight.  It  is,  there- 
fore, a  very  well-thought-of  idea  to  follow  the  me- 
moir with  a  collection3  of  the  worthiest  of  the  prose 
writings — all,  in  fact,  that  any  one  in  these  days  is 
likely  to  find  himself  able  to  read. 

8  Prose  Writings  of  N.  P.  Willis.  Edited  by  Henry 
A.  Beers.  New  York:  Charles  Scribner's  Sons.  1885. 
For  sale  in  San  Francisco  by  A.  L.  Bancroft  &  Com- 
pany. 


THE 


OVERLAND  MONTHLY. 


DEVOTED    TO 


THE  DEVELOPMENT  OF  THE   COUNTRY. 


VOL.  VI.  (SECOND  SERIES.)— SEPTEMBER,  1885.— No.  33. 


THE  SQUATTER  RIOT  OF  '50  IN  SACRAMENTO. 
ITS  CAUSES  AND  IT?  SIGNIFICANCE. 


DR.  STILLMAN  published  in  the  OVERLAND 
MONTHLY  for  November,  1873,  as  one  of  the 
chapters  of  his  since  well-known  book  called 
"  Seeking  the  Golden  Fleece,"  a  contempo- 
rary record  of  his  experiences  at  the  time  of 
the  Squatter  Riot  of '50  in  Sacramento.  In 
a  note  to  this  valuable  reminiscence,  Dr. 
Stillman  remarked  that  no  detailed  account 
of  the  remarkable  affair  had  ever  been  print- 
ed. So  far  as  I  know,  the  same  thing  can 
still  truthfully  be  said.  But  the  scenes  of 
violence  themselves  form  but  a  small  part 
of  the  real  story  of  the  movement ;  and  I 
shall  venture  in  the  following  to  try  to  pre- 
sent a  somewhat  connected  account  of  the 
events  that  preceded  the  riot  and  that  cul-- 
minated  therein.  I  draw  my  materials  prin- 
cipally from  the  contemporary  files  of  the 
"Placer  Times  "and  the  "Sacramento  Trans- 
cript ': ;  but  I  shall  also  seek  to  accomplish 
what  has  certainly  so  far  been  neglected,  viz., 
to  indicate  the  true  historical  significance  of 
this  little  episode  in  our  pioneer  annals.  For, 
as  I  think,  the  importance  of  the  conflict  was 
greater  than  even  the  combatants  themselves 
knew ;  and  most  of  us  are  not  in  a  fair  way 
to  comprehend  the  facts,  unless  we  remind 


ourselves  of  a  good  many  long  since  forgot- 
ten details  of  the  narra- 

Of  course,  this  essay  has  no  actual  dis- 
coveries to  present,  for  old  newspapers  are 
not  mysterious  archives,  and  contain  only 
quite  open  secrets.  But  the  old  newspapers 
are  many,  heavy,  and  dusty,  and  we  are  not 
apt  to  think  them  as  'profitable  for  re- 
buke or  for  instruction  as  they  really  are. 
By  way  of  acknowledgment,  I  must  say 
at  the  outset  that  I  am  indebted  for  the 
file  of  the  "  Placer  Times  "  to  the  courtesy 
of  the  librarian  of  the  Mercantile  Library, 
who  gave  me  facilities  for  research  during 
a  brief  visit  of  mine  to  San  Francisco  in 
the  summer  of  1884,  and  who  has  since 
permitted  rne  to  get  copied  for  my  use  such 
items  from  the  file  as  I  needed,  and  could 
not  personally  consult.  The  file  of  the  "Sac- 
ramento Transcript"  of  1850  that  I  have 
used  reposes  in  the  cool  shade  of  the  base- 
ment of  Harvard  College  Library,  among 
numerous  other  newspaper  files,  which  this 
library  has  somehow  managed  to  get  togeth- 
er, and  which  help  to  make  Cambridge  what 
it  is — a  very  good  place  for  the  study  of 
American  local  history.  Other  important 


VOL.  VI. — 15.         (Copyright,  1885,  by  OVERLAND  MONTHLY  Co.     All  Rights  Reserved.) 


226 


The  Squatter  Riot  of  '50  in  Sacramento. 


[Sept. 


published  literature  than  the  above  I  cannot 
name  as  bearing  directly  on  the  riot  of  '50, 
although  the  whole  legal  history  of  the  Sut- 
ter  case,  as  it  was  summed  up  in  the  United 
States  Supreme  Court  Decisions  of  1858 
and  1864,  has  an  indirect  bearing  on  the 
matter ;  while  the  problems  concerned  have 
of  course  affected  all  the  rest  that  has  been 
written  or  said  about  any  of  the  land  titles 
that  are  based  on  Sutler's  Alvarado  grant. 
In  forming  my  judgment  of  the  perspective 
in  which  all  this  matter  is  to  be  viewed,  I 
must  further  acknowledge  how  much  I  owe 
to  the  free  use  granted  to  me  in  the  summer 
of  1884,  by  Mr.  H.  H.  Bancroft,  of  his  great 
collections  of  pioneer  records.  As  it  hap- 
pens, I  did  not  find  time  during  several 
weeks  of  study  that  I  enjoyed  at  Mr.  Ban- 
croft's library  to  consult  his  records  of  this 
particular  affair,  and  so  cannot  confess  any 
debt  to  him  for  the  material  here  collected 
from  the  Sacramento  newspaper  files.  But 
while  I  was  reading  in  his  original  sources 
for  other  purposes,  I  collected  numerous 
suggestions,  and  got  glimpses  of  facts  that 
have  enabled  me  to  see  the  present  topic  in 
a  much  clearer  light,  when  I  later  came  to 
consider  it.  I  hope  to  have  a  chance  to 
show  my  direct  indebtedness  to  the  Ban- 
croft library  more  fully  in  another  connec- 
tion hereafter ;  but  for  the  present,  so  much 
may  suffice  as  acknowledgment  of  the  indi- 
rect help  that  I  owe  to  Mr.  Bancroft's  cour- 
tesy, in  my  study  of  the  present  question. 


I. 


AND  now  to  begin  the  story  with  the  moral, 
let  us  try  to  understand  at  once  why  this  epi- 
sode should  seem  of  so  much  historical  sig- 
nificance. That  a  few  lives  should  be  lost 
in  a  squabble  about  land,  is  indeed  a  small 
thing  in  the  history  of  a  State  that  has  seen 
so  many  land  quarrels  as  California.  The 
Squatter  Riot  of  '50  was  but  a  preliminary 
skirmish,  if  one  will  judge  it  by  the  number 
of  killed  and  wounded,  while  the  history  of 
settler  difficulties  in  the  whole  State,  during 
the  thirty-five  years  since,  seems,  by  compar- 
ison of  numbers,  a  long  battle,  with  killed 


and  wounded  who  would  need  to  be  count- 
ed, not  by  fives,  but  by  hundreds. 

Not,  however,  for  the  number  of  lives  lost, 
but  for  the  importance  of  just  that  crisis  at  that 
moment,  must  we  consider  the  Squatter  Riot 
noteworthy.  Just  as  the  death  of  James 
King  of  William  happened  to  seem  of  more 
importance  to  the  California  community  than 
the  deaths  of  ninety  and  nine  just  miners 
and  other  private  persons,  who  were  waylaid 
or  shot  in  quarrels ;  just  as  that  death  had 
many  times  the  historical  significance  that  it 
would  have  had  if  King  had  been  slain  un- 
der the  most  atrocious  circumstances  a  few 
months  earlier; — even  so  the  Squatter  Riot  in 
Sacramento  is  significant,  not  because  blood- 
shed was  unknown  elsewhere  in  California 
land  quarrels,  but  because  nowhere  else  did 
any  single  land  quarrel  come  so  near  to  in- 
volving an  organized  effort  to  get  rid,  once 
for  all,  of  the  Spanish  titles  as  evidences  of 
property  in  land.  Elsewhere  and  later,  men 
followed  legal  methods,  or  else  stood  nearly 
alone  in  their  fight.  Men  regarded  some 
one  title  as  fraudulent,  and  opposed  it ;  or 
frankly  avowed  their  private  hatred  of  all 
Mexican  land  titles,  but  were  comparatively 
isolated  in  their  methods  of  legal  or  illegal 
resistance  to  the  enforcement  of  the  vested 
rights ;  or  they  were  led  into  lengthy  and 
often  murderous  quarrels  by  almost  hope- 
lessly involved  problems  of  title,  such  as  so 
long  worried  all  men  alike  in  San  Francisco. 
Elsewhere  than  in  Sacramento,  men  thus 
tried,  in  dealing  with  numerous  questions  of 
detail,  to  resist  the  enforcement  of  individual 
claims  under  Mexican  titles ;  but  in  Sacra- 
mento, in  1850,  the  popular  opposition  was 
deeper,  and  its  chances  of  a  sweeping  suc- 
cess were  for  a  moment  far  greater. 

In  form,  to  be  sure,  even  the  Sacramento 
squatters,  like  so  many  successors,  pretended 
to  be  doubtful  of  the  legal  validity  of  Sutler's 
Alvarado  grant,  and  to  believe  that,  if  it  were 
valid,  the  grant  still  did  not  cover  Sacramen- 
to. Bui  this  pretense  was  here  a  very  thin 
veil  for  an  undertaking  that  was  in  its  spirit 
and  methods  distinctly  revolutionary.  The 
squatters  of  that  time  and  place  were  well 
led,  and  they  meant  to  do,  and  contempo- 


1885.] 


The  Squatter  Riot  of  '50  in  Sacramento. 


227 


rary  friends  and  foes  knew  that  they  meant 
to  do,  what  would  have  amounted  to  a  de- 
liberate abrogation,  by  popular  sovereignty, 
of  Mexican  grants  as  such.  Had  they  been 
successful,  a  period  of  anarchy  as  to  land 
property  would  probably  have  followed,  far 
worse  in  its  consequences  than  that  lament- 
able legalized  anarchy  that  actually  did  for 
years  darken  the  land  interests  of  our  State, 
under  the  Land  Law  of  1851.  Bad  as  that 
enactment  proved,  the  squatter  doctrine,  as 
preached  in  1850,  came  near  proving  far 
worse.  To  investigate  how  the  people  of 
Sacramento  showed  their  weakness  in  letting 
this  crisis  come  on  as  it  did,  and  their 
strength  in  passing  it  when  it  at  last  had 
come  on,  is  to  my  mind,  in  view  of  the  dan- 
gers of  that  and  of  all  times,  a  most  helpful 
exercise  in  social  science ;  since  it  is  such 
investigations  that  enable  us  to  distinguish 
the  good  from  the  evil  tendencies  of  the 
popular  mind,  and  to  feel  the  difference  be- 
tween healthy  and  diseased  states  of  social 
activity.  I  want,  in  short,  to  make  this  es- 
say a  study  of  the  social  forces  concerned  in 
early  California  land  difficulties. 

Sutler,  as  we  have  all  heard,  owned  at  the 
time  of  the  conquest,  and  in  fact,  since  1841, 
eleven  leagues,  under  a  grant  from  Gover- 
nor Alvarado.  Moreover,  as  is  again  noto- 
rious, Sutter  supposed  himself  to  own  much 
more  than  this  grant,  by  virtue  of  promises 
made  to  him  by  Governor  Micheltorena,  in 
1845.  In  the  latter  supposition,  Sutter 
made  a  serious  blunder,  as  was  pointed  out 
to  him  in  1858  by  the  United  States  Supreme 
Court.  Micheltorena  had  made  to  him  no 
valid  grant  whatever.  In  1848,  when  the 
gold-seekers  began  to  come,  Sutter  began  to 
lose  his  wits.  One  of  the  pioneer  statements 
in  Mr.  Bancroft's  collection  says  rather  se- 
verely that  the  distinguished  Captain  thence- 
forth signed  "any  paper  that  was  brought  to 
him."  At  all  events,  he  behaved  in  as  un- 
businesslike a  fashion  as  could  well  be  ex- 
pected, and  the  result  was  that  when  his  af- 
fairs came  in  later  years  to  more  complete 
settlement,  it  was  found  that  he  had  deeded 
away,  not  merely  more  land  than  he  actual- 
ly owned,  but,  if  I  mistake  not,  more  land 


than  even  he  himself  had  supposed  himself 
to  own.  All  this  led  not  only  himself  into 
embarrassments,  but  other  people  with  him  ; 
and  to  arrange  with  justice  the  final  survey 
of  his  Alvarado  grant  proved  in  later  years 
one  of  the  most  perplexing  problems  of  the 
U.  S.  District  and  Supreme  Courts. 

One  part  of  his  land,  however,  seemed  from 
the  first  clearly  and  indisputably  his  own,  to 
deed  away  as  he  might  choose.  That  was  the 
land  about  his  own  "  establishment  at  New 
Helvetia."  Here  he  had  built  his  fort,  com- 
manded his  laborers,  received  his  guests,  and 
raised  his  crops  ;  and  here  the  new-comers  of 
the  golden  days  found  him,  the  reputed  pos- 
sessor of  the  soil.  That  he  owned  this  land 
was,  in  fact,  by  this  time,  a  matter,  so  to 
speak,  of  world-wide  notoriety.  For  the 
young  Fremont's  "Report,"  which,  in  various 
shapes  and  editions,  had  years  before  become 
so  popular  a  book,  and  which  the  gold-fever 
made  more  popular  than  ever,  had  distinctly 
described  Sutter  as  the  notorious  and  indis- 
putable owiicr  of  this  tract  of  land  in  1844. 
If  occupancy  without  any  rival  for  a  term  of 
years  could  make  the  matter  clear  to  a  new- 
comer, Sutler's  title  to  his  "  establishment" 
seemed  beyond  shadow.  Moreover,  the  title 
papers  of  the  Alvarado  grant  were  on  rec- 
ord. Governor  Alvarado's  authority  to  grant 
eleven  leagues  to  Sutter  was  indubitable,  and 
none  the  less  clear  seemed  the  wording  of 
the  grant,  when  it  gave  certain  outer  boun- 
daries within  which  the  tract  granted  was  to 
be  sought,  and  then  defined  the  grant  so  as 
to  include  the  "establishment  at  New  Hel- 
vetia." Surely,  one  would  say,  no  new  com- 
er could  attack  Suiter's  right,  save  by  means 
of  some  purely  agrarian  contention.  A  set- 
tler might  demand  that  all  unoccupied  land 
in  California  should  be  free  to  every  settler, 
and  that  Mexican  land  ownership  should 
be  once  for  all  done  away  with.  But  unless 
a  man  did  this,  what  could  he  say  against  Sut- 
ler's title  to  New  Helvetia? 

And  so,  when  the  town  of  Sacramento 
began  to  grow  up,  the  people  who  wanted 
lots  assented  at  the  outset  to  Suiter's  claims, 
and  recognized  his  title.  That  they  paid 
him  in  all  cases  a  perfectly  fair  equivalent 


228 


The  Squatter  Riot  of  '50  in  Sacramento. 


[Sept. 


for  his  land,  I  venture  not  to  say.  But  from 
him  they  got  their  titles,  and  under  his  Alva- 
rado  grant  they  held  the  lands  on  which  the 
town  grew  up.  land-holders  under  Sutler 
they  were  who  organized  the  town-govern- 
ment, and  their  speculation  was  soon  profit- 
able enough  to  make  them  quite  anxious  to 
keep  the  rights  that  Sutter  had  sold  them. 
The  question,  however,  quickly  arose,  whether 
the  flood  of  the  new  immigration  would  re- 
gard a  Spanish  land-title  as  a  sufficient  bar- 
rier, at  which  its  proud  waves  must  be  stayed. 
The  first  safety  of  the  Sutler-title  men  lay  in 
the  fact  that  the  mass  of  the  new-comers 
were  gold-seekers,  and  thai,  since  Sacramenio 
was  nol  buill  on  a  placer  mine,  ihese  gold- 
seekers  were  not  inleresled  in  despoiling  its 
owners.  But  this  safeguard  could  not  prove 
sufficient  very  long.  The  value  of  land  in 
the  vicinity  of  a  thriving  town  must  soon  at- 
tract men  of  small  capital  and  Californian 
ambitions  from  the  hard  work  of  ihe  placers; 
and  ihe  rainy  season  would,  al  all  evenls, 
soon  crowd  Ihe  lown  wilh  disconlenled  idlers. 
Moreover,  the  whole  question  of  California 
land-lilies  was  a  criiical  one  for  Ihis  new 
communily.  The  Anglo-Saxon  is,  as  we  so 
often  hear,  very  land-hungry.  Many  of  the 
newcomers  were  accustomed  to  the  almost 
boundless  freedom  of  western  squatters;  the 
right  to  squat  on  vacant  land  had  come  to 
seem  to  them  traditional  and  inalienable; 
they  would  probably  have  expected  to  find 
it,  with  a  little  search,  somewhere  in  the 
Declaration  of  Independence,  or  among  the 
guarantees  of  the  Constilution.  Among  ihese 
men  some  of  the  more  influenlial  pioneers 
were  slrongly  under  ihe  influence  of  ihe  Or- 
egon tradition.  In  Oregon,  squatter  sover- 
eignty, free  and  untrammelled,  had  been 
setlling  ihe  land  queslions  of  a  newly  occu- 
pied wilderness  mosl  happily.  The  lempla- 
tion  to  apply  these  methods  to  California 
was  very  slrong ;  in  fact,  during  the  inter- 
regnum after  the  conquest  of  the  Territory 
of  California,  and  before  the  golden  days 
began,  the  discontenled  American  settlers  of 
the  Sacramento  Valley  and  of  the  Sonoma 
region  had  freely  talked  about  the  vexations 
caused  by  these  Mexican  land-lilies,  and  had 


even  then  begun  to  propose  methods  of  set- 
tling their  own  troubles.  The  melhods  in 
question  would  ultimalely  have  plunged 
everybody  inlo  far  worse  troubles. 

The  dangerous  and  blind  Americanism  of 
some  among  these  people  is  well  shown  by 
discussions  in  the  "  California  Star,"  for  1847 
and  '48,  a  paper  which  I  have  been  able  to 
consult  in  Mr.  Bancroft's  file.  There  is,  for 
instance,  a  frequent  correspondent  of  the 
"Star"  in  those  days,  who  signs  himself 
"  Paisano."  Although  I  have  nobody's  au- 
thority for  his  identily,  I  am  sure,  from  plain 
inlernal  evidence,  lhal  he  is  L.  W.  Haslings, 
ihen  a  very  well-known  emigrant  leader,  and 
the  author  of  a  descriptive  guide  to  Califor- 
nia and  Oregon.  Hastings  was  a  very  big- 
oted American,  at  least  in  his  early  days  on 
the  Pacific  coast,  and  his  book  had  filled 
many  pages  with  absurd  abuse  of  native  Cal- 
ifornian people  and  institulions.  Such  a 
man  was,  just  then,  an  unsafe  popular  leader, 
although  he  was  a  lawyer  by  profession,  and 
later  did  good  service  in  the  Constitulional 
Convenlion  of  1849.  In  discussing  land- 
titles,  in  these  letters  to  the  "  Star,"  "  Pai- 
sano "  plainly  shows  the  cloven  foot.  Lei 
us  insist  upon  a  territorial  legislature  al 
once,  he  says,  in  effecl ;  lei  us  sel  aside  Ihis 
nuisance  of  a  mililary  government,  by  its  own 
consenl  if  possible,  and  lei  us  pass  laws  lo 
seltle  forthwith  these  land  difficulties.  All  this 
"  Paisano "  cloaks  under  an  appeal  lo  the 
mililary  governmenl  lo  call  such  a  legisla- 
ture. Bui  ihe  real  purpose  is  plain.  The 
legislature,  if  then  called,  would  cerlainly 
have  been  under  the  influence  of  the  squat- 
ter sovereignty  tradition  of  Oregon,  since  its 
leaders,  e.  g.,  Hastings  himself,  would  have 
been,  in  many  cases,  Oregon  men.  Il  would, 
al  all  events,  have  been  under  purely  Amer- 
ican influence;  it  would  have  despised  ihe 
nalives,  who,  in  their  turn,  fresh  from  the 
losses  and  griefs  of  ihe  conquesl,  would 
have  suspecled  its  motives,  would  have  been 
unable  to  understand  ils  Anglo-Saxon  meth- 
ods, and  would  have  left  it  to  ils  work  of 
Irealing  Ihem  unfairly.  Unjusl  land  laws 
would  have  been  passed,  infringements  on 
vested  righls  would  have  been  inevitable, 


1885.] 


The  Squatter  Riot  of  '50  in  .Sacramento. 


229 


and  in  after  time  appeals  to  the  United 
States  authority,  together  with  the  coming  of 
the  new  immigration,  would  have  involved 
all  in  a  fearful  chaos,  which  we  may  shudder 
to  contemplate  even  in  fancy.  Yet  "  Pai- 
sano "  did  not  stand  alone  among  the  pio- 
neers of  the  interregnum  in  his  desires  and 
in  his  plans.  That  such  plans  made  no  ap- 
pearance in  the  Constitutional  Convention 
of  '49,  is  due  to  the  wholly  changed  situation 
of  the  moment,  and  to  the  pressing  business 
before  the  Convention. 

But  if  things  appeared  thus  to  the  com- 
paratively small  group  of  Americans  in  the 
dawn  of  our  life  here,  even  before  the  gold 
discovery,  how  long  should  this  complex 
spider-web  of  land-titles,  wherewith  a  Cali- 
fornia custom  or  caprice  had  covered  a 
great  part  of  the  Territory,  outlast  the  tramp- 
ling of  the  busy  new-comers  ?  Who  should 
resist  these  strange  men  ?  The  slowly  mov- 
ing processes  of  the  Courts — how  could  they, 
in  time,  check  the  rapacity  of  American  set- 
tlers, before  the  mischief  should  once  for  all 
be  done,  and  the  memory  of  these  land-titles 
buried  under  an  almost  universal  predatory 
disregard  of  them,  wl.xh  \vould  make  the 
recovery  of  the  land  by  its  legal  owners  too 
expensive  an  undertaking  to  be  even  thought 
of?  The  answer  to  this  question  suggests 
at  once  how,  amid  all  the  injustice  of  our 
treatment  of  Californian  land-owners,  our 
whole  history  has  illustrated  the  enormous 
vitality  of  formally  lawful  ownership  in  land. 
Yes:  this  delicate  web,  that  our  strength 
could  seemingly  so  easily  have  trampled  out 
of  existence  at  once,  became  soon  an  iron 
net.  The  more  we  struggled  with  it,  the 
more  we  became  involved  in  its  meshes.  In- 
finitely more  have  we  suffered  in  trying  to 
escape  from  it,  than  we  should  have  suffered 
had  we  never  made  a  struggle.  Infinitely 
more  sorrow  and  money  and  blood  has  it 
cost  us  to  try  to  get  rid  of  our  old  obligations 
to  the  Californian  land-owners,  than  it  would 
have  cost  us  to  grant  them  all  their  original 
demands,  just  and  unjust,  at  once.  Doubt, 
insecurity,  retarded  progress,  litigation  with- 
out end,  hatred,  destruction  of  property,  ex- 
penditure of  money,  bloodshed:  all  these 


have  resulted  for  us  from  the  fact  that  we 
tried  as  much  as  we  did  to  defraud  these 
Californians  of  the  rights  that  we  guaran- 
teed to  them  at  the  moment  of  the  con- 
quest. And  in  the  end,  with  all  our  toil;  we 
escaped  not  from  the  net,  and  it  binds  our 
land-seekers  still.  But  how  all  this  wonder 
came  about  is  a  long  story,  indeed,  whereof 
the  squatter  riot  of  '50  forms  but  a  small 
part. 

At  all  events,  however,  the  critical  charac- 
ter of  the  situation  of  California  land-owners 
at  the  moment  of  the  coming  of  the  gold- 
seekers  appears  plain.  That  all  the  rights 
of  the  Californians  should  ultimately  be  re- 
spected was,  indeed,  in  view  of  our  rapacious 
Anglo-Saxon  land-hunger,  and  of  our  nation- 
al bigotry  in  dealing  with  Spanish  Ameri- 
cans, impossible.  But  there  were  still  two 
courses  that  our  population  might  take  with 
regard  to  the  land.  One  would  be  the  just- 
mentioned  simple  plan  of  a  universal  squat- 
ters' conspiracy.  Had  we  agreed  to  disre- 
gard the  land-titles  by  a  sort  of  popular  fiat, 
then,  ere  the  Courts  could  be  appealed  to 
and  the  method  of  settling  the  land-titles  or- 
dained by  Congress,  the  disregard  of  the 
claims  of  the  natives  might  have  gone  so 
far  in  many  places  as  to  render  any  general 
restitution  too  expensive  a  luxury  to  be  prof- 
itable. This  procedure  would  have  been 
analogous  to  that  fashion  of  dealing  with 
Indian  reservations  which  our  honest  settlers 
have  frequently  resorted  to.  Atrociously 
wicked  as  such  a  conspiracy  would  have 
been,  we  ourselves,  as  has  been  suggested 
above,  should  have  been  in  the  long  run  the 
greatest  sufferers,  because  the  conspiracy 
could  not  have  been  successful  enough  to 
preserve  us  from  fearful  confusion  of  titles, 
from  litigation  and  warfare  without  end.  Yet 
this  course,  as  we  shall  see,  was  practically 
the  course  proposed  by  the  Sacramento 
squatters  of '50,  and  for  a  time  the  balance 
hesitated  between  the  choice  of  this  and 
of  the  other  course.  The  other  course  we 
actually  adopted,  and  it  was  indeed  the  one 
peculiarly  fitted  to  express  just  our  national 
meanness  and  love  of  good  order  in  one. 
This  was  the  plan  of  legal  recognition  and 


230 


The  Squatter  Riot  of  '50  in  Sacramento. 


[Sept. 


equally  legal  spoliation  of  the  Californians  ; 
a  plan  for  which,  indeed,  no  one  man  is  re- 
sponsible, since  the  cooperation  of  the  com- 
munity at  large  was  needed,  and  obtained, 
to  make  the  Land  Act  of  '51  an  instrument 
for  evil  and  not  for  good.  The  devil's  in- 
strument it  actually  proved  to  be,  by  our 
friendly  cooperation,  and  we  have  got  our 
full  share  of  the  devil's  wages  of  trouble  for 
our  ready  use  of  it.  But  bad  as  this  second 
course  was,  it  was  far  better  than  the  first, 
as  in  general  the  meanness  and  good  order 
of  an  Anglo-Saxon  community  of  money- 
seekers  produce  better  results  than  the  bold- 
er rapacity  and  less  legal  brutality  of  certain 
other  conquering  and  overbearing  races. 

This  struggle,  then,  resulting  in  the  triumph 
of  good  order  over  anarchy,  we  are  here  to 
follow  in  a  particular  instance.  The  legal- 
ized meanness  that  was  to  take  the  place  of 
open  rebellion  disappears  in  the  background, 
as  we  examine  the  immediate  incidents  of 
the  struggle,  and  we  almost  forget  what  was 
to  follow,  in  our  interest  in  the  moment. 
Let  us  rejoice  as  we  can  in  an  incident  that 
shows  us  what,  amid  all  our  folly  and  weak- 
ness, is  the  real  strength  of  our  national 
character,  and  the  real  ground  for  trust  in 
its  higher  future  development.1 


II. 


IN  the  winter  of  J49-'5o,  that  winter  of 
tedium,  of  rain,  of  mud,  and  of  flood,  the 
trouble  began.  The  only  contemporary  re- 
cord that  I  know  bearing  upon  this  contro- 
versy in  that  time,  I  did  not  mention  above, 
because  it  is  so  brief  and  imperfect.  Bayard 
Taylor,  then  traveling  as  correspondent  for 
the  "  New  York  Tribune,"  had  his  attention 
attracted  by  the  meetings  of  malcontents  on 
the  banks  of  the  Sacramento.  They  were 

!The  community  owes  to  Mr.  John  S.  Hittell  a  con- 
siderable moral  debt  for  the  earnestness  with  which, 
from  a  very  early  period,  through  good  and  evil  report, 
he  has  maintained  the  just  cause  of  the  Californian  land- 
holders, and  has  pointed  out  the  real  character  of  our 
dealings  with  them.  Many  have  felt  and  mentioned  the 
injustice  of  our  behavior  ;  but  nobody  has  more  ably 
and  steadfastly  insisted  on  it  than  he,  both  in  magazine 
articles,  in  newspaper  work,  and,  later,  in  his  valuable 
"  History  of  San  Francisco." 


landless  men,  and  they  could  not  see  why. 
These  people,  Taylor  tells  us,2  "  were  located 
on  the  vacant  lots  which  had  been  surveyed 
by  the  original  owners  of  the  town,  and  were 
by  them  sold  to  others.  The  emigrants,  who 
supposed  that  the  land  belonged  of  right  to 
the  United  States,  boldly  declared  their  in- 
tention of  retaining  possession  of  it.  Each 
man  voted  himself  a  lot,  defying  the  threats 
and  remonstrances  of  the  rightful  owners. 
The  town  was  greatly  agitated  for  a  time  by 
these  disputes ;  meetings  were  held  by  both 
parties,  and  the  spirit  of  hostility  ran  to  a 
high  pitch.  At  the  time  of  my  leaving  the 
country,  the  matter  was  still  unsettled  ;  but 
the  flood  which  occurred  soon  after,  by 
sweeping  both  squatters  and  speculators  off 
the  ground,  balanced  accounts,  and  left  the 
field  clear  for  a  new  start." 

The  papers  of  the  following  spring  and 
summer  refer  a  few  times  to  these  meetings. 
Taylor  was  wrong  in  supposing  that  the  affair 
was  to  be  ended  in  any  fashion  by  the  flood. 
More  water  does  not  make  an  Anglo  Saxon 
want  less  land,  and  this  flood  of  '50  itself 
formed  a  curious  part  of  the  squatters'  pre- 
tended chain  of  arg,  nent  a  little  later,  as 
we  shall  see.  Much  more  efficacious  in 
temporarily  quelling  the  anger  of  the  land- 
less men  was  the  happy  but  deceitful  begin- 
ning of  the  spring  of  '50.  Early  fair  weather 
sent  hundreds  to  the  mines,  and  put  every- 
body into  temporary  good  humor.  Argu- 
ments gave  place  to  hopes,  and  the  landless 
men  hunted  in  the  mountains  for  the  gold 
that  Providence  had  deposited  for  the  sake 
of  filling  just  their  pockets. 

The  intentions  of  Providence  included, 
however,  some  late  rains  that  spring.  The 
streams  would  not  fall,  mining  was  delayed, 
provisions  were  exhausted  in  some  of  the 
mining  camps,  and  a  good  many  of  the  land- 
less men  went  hack  to  that  city  where  they 
owned  no  land,  abandoning  their  destined 
fortunes  in  the  mountains,  and  turning  their 
attention  afresh  to  those  ever  charming  ques- 
tions about  the  inalienable  rights  of  man  to 
a  jolly  time  and  a  bit  of  land.  And  then 

2  Bayard  Taylor,  "Eldorado"  (in  his  "Works," 
Household  Edition),  chap,  xxvi.,  p.  279. 


1885.] 


The  Squatter  Riot  of  '50  in  Sacramento. 


231 


the  trouble  began  to  gather  in  earnest ;  al- 
though, to  be  sure,  in  that  busy  society  it 
occupied  a  great  place  in  the  public  atten- 
tion only  by  fits  and  starts.  The  growth  of 
the  evil  seems  to  have  been  steadier  than 
the  popular  notion  of  its  character  and  mag- 
nitude. But  let  us  turn  for  an  instant  to 
glance  at  the  general  social  condition  of  the 
city  that  was  to  pass  through  this  trial. 

The  "  Sacramento  Transcript,"  in  its  early 
numbers  in  the  spring  of '50,  well  expresses 
the  cheerful  side  of  the  whole  life  of  the  ear- 
ly days.  The  new  California  world  is  so  full 
of  wonders,  and  the  soul  of  the  brave  man  is 
so  full  of  youth  and  hope!  Mr.  F.  C.  Ewer, 
the  joint  editor  with  Mr.  G.  Kenyon  Fitch, 
is  a  person  of  just  the  sort  to  voice  this  spirit 
of  audacity,  and  of  delight  in  life.  "The 
opening  of  a  new  paper,"  he  says  (in  No.  i 
of  the  "Transcript,"  April  i,  1850,  absit 
omen),  "is  like  the  planting  of  a  tree.  The 
hopes  of  many  hearts  cluster  around  it.  ... 
In  the  covert  of  its  leaves  all  pure  principles 
and  high  aims  should  find  a  home."  As 
for  the  city,  he  tells  us  in  the  same  issue, 
everything  is  looking  well  for  its  future. 
The  weather  is  becoming  settled,  business 
activity  is  increasing,  substantial  buildings 
are  springing  up,  health  "  reigns  in  our 
midst."  The  news  from  the  mines  is  good. 
There  is  Murderers'  Bar,  for  instance.  Late 
reports  make  "  its  richness  truly  ^surprising"  : 
two  ounces  per  day's  work  of  a  man  for  from 
one  hundred  to  one  hundred  and  fifty  work- 
ers. To  be  sure,  however,  there  has  been  a 
great  rise  in  the  waters,  and  a  large  portion 
of  those  holding  leads  have  been  obliged  to 
suspend  operations.  But  all  that  is  a  mat- 
ter of  time.  When  one  turns  from  the  con- 
templation of  the  mines,  to  the  contempla- 
tion of  the  general  condition  of  the  country 
at  large,  one  is  struck  with  awe  ;  for  then 
one  has  to  reflect  on  what  the  great  Ameri- 
can mind  has  already  done.  "  Never  has  a 
country  been  more  orderly,  never  has  prop- 
erty been  held  more  inviolable,  or  life  more 
sacred,  than  in  California  for  the  last  twelve 
or  fourteen  months."  (Editorial,  April  20.) 
"  Is  it  strange,  then,  that  this  feeling  of  self- 
reliance  should  be  so  strong  and  broad- 


cast in  the  land  ?  With  a  country  so  rich  in 
resources — so  blest  in  a  people  to  manage 
it — the  future  destiny  of  California  is  one  of 
the  sublimest  subjects  for  contemplation 
that  can  be  presented  to  the  mind."  (Id,) 
All  this  sublimity  is,  of  course,  quite  consist- 
ent with  occasional  items  about  affrays  and 
robberies  of  a  somewhat  primitive  sort  here 
and  there  in  the  sublime  country ;  but  such 
things  do  not  decrease  one's  rapture.  Sure- 
ly "in  that  dawn  'twas  bliss  to  be  alive,"  and 
Mr.  Ewer  and  Mr.  Fitch  were  the  generous 
youth  to  whom  "to  be  young  was  heaven." 
In  such  a  good  humor  one  finds,  of  course, 
time  to  write  glowing  accounts  of  the  won- 
drously  good  society  of  Sacramento,  of  the 
great  ball  that  thosecharming  belles  attended; 
that  ball  whose  character  was  so  select  that 
every  gentleman  had  to  send  in  beforehand 
to  the  committee  his  application  for  tickets 
for  himself  and  for  the  fair  lady  whom  he  in- 
tended to  take,  and  had  to  buy  a  separate, 
presumably  non-transferable,  ticket  for  her ; 
the  ball  whose  brilliancy  and  high  character, 
when  the  great  evening  came,  surprised  even 
Mr.  Ewer,  in  this  delightful  wilderness  of  the 
Sacramento  valley.  Nor  in  such  a  period 
does  one  forget  the  fine  arts  of  music  and 
poetry.  One's  heaven- favored  city  is  visited 
by  Henri  Herz,  indubitably  the  greatest  of 
living  pianists,  "  every  lineament "  of  whose 
face  "  marks  the  genius,"  and  who  is  there- 
fore comparable  in  this  respect  to  Daniel 
Webster,  to  Keats,  to  Beethoven,  and  to 
Longfellow  (see  the  "  Transcript,"  of  April 
20).  Herz  plays  the  sublimest  of  music  to 
an  enraptured  audience:  "The  Last  Rose 
of  Summer,"  "  The  Carnival  of  Venice,"  and, 
greatest  of  all,  his  own  grand  "  Voyage  Mu- 
sicale,"  actually  a  medley  of  national  songs, 
with  passages  of  his  own  composition,  illus- 
trating the  Rhine,  the  castles,  the  sunny  vales 
of  Bohemia,  the  Napoleonic  wars,  a  storm 
at  sea,  and  other  similarly  obvious  and  fa- 
miliar experiences,  even  on  unto  his  "  Cali- 
fornia Polka,"  wherewith  he  concludes  !  It 
is  divine,  this  artistic  experience,  and  the 
story  of  it  fills  columns  of  the  generous  little 
paper.  Furthermore,  one  writes  even  son- 
nets, and  having  first  printed  them,  one  later 


232 


The  Squatter  Riot  of  '50  in  Sacramento. 


[Sept. 


finds  occasion  to  quote  them  one's  self,  since 
after  all,  one's  own  newspaper  is  a  good  place 
to  be  quoted  in.  The  intellectual  life  of 
Sacramento  is  thus  at  the  highest  point. 
What  shall  such  a  community  fear  ? 

As  for  the  "  Placer  Times,"  that  paper,  a 
little  later,  calls  attention  to  the  stability  of 
Sacramento  conditions.  San  Francisco  is  a 
restless  place,  but  for  Sacramento,  the  spec- 
ulative era  is  past.  Solid  business,  perma- 
nent and  steady  growth,  now  begin.  All 
this,  you  must  remember,  is  in  the  Spring  of 
'50.  The  whole  picture  is  really  an  enchant- 
ing one  ;  and  only  a  churl  could  fail  to  feel 
a  quickened  pulse-throb  when  he  reads  these 
generous  and  innocent  outbursts  of  splendid 
courage  in  both  the  newspapers.  Here  is 
energy,  high  aim,  appreciation  of  every  hint 
at  things  beautiful  and  good  ;  here  is  every 
element  of  promise,  save  any  assurance  of 
real  steadfastness  and  wisdom.  Are  these 
qualities  truly  present  ?  For  the  trial  is  com- 
ing, and  by  another  year  these  two  papers 
will  be  as  realistic  and  commonplace  as  you 
please.  Will  their  purposes  and  those  of  the 
community  gain  in  wisdom  and  in  tried  pur- 
ity what  they  must  lose  of  the  bloom  and 
beauty  of  a  childlike  delight  in  novelty  ? 

III. 

ON  April  23,  1850,  there  appears  in  the 
"  Transcript,"  for  the  first  time,  an  advertise- 
ment that  announces  as  "just  published," 
and  now  for  sale,  a  "translation  of  the  papers 
respecting  the  grant  made  by  Governor  Al- 
varado  to  '  Mr.  Augustus  Sutler,'  showing 
that  said  grant  does  not  extend  any  further 
south  than  the  mouth  of  Feather  river,  and, 
therefore,  of  course,  does  not  embrace  Sac- 
ramento City."  This  document  could  be 
bought  for  fifty  cents.  I  have  never  seen  the 
pamphlet  itself,  which  contained  some  com- 
ments that  would  now  have  much  interest ; 
but  the  course  of  its  argument,  at  all  events 
when  taken  together  with  the  other  popular 
squatter  talk  of  the  time,  is  made  plain  by 
subsequent  discussions  in  the  newspapers. 
John  Sutler,  the  squatters  intend  to  show, 
has  no  claim,  save,  of  course,  as  squalter 


himself,  to  the  land  on  which  Sacramento  is 
built.  Fremont  found  him  here  ;  but  then 
he  was,  for  all  that,  just  a  squatter.  For,  be- 
hold, what  becomes  of  his  boasted  grant, 
when  you  turn  a  keen  American  eye  upon  it  ? 
In  the  first  place,  it  is  incomplete,  since  no 
evidence  is  produced  that  the  central  gov- 
ernment in  Mexico  ever  sanctioned  it.  Fur- 
thermore, it  is  informal,  if  you  will  insist 
upon  legal  technicalities  at  all.  For  we  will 
let  land  speculators  have  all  the  law  that 
they  want,  if  it  is  law  thai  ihey  are  talking 
about.  The  grant  is  to  "  Mr.  Augustus  Sut- 
ter."  Is  that  the  Sutter  known  to  us  as  the 
great  captain  ?  Still  mere,  the  grant  is  with- 
in a  tract  that  is  to  have  Feather  river  for  ils 
eastern  boundary.  Is  ihe  Fealher  river  east 
of  Sacramenlo  ?  Yet  again,  the  grant  is  es- 
pecially framed  to  exclude  land  overflowed 
in  winler.  Let  the  land  speculalors,  who 
were  lately  driven  off  their  precious  posses- 
sions by  the  flood,  read  and  ponder  this  pro- 
vision. Can  you  float  in  boats  over  a  grant 
that  is  carefully  worded  to  exclude  the  over- 
flowed tracis  near  the  river?  Best  of  all, 
however,  is  the  evidence  of  figures  that  can- 
not lie.  Suiter's  grant  is  not  only  too  in- 
formal and  ill-defined,  but  it  is  also  far  too 
formal  and  well-defined  to  afford  the  specu- 
lators any  shadow  of  excuse  for  their  claims. 
For  the  latitude  of  the  tract  granted  is  limit- 
ed by  the  outside  boundaries  recorded  in  the 
document.  The  southern  boundary  is,  how- 
ever, expressly  staled  as  latitude  38°  41'  32" 
And  this  parallel  is  some  miles  north  of  the 
city,  crossing  the  Sacramento  river,  in  fact, 
not  far  above  its  junction  with  the  Feather. 
This  is  conclusive.  The  inalienable  righls 
of  man  are  no  longer  to  be  resisted  by 
means  of  such  a  title  as  this  one.  The  pub- 
lic domain  is  free  to  all.  And  Sacramento 
is  obviously  upon  the  public  domain. 

Such  was  the  contention  for  which  this 
pamphlet  undertook  to  state  the  basis.  Many 
a  man  has  heard  the  old  slory  repealed  in 
lawsuits  occurring  years  after  that  time. 
Early  in  ihe  sevenlies  ihe  California  Supreme 
Courl  Decisions  conlain  a  selllement  on 
appeal  of  a  suit  in  which  the  appellant,  resist- 
ing a  title  in  the  cily  of  Sacramenlo  derived 


1885.] 


The  Squatter  Riot  oj  '50  in  Sacramento. 


233 


from  the  Sutter  grant,  has  managed  still, 
after  all  State  and  national  decisions,  to  pre- 
sent as  a  forlorn  hope  the  old  argument 
about  the  latitudes.  The  argument  is,  of 
course,  at  that  date,  promptly  rejected,  but 
one  watches  with  interest  the  reptilian  ten- 
acity of  its  venomous  life.  The  whole  case 
had  received,  as  late  as  I864,1  the  honor  of  re- 
statement in  the  records  of  the  United  States 
Supreme  Court,  by  the  help  of  Attorney- 
General  Black,  who  never  missed  an  oppor- 
tunity of  abusing  a  Californian  Land  Grant 
title.  The  Court,  indeed,  had  failed  to  rec- 
ognize the  force  of  the  argument. 

And  yet,  even  in  1850,  this  chain  of  squat- 
ter reasoning  seems,  as  one  reads  it,  to  ex- 
press rather  a  genuine  American  humor  than 
any  sincere  opinion  of  anybody's.  It  is  so 
plain  that  the  squatter,  annoyed  by  the  show 
of  legal  right  made  by  the  other  side,  has 
determined,  in  a  fit  of  half-amused  vexation, 
to  give  the  "  speculators  "  all  the  law  they 
want,  "hot  and  heavy."  It  is  so  plain,  too, 
that  what  he  really  means  is  to  assert  his 
right  to  make  game  of  any  Mexican  title, 
and  to  take  up  land  wherever  he  wants  it. 
For  every  item  of  his  contention  is  a  mere 
quibble,  which  would  have  been  harmless 
enough,  no  doubt,  in  court  proceedings,  but 
which  at  such  a  moment,  when  urged  with  a 
view  to  disturbing  the  public  mind  of  an  es- 
tablished community,  could  easily  become  a 
very  dangerous  incitement  to  disorder  and 
violence.  Every  Californian  land  title  had, 
of  course,  to  be  interpreted,  with  reference 
to  the  conditions  under  which  it  was  given. 
Substantial  rights  could  "not  be  left  at  the 
mercy  of  quibbles  about  matters  of  detail.  A 
bonafide  grant  to  Sutter,  intended  to  include 
his  "establishment  at  New  Helvetia,"  could 
not  be  ignored  because  its  boundaries  were 
awkwardly  described,  nor  because  a  surveyor, 
with  poor  and  primitive  instruments,  had 
blundered  about  the  latitude  both  of  the 
northern  and  of  the  southern  boundary,  after 
Slitter's  petition  had  described  both  of  them 
with  sufficient  clearness  by  the  natural  land- 
marks. Nobody,  for  instance,  could  have 
pretended  that  by  Suiter's  Buttes,  the  "  Tres 

1  U.  S.  Reports,  2  Wallace,  575. 


Picas"  of  the  grant,  must  be  meant  some 
imaginary  point  out  in  the  plains  to  the 
north,  merely  because  the  surveyor,  Vioget, 
had  erred  about  the  latitude  of  the  peaks, 
so  that  the  grant  put  them  just  north  of  the 
northern  outside  boundary,  while  the  line 
of  latitude  named  for  that  boundary  actu- 
ally ran  north  of  those  familiar  landmarks 
themselves.  The  Tres  Picas  formed  an  evi- 
dence of  the  true  northern  boundary  of  the 
tract  in  question,  that  was  worth  far  more 
than  Vioget's  figures  ;  for  the  peaks  are  vis- 
ible, and  the  lines  of  latitude  are  "  merely 
conventional  signs,"  after  all.  The  figures 
did  in  fact  lie,  and  Vioget  at  this  time,  so 
soon  as  the  trouble  had  begun,  frankly  con- 
fessed his  old  error,  in  an  affidavit  signed  by 
him  at  San  Francisco.  There  had  been  a 
constant  error  in  latitude  in  his  work,  he 
averred,  arid  by  the  southern  boundary  in 
latitude  38°  41'  32"  he  had  meant  "  the  es- 
timated latitude  of  a  point  of  land  on  the 
east  bank  of  the  Sacramento  river,  on  the 
high  ground  south  of  the  lagunas,  below  a 
town  now  called  Sutter,  and  distant  about 
four  and  one  half  miles  in  a  southerly  di- 
rection from  Sutler's  fort."2  As  for  the  argu- 
ment about  the  exclusion  of  the  overflowed 
lands,  that  capped  the  climax  of  the  squatter 
humor.  The  flood  was,  indeed,  a  land-spec- 
ulator whom  no  one  could  gainsay,  and  to 
its  writs  of  ejectment  nobody  made  succes- 
cessful  resistance.  But  then,  if  one  calls  his 
beloved  tract  of  firm  land  swamp-land,  be- 
cause a  great  flood  has  driven  him  from  it, 
one  is  understood  to  be  amusing  himself 
with  hard  words. 

Here,  then,  was  the  outer  armor  in  which 
the  squatter  doctrine  encased  ilself.  Ils  in- 
ner life  was  a  very  different  thing.  "  Captain 
Sutter,"  said  a  squatter  correspondent  of  the 
"Placer  Times,"  "settles  this  question  him- 
self, by  plainly  declaring  wilh  his  own  lips 
that  he  has  no  tide  to  this  place,  but  he  hopes 
Congress  will  give  him  one."  These  words 
of  the  correspondent  are  false  on  their  face, 
but  they  express  truthfully  enough  the  spirit 
of  the  squatter  contention.*  Sutter  "has"  in- 

2  "  Transcript"  for  June  8;  see  also  "  Placer  Times  " 
of  the  same  date. 


234 


The  Squatter  Riot  of  '50  in  Sacramento. 


[Sept. 


deed,  as  yet,  no  patent  from  the  United  States, 
and  he  "  hopes  "  that  Congress  will  pass  some 
law  that  will  protect  his  right  to  his  land.  So 
much  is  true.  But  when  a  squatter  inter- 
prets Suiter's  position  as  this  correspondent 
does,  he  plainly  means  that  there  are  at  pres- 
ent no  legally  valid  Mexican  land  titles  in 
the  country,  since  Congress,  the  representa- 
tive of  the  conquering  power,  has  so  far 
passed  no  law  confirming  those  titles.  The 
squatter  wants,  then,  to  make  out  that  Mex- 
ican land  grants,  or  at  the  very  least,  all  in 
any  wise  imperfect  or  informal  grants,  have 
in  some  fashion  lapsed  with  the  conquest; 
and  that  in  a  proper  legal  sense  the  owners 
of  these  grants  are  no  better  than  squatters 
themselves,  unless  Congress  shall  do  what 
they  "  hope"  and  shall  pass  some  act  to  give 
them  back  the  land  that  they  used  to  own 
before  the  conquest.  That  the  squatters 
somehow  held  this  strange  idea  about  the 
grants,  is  to  my  mind  pretty  plain.  The  big 
Mexican  grant  was  to  them  obviously  an  un- 
American  institution,  a  creation  of  a  be- 
nighted people.  What  was  the  good  of  the 
conquest,  if  it  did  not  make  our  enlightened 
American  ideas  paramount  in  the  country  ? 
Unless,  then,  Congress,  by  some  freak,  should 
restore  to  these  rapacious  speculators  their 
old  benighted  legal  status,  they  would  have 
no  land.  Meanwhile,  of  course,  the  settlers 
were  to  be  as  well  off  as  the  others.  So  their 
thoughts  ran. 

Intelligent  men  could  hold  this  view  only 
in  case  they  had  already  deliberately  deter- 
mined that  the  new-coming  population,  as 
such,  ought  to  have  the  chief  legal  rights  in 
the  country.  This  view  was,  after  all,  a 
very  obvious  one.  Providence,  you  see,  and 
manifest  destiny  were  understood  in  those 
days  to  be  on  our  side,  and  absolutely  op- 
posed to  the  base  Mexican.  To  Providence 
the  voyagers  on  the  way  to  California  had 
appealed  at  Panama,  when  they  called  on 
General  Persifer  Smith  to  make  his  famous 
proclamation,  excluding  foreigners  from  the 
Californian  mines.  "  Providence,"  they  in  ef- 
fect declared,  "Tias  preserved  the  treasures 
of  those  gold  fields  all  through  these  years  of 
priestcraft  and  ignorance  in  California,  for 


us  Americans.  Let  the  government  protect 
us  now."1  Providence  is  known  to  be  op- 
posed to  every  form  of  oppression;  and 
grabbing  eleven  leagues  of  land  is  a  great 
oppression.  And  so  the  worthlessness  of 
Mexican  land  titles  is  evident. 

Of  course,  the  squatters  would  have  dis- 
claimed very  generally  so  naked  a  statement 
as  this  of  their  position.  But  when  we  read 
in  one  squatter's  card2  that  "surely  Suiter's 
grant  does  not  enlitle  to  a  monopoly  of  all 
ihe  lands  in  California,  which  were  purchased 
by  ihe  Ireasure  of  the  whole  nation,  and  by 
no  small  amount  of  the  best  blood  thai  ever 
coursed  or  ran  through  American  veins,"  ihe 
same  writer's  formal  assurance  that  Sutler 
ought  lo  have  his  eleven  leagues  whenever 
Ihey  can  be  found  and  duly  surveyed,  cannot 
blind  us  to  the  true  spirit  of  the  argument 
What  has  this  "  best  blood"  to  do  with  the 
Sutler  granl  ?  The  connection  in  the  writ- 
er's mind  is  only  too  obvious.  He  means  that 
the  "  besl  blood  "  won  for  us  a  righl  lo  har- 
ass great  land  owners.  In  another  of  these 
expressions  of  squaller  opinion  I  have  found 
the  assertion  that  the  land  speculators  stand 
on  a  supposed  old  Mexican  legal  right  of 
such  as  themselves  to  take  up  the  whole  ter- 
ritory of  California,  in  sections  of  eleven 
leagues  each,  by  some  sort  of  Mexican  pre- 
emption. If  a  squaller  persists  in  under- 
slanding  ihe  land  owners'  posilion  in  this 
way,  his  contempl  for  il  is  as  nalural  as  his 
wilful  determination  lo  make  game  of  all 
nalive  Californian  claims  is  obvious. 

Bui  possibly  ihe  squatlers  would  nol  have 
shown,  and  in  fact  would  not  have  develop- 
ed, their  doctrine  as  fully  as  they  in  the  end 
did,  had  not  events  hastened  on  a  crisis 
With  mere  argument  no  squatter  was  con- 
tent. He  was  a  squatler,  nol  because  he 
Iheorelically  assailed  Suller's  lille,  but  be- 
cause he  actually  squalled  on  land  lhat  be- 
longed to  somebody  else.  In  order  to  do 
this  successfully,  the  squatters  combined  into 
a  "Setllers'  Association."  They  employed  a 
surveyor,  and  issued  to  their  members  "squat- 
ter-titles," which  were  simply  receipts  given, 

1  See  the  "  Panama  Star,"  in  the  early  part  of  '49. 

2  "Transcript,"  June  21,  1850. 


1885J 


The  Squatter  Riot  of  '50  in  Sacramento. 


235 


by  the  surveyor,  who  was  also  recorder  of 
the  Association,  each  certifying  that  A.  B. 
had  paid  the  regular  fee  for  the  mapping  out 
of  a  certain  vacant  lot  of  land,  40  x  160,  with- 
in the  limits  of  the  town  of  Sacramento.  The 
receipts  have  the  motto,  "The  public  domain 
is  free  to  all."1  The  Association  announced 
its  readiness  to  insist,  by  its  combined  force, 
upon  the  rights  of  its  members. 

A  member,  who  has  already  been  quoted, 
wrote  to  the  "  Placer  Times,"  that  "  with  the 
Sutter  men  there  has  been  and  is  now  money 
and  power,  and  some  of  them  are  improving 
every  opportunity  to  trouble  and  oppress 
the  peaceable,  hard-working,  order-loving,  and 
law-abiding  settler,  which,  in  the  absence  of 
the  mass  of  the  people  in  the  mines,  they  do 
with  comparative  impunity."  The  italics  are 
his  own.  The  letter  concluded  with  an  as- 
surance that  the  settlers  were  organized  to 
maintain  what  "  country,  nature,  and  God  " 
had  given  to  them.  The  mention  of  the 
"  absence  of  the  people  in  the  mines  "  is  very 
characteristic  of  the  purposes  of  the  squat- 
ters ;  and  the  reference  to  "  country,  nature, 
and  God  "  illustrates  once  more  the  spirit  of 
the  movement. 

As  for  this  "  absence  of  the  people,"  the 
squatters  plainly  hoped  for  much  in  the  way 
of  actual  aid  from  the  mining  population, 
whenever  it  should  return  for  another  rainy 
season.  That  system  of  land-tenure  which 
was  so  healthful  in  the  mining  districts, 
where  things  went  on  as  Mr.  Charles  Shinn 
has  recently  so  well  described  in  his  "  Min- 
ing Camps,"  was  not  just  the  best  school  for 
teaching  a  proper  respect  in  the  presence  of 
Mexican  land  grants.  Fremont's  later  ex- 
perience in  the  matter  of  the  Mariposa  grant 
proved  that  clearly  enough.  And  not  only 
the  miners,  but  also  the  newly  arriving  emi- 
grants, were  expected  to  help  the  squatter  in- 
terest, and  to  overwhelm  the  speculators.  In 
an  editorial  on  squatterism,  the  "Placer 
Times  "x  expressed  not -ill-founded  fears,  as 
follows  :  "  Reckless  of  all  principle,"  it  said, 
the  squatters  "  have  determined  to  risk  all 
hopes  upon  the  chances  of  an  immediate  and 

1  "  Placer  Times,"  June  7th. 
1  Weekly  edition,  June  agth. 


combined  effort,  as  upon  the  hazard  of  a 
die."  They  hope,  the  editorial  continued, 
to  overcome  all  resistance  for  the  moment, 
and  to  get  the  land.  Then  they  will  have  a 
colorable  show  of  title  ;  surveys  and  associ- 
ated action  of  other  sorts  will  make  the  thing 
look  formal;  and  there  will  be  the  law's  de- 
lay. Then  the  immigration  of  strangers  from 
the  plains  will  come  in  with  the  autumn,  un- 
disciplined by  our  system,  untutored  by  our 
customs,  ignorant  of  our  laws,  and  wholly 
actuated  by  a  desire  for  rapid  and  enlarged 
accumulation."  These  will  finish  the  mis- 
chief. "Through  their  thronging  ranks  the 
apostles  of  squatterism  "  will  "  penetrate  far 
and  wide,  disseminating  radical  and  subver- 
sive doctrines,  and  contending  for  an  indis- 
criminate ownership  of  property  by  the 
whole  people,  qualified  only  by  a  right  of 
possession  in  the  actual  possessor."  The  ed- 
itor, of  course,  considered  a  conflict  immi- 
nent when  he  wrote  these  words.  And 
what  makes  me  think  his  notion  of  the  sig- 
nificance of  the  squatter  movement  correct, 
is,  in  addition  to  what  has  been  mentioned 
above,  the  fact  that  the  squatters  continued 
to  assert  their  claims  more  and  more  violent- 
ly and  publicly  from  this  time  till  the  end," 
but  never  took  any  pains  to  allay  the  very 
natural  alarm  that  they  had  thus  aroused  as 
to  their  true  intentions.  The  movement 
was  plainly  an  agragrian  and  ultra-American 
movement,  opposed  to  all  great  land  own- 
ers, and  especially  to  all  these  Mexican 
grantees. 

The  appeal  quoted  above,  to  "nature, 
country,  and  God,"  is  also,  as  I  have  Said, 
characteristic  of  the  spirit  of  the  movement. 
The  writer  of  the  letter  in  question  is  very 
probably  no  other  than  the  distinguished 
squatter-leader,  Doctor  Charles  Robinson 
himself,  a  man  to  whom  the  movement  seems 
to  have  owed  nearly  all  its  ability.  And 
when  we  speak  of  Doctor  Robinson,  we  have 
to  do  with  no  insignificant  demagogue  or  un- 
principled advocate  of  wickedness,  but  with 
a  high-minded  and  conscientious  man,  who 
chanced  just  then  to  be  in  the  devil's  ser- 
vice, but  who  served  the  devil  honestly, 
thoughtfully,  and,  so  far  as  he  could,  duti- 


236 


The  Squatter  Riot  of  '50  in  Sacramento. 


[Sept. 


fully,  believing  him  to  be  an  angel  of  light. 
This  future  Free-Soil  governor  of  Kansas, 
this  cautious,  clear-headed,  and  vigorous  anti- 
slavery  champion  of  the  troublous  days  be- 
fore the  war,  who  has  since  survived  so  many 
bitter  quarrels  with  old  foes  and  old  friends, 
to  enjoy,  now  at  last,  his  peaceful  age  at  his 
home  in  Lawrence,  Kansas,  is  not  a  man 
of  whom  one  may  speak  with  contempt, 
however  serious  his  error  in  Sacramento  may 
seem.  He  was  a  proper  hero  for  this  tragic 
comedy,  and  "  nature,  country,  and  God " 
were  his  guiding  ideals.  Only  you  must 
understand  the  character  that  these  slightly 
vague  ideals  seem  to  have  assumed  in  his 
mind.  He  was  a  newcomer  of  '49,  and 
hailed  from  Fitchburg,  Massachusetts.  He 
was  a  college  graduate,  had  studied  medicine, 
had  afterwards  rebelled  against  the  techni- 
calities of  the  code  of  his  local  association, 
and  had  become  an  independent  practi- 
tioner. His  friends  and  interests,  as  his  whole 
subsequent  career  showed,  were  with  the 
party  of  the  cultivated  New  England  Radi- 
cals of  that  day.  And  these  cultivated  Rad- 
icals of  the  anti-slavery  generation,  and  es- 
pecially of  Massachusetts,  were  a  type  in 
which  an  impartial  posterity  will  take  a  huge 
delight;  for  they  combined  so  characteristic- 
ally shrewdness,  insight,  devoutness,  vanity, 
idealism,  and  self-worship.  To  speak  of 
them,  of  course,  in  the  rough,  and  as  a  mass, 
not  distinguishing  the  leaders  from  the  rank 
and  file,  nor  blaspheming  the  greater  names, 
they  were  usually  believers  in  quite  abstract 
ideals  ;  men  who  knew  how  to  meet  God  "  in 
the  •bush "  whenever  they  wanted,  and  so 
avoided  him  in  the  mart  and  the  crowded 
street;  men  who  had  "dwelt  cheek  by  jowl, 
since  the  day "  they  were  "  born,  with  the 
Infinite  Soul,"  and  whose  relations  with  him 
were  like  those  of  any  man  with  his  own  pri- 
vate property.  This  Infinite  that  they  wor- 
shiped was,  however,  in  his  relations  to  the 
rest  of  the  world,  too  often  rather  abstract,  a 
Deus  absconditus,  who  was  as  remote  from  the 
imperfections  and  absurdities  of  the  individ- 
ual laws  and  processes  of  human  society,  as 
he  was  near  to  the  hearts  of  his  chosen  wor- 
shipers. From  him  they  got  a  so-called 


Higher  Law.  As  it  was  ideal,  and,  like  its 
author,  very  abstract,  it  was  far  above  the 
erring  laws  of  men,  and  it  therefore  relieved 
its  obedient  servants  from  all  entangling 
earthly  allegiances.  If  the  constitution  upon 
which  our  sinful  national  existence  depended, 
and  upon  which  our  only  hope  of  better 
things  also  depended,  was  contradicted  by 
this  Higher  Law,  then  the  constitution  was 
a  "league  with  hell,"  and  anybody  could  set 
up  for  himself,  and  he  and  the  Infinite 
might  carry  on  a  government  of  their  own. 

These  Radicals  were,  indeed,  of  the  great- 
est value  to  our  country.  To  a  wicked  and 
corrupt  generation  they  preached  the  gospel 
of  a  pure  idealism  fervently  and  effectively. 
If  our  generation  does  not  produce  just  such 
men,  it  is  because  the  best  men  of  our  time 
have  learned  from  them,  and  have  absorbed 
their  fervent  and  lofty  idealism  into  a  less 
abstract  and  a  yet  purer  doctrine.  The  true 
notion,  as  we  all,  of  course,  have  heard,  is, 
that  there  is  an  ideal  of  personal  and  social 
perfection  far  above  our  natural  sinful  ways, 
but  not  on  that  account  to  be  found  or 
served  by  separating  ourselves,  or  our  lives, 
or  our  private  judgments,  from  the  social 
order,  nor  by  rebelling  against  this  whole 
frame  of  human  error  and  excellence.  This 
divine  ideal  is  partly  and  haltingly  realized 
in  just  these  erring  social  laws — for  instance, 
in  the  land  laws  of  California — and  we  have 
to  struggle  in  and  for  the  actual  social  order, 
and  cannot  hope  to  reach  the  divine  by  sulk- 
ing in  the  bush,  nor  by  crying  in  the  streets 
about  our  private  and  personal  Higher  Law, 
nor  by  worshiping  any  mere  abstraction. 
That  patient  loyalty  to  the  actual  social  or- 
der is  the  great  reformer's  first  duty  ;  that  a 
service  of  just  this  erring  humanity,  with  its 
imperfect  and  yet  beautiful  system  of  delicate 
and  highly  organized  relationships,  is  the 
best  service  that  a  man  can  render  to  the 
Ideal;  that  he  is  the  best  idealist  who  casts 
away  as  both  unreal  and  unideal  the  vain  pri- 
vate imaginings  of  his  own  weak  brain,  when- 
ever he  catches  a  glimpse  of  any  higher  and 
wider  truth:  all  this  lesson  we,  like  other 
peoples  and  generations,  have  to  study  and 
learn.  The  Transcendentalists,  by  their  very 


1885.] 


The  Squatter  Riot  of  '50  in  Sacramento. 


237 


extravagances,  have  helped  us  towards  this 
goal ;  but  we  must  be  pardoned  if  we  learn 
from  them  with  some  little  amusement.  For 
when  we  are  amused  at  them,  we  are  amused 
at  ourselves,  since  only  by  these  very  extrav- 
agances in  our  own  experience  do  we  ever 
learn  to  be  genuine  and  sensible  idealists. 

Well,  Dr.  Robinson,  also,  had  evidently 
learned  much,  in  his  own  way,  from  teachers 
of  this  school.  The  complex  and  wearisome 
details  of  Spanish  Law  plainly  do  not  interest 
him,  since  he  is  at  home  in  the  divine  High- 
er Law.  Concrete  rights  of  rapacious  land 
speculators  in  Sacramento  are  unworthy  of 
the  attention  of  one  who  sees  so  clearly  into 
the  abstract  rights  of  Man.  God  is  not  in 
the  Suiter  grant,  that  is  plain.  It  is  the 
mission  of  the  squatters  to  introduce  the 
divine  justice  into  California  :  no  absurd  jus- 
tice that  depends  upon  erroneous  lines  of 
latitude,  and  establishments  at  New  Helve- 
tia, and  other  like  blundering  details  of  dark 
Spanish  days,  but  the  justice  that  can  be  ex- 
pressed in  grand  abstract  formulse,  and  that 
will  hear  of  no  less  arbiter  than  the  United 
States  Supreme  Court  at  the  very  nearest, 
and  is  quite  independent  of  local  courts  and 
processes. 

For  the  rest,  Dr.  Robinson  added  to  his 
idealism  the  aforesaid  Yankee  shrewdness, 
and  to  his  trust  in  God  considerable  ingenu- 
ity in  raising  funds  to  keep  the  squatter  asso- 
ciation at  work.  He  wrote  well  and  spoke 
well.  He  was  thoroughly  in  earnest,  and 
his  motives  seem  to  me  above  any  suspicion 
of  personal  greed.  He  made  out  of  this 
squatter  movement  a  thing  of  real  power, 
and  was,  for  the  time,  a  very  dangerous  man. 

Thus  led  and  moved,  the  squatter  associ- 
tion  might  easily  have  become  the  center  of 
a  general  revolutionary  movement  of  the 
sort  above  described.  All  depended  on  the 
tact  of  the  Sacramento  community  in  deal- 
ing with  it.  If  the  affair  came  to  open  blood- 
shed, the  public  sentiment  aroused  would 
depend  very  much  upon  where  the  fault  of 
the  first  violence  was  judged  to  lie.  The 
mass  of  people  throughout  the  State  looked 
on  such  quarrels,  so  long  as  they  avoided 
open  warfare,  with  a  mixture  of  amusement, 


vexation,  and  indifference.  Amusement  they 
felt  in  watching  any  moderate  quarrel ;  vex- 
ation they  felt  with  all  these  incomprehensi- 
ble land  grants,  that  covered  so  much  good 
land  and  made  so  many  people  trip ;  .and 
indifference  largely  mingled  with  it  all,  at  the 
thought  of  home,  and  of  the  near  fortune 
that  would  soon  relieve  the  average  Califor- 
nian  from  all  the  accursed  responsibilities  of 
this  maddening  and  fascinating  country.  But 
should  the  "  land  speculators  "  seem  the  ag- 
gressors, should  the  squatters  come  to  be 
looked  upon  as  an  oppressed  band  of  hon- 
est poor  men,  beaten  and  murdered  by  high- 
handed and  greedy  men  of  wealth,  then  Rob- 
inson might  become  a  hero,  and  the  squat- 
ter movement,  under  his  leadership,  might 
have  the  whole  sympathetic  American  pub- 
lic at  its  back,  and  the  consequences  we  can 
hardly  estimate. 

How  did  the  community,  as  represented 
by  its  generous-hearted  papers,  meet  the  cri- 
sis? Both  these  newspapers  of  Sacramento 
were,  as  the  reader  sees,  editorially  opposed 
to  the  squatters.  They  bandied  back  and 
forth  accusations  of  lukewarmness  in  this 
opposition.  But  in  July  the  "Transcript," 
not  formally  changing  its  attitude,  still  began 
to  give  good  reason  for  the  accusation  that 
it  was  a  little  disposed  to  favor  squatterism. 
For,  while  it  entirely  ceased  editorial  com- 
ment, it  began  to  print  lengthy  and  very 
readable  accounts  of  the  squatter  meetings, 
thus  giving  the  squatters  just  the  help  with 
the  disinterested  public  that  they  desired, 
and  preparing  for  the  historical  student  some 
amusing  material.  By  the  beginning  of  July 
the  arguments  were  all  in ;  the  time  for  free 
abuse  and  vigorous  action  had  come.  Yet 
it  is  just  then  that  this  paper,  whose  motives 
were  but  yesterday  so  pure  and  lofty,  shows 
much  more  of  its  good  humor  than  of  its 
wisdom,  and  so  actually  abets  the  squatter- 
movement. 

IV. 

THE  reader  needs  at  this  point  no  assur- 
ance that  the  quarrel  was  quite  beyond  any 
chance  of  timely  settlement  by  an  authorita- 
tive trial  of  the  Sutler  title  itself.  Such  a 


238 


The  Squatter  Riot  of  '50  m  Sacramento. 


[Sept. 


trial  was,  of  course,  just  what  the  squatters 
themselves  were  anxious  to  await.  It  was 
on  the  impossibility  of  any  immediate  and 
final  judicial  settlement  that  their  whole 
movement  depended.  Mr.  William  Carey 
Jones's  famous  report  on  California  Land 
Titles  reached  the  State  only  during  the  very 
time  of  this  controversy.  Congress  had,  as 
yet,  made  no  provision  for  the  settlement 
of  California  Land  Claims.  The  Supreme 
Court  was  a  great  way  off;  hence  the  vehe- 
mence and  the  piety  of  squatter  appeals  to 
God  and  the  Supreme  Court.  Regular  set- 
tlement being  thus  out  of  the  question,  some 
more  summary  process  was  necessary  to  pro- 
tect the  rights  of  land-owners.  In  the  first 
session  of  the  State  Legislature,  which  had 
taken  place  early  in  this  year,  the  landed  in- 
terest seems  to  have  been  fairly  strong,  ap- 
parently by  virtue  of  certain  private  compro- 
mises, which  one  can  trace  through  the  history 
of  the  Constitutional  Convention  at  Monte- 
rey, and  which  had  been  intended  both  to 
meet  the  political  exigencies  of  the  moment, 
and  to  further  the  personal  ambitions  of  two 
or  three  men.  The  result  had  been  the  es- 
tablishment in  California  of  a  procedure  al- 
ready known  elsewhere.  The  "Act  Con- 
cerning Unlawful  Entry  and  Forcible  De- 
tainer "  provided  a  summary  process  for 
ejecting  any  forcible  trespasser  upon  the 
land  of  a  previous  peaceable  occupant,  who 
had  himself  had  any  color  of  right.  This 
summary  process  was  not  to  be  resorted  to 
in  case  the  question  of  title  properly  entered 
into  the  evidence  introduced  in  defense  by- 
the  supposed  trespasser.  The  act,  therefore, 
was  especially  intended  to  meet  the  case  of 
the  naked  trespasser,  or  squatter,  who,  with- 
out pretense  of  title,  took  possession  of  land 
that  was  previously  in  the  peaceable  posses- 
sion of  anybody.  The  act  provided  for  his 
ejection,  with  the  addition  of  penalties  ;  and 
its  framers  had,  of  course,  no  intention  to 
make  it  any  substitute  for  a  judicial  deter- 
mination of  title. 

To  this  act  some  of  the  land  owners  of 
Sacramento  now  appealed  for  help.  More- 
over, as  they  were  in  control  of  the  city 
council,  they  proceeded  to  pass,  amid  the 


furious  protests  of  the  squatters,  a  munici- 
pal ordinance,  forbidding  any  one  to  erect 
tents,  or  shanties,  or  houses,  or  to  heap  lum- 
ber or  other  encumbrances,  upon  any  vacant 
lot  belonging  to  a  private  person,  or  upon 
any  public  street.  The  land  owners  also 
formed  a  "  Law  and  Order  Association," 
and  printed  in  the  papers  a  notice  of  their 
intention  to  defend  to  the  last  their  property 
under  the  Sutler  title.  They  began  to  drill 
companies  of  militia.  A  few  personal  en- 
counters took  place  in  various  vacant  lots, 
where  owners  tried  to^  prevent  the  erection 
of  fences  or  shanties.  Various  processes 
were  served  upon  squatters,  and  executed. 
The  squatterassociation  itself  plainly  suffered 
a  good  deal  from  the  internal  jealousies  or 
from  the  mutual  indifference  of  its  members. 
Only  the  ardor  of  Doctor  Robinson  prevent- 
ed an  utter  failure  of  its  organization  long 
before  the  crisis.  In  the  latter  part  of  June, 
and  for  some  time  in  July,  the  movement 
fell  into  the  background  of  public  attention. 
The  "  Transcript "  helped  it  but  again  into 
prominence.  But  the  squatters  themselves 
longed  for  a  newspaper  of  their  own,  and 
sent,  it  is  said,  for  a  press  and  type.  They 
were  accused,  meanwhile,  of  threats  to  fire 
the  town  in  case  their  cause  was  put  down. 
But,  after  all,  their  best  chance  of  immediate 
success  lay  in  raising  money  to  resist  the 
suits  brought  against  them ;  and  to  this 
course  Doctor  Robinson,  although  he  had 
conscientious  scruples  about  the  authority 
of  any  California  law,  urged  his  followers  as 
to  the  most  expedient  present  device.  At  a 
meeting  reported  in  the  "Transcript"  for 
July  zd,  one  squatter  objected  to  going  to 
law.  It  was  unnecessary,  he  said ;  for  this 
whole  thing  of  the  Sutler  title  was  illegal. 
He  was  answered  by  one  Mr.  Milligan,  to 
the  effect  that  the  object  was  to  keep  their 
enemies  at  bay  until  ihe  queslion  could  be 
broughl  before  a  legal  Iribunal,  where  justice 
could  be  done.  Mr.  Milligan  was  then  sent 
about  in  the  country  to  the  "  brother  squat- 
ters," who  were  so  numerous  near  Sacramen- 
to, for  subscriptions.  In  a  meeting  narrated 
in  the  "  Transcript"  for  July  4th,  he  reported 
imperfect  success.  Some  of  the  brethren 


1885.] 


The  Squatter  Riot  of  '50  in  Sacramento. 


239 


were  not  at  home;  one  told  the  story  about 
the  man  who  got  rich  by  minding  his  own 
business;  few  had  money  to  spare.  Doctor 
Robinson  had  some  reassuring  remarks  in 
reply  to  this  report,  and  Mr.  Milligan  him- 
self then  made  an  eloquent  speech.  "  The 
squatters  were  men  of  firmness  ;  their  cause 
had  reached  the  States ;  they  had  many 
hearty  sympathizers  on  the  Atlantic  shores." 
His  thoughts  became  yet  wider  in  their 
sweep,  as  he  dwelt  on  the  duty  of  never  yield- 
ing to  oppression.  "He  saw,  a  few  days  ago, 
a  crowd  of  Chinese  emigrants  in  this  land  ; 
he  hoped  to  be  able  to  send  through  these 
people  the  intelligence  to  the  Celestial  Em- 
pire that  the  Emperor  don't  own  all  the  land 
in  the  world,  and  so  he  hoped  the  light 
would  soon  shine  in  Calcutta — throughout 
India,  and  Bengal,  and  Botany  Bay,  and  lift 
up  the  cloud  of  moral  darkness  and  rank 
oppression."  This  Oriental  enthusiasm 
reads  very  delightfully  in  these  days,  and  is 
worth  preserving. 

By  the  time  of  the  meeting  of  July  24th, 
which  was  held  in  "  Herkimer  Hall,"  and 
was  reported  in  the  "Transcript "  of  the  25th, 
the  talk  was  a  little  less  world-embracing, 
and  the  feeling  keener.  Some  land  owners 
had  taken  the  law  into  their  own  hands,  and 
had  been  tearing  down  a  fence  erected  by 
squatters.  Doctor  Robinson  announced 
that  he  would  help  to  put  up  that  fence  next 
day,  whereupon  rose  one  Mr.  McClatchy. 
He  was  a  law-abiding  citizen,  but  would 
submit  to  no  injustice.  He  would  rath- 
er fight  than  collect  subscriptions,  any 
day.  If  land  owners  wanted  to  fight,  let 
them  fight,  and  the  devil  take  the  hindmost. 
"  Let  us  put  up  all  the  fences  pulled  down, 
and  let  us  put  up  all  the  men  who  pulled 
them  down."  This  last  suggestion  was  greet- 
ed with  great  applause  and  stamping. 

Doctor  Robinson  introduced  resolutions, 
declaring,  among  other  strong  words,  that  "  if 
the  bail  of  an  arrested  squatter  be  refused, 
simply  because  the  bondsman  is  not  a  land- 
holder under  Captain  Sutler,  we  shall  con- 
sider all  executions  issued  in  consequence 
thereof  as  acts  of  illegal  force,  and  shall  act 
accordingly."  In  urging  his  resolutions,  he 


pointed  out  how  the  land  speculators'  doc- 
trine about  land  grants  would  certainly  re- 
sult in  the  oppression  of  the  poor  man  all 
over  California.  "  Was  this  right  ?  Was  it 
a  blessing?  If  so,  Ireland  was  blessed,  and 
all  other  oppressed  countries.  Would  any 
Anglo-Saxon  endure  this  ?  The  Southern 
slave  was  not  worse  treated."  Doctor  Rob- 
inson dwelt  on  the  low  character  of  these 
speculators.  Look  at  the  Mayor,  at  the 
councilmen,  and  the  rest.  "There  were  no 
great  minds  among  them.  And  yet  these 
were  the  men  who  claimed  the  land.  Can 
such  men  be  men  of  principle  ?  "  He  thought 
that  "  we  should  abide  by  all  just  laws,  not 
unjust." 

Mr.  McClatchy  now  pointed  out  that  God's 
laws  were  above  man's  laws,  and  that  God 
gave  man  the  earth  for  his  heritage.  In 
this  instance,  however,  the  laws  of  our  own 
land,  whenever,  of  course,  we  could  appeal 
to  them  in  the  Supreme  Court,  were  surely 
on  our  side,  and  so  seconded  God's  law. 
"  If  the  land-holders,"  he  said,  winding  up 
his  philosophic  train  of  thought,  "act  as  they 
do,  we  shall  be  obliged  to  lick  'em." 

A  Mr.  Burke  was  proud  to  feel  that  by 
their  language  that  evening  they  had  already 
been  violating  those  city  ordinances  which 
forbade  assemblages  for  unlawful  ends.  "A 
fig  for  their  laws  ;  they  have  no  laws."  "  Mr. 
Burke,"  says  the  report,"  was  game  to  the 
last — all  fight — and  was  highly  applauded." 
The  resolutions  were  readily  adopted,  and 
the  meeting  adjourned  in  a  state  of  fine  en- 
thusiasm. 

In  the  second  week  of  August  a  case  un- 
der the  "  Unlawful  Entry  and  Forcible  De- 
tainer Act  "  came  before  the  County  Court, 
Willis,  Judge,  on  appeal  from  a  justice's 
court  of  the  city.  The  squatter's  association 
appealed,  on  the  ground  that  the  plaintiff  in 
the  original  suit  had  shown  no  true  title  to 
the  land.  The  justice  had  decided  that 
under  the  evidence  the  squatter  in  question 
was  a  naked  trespasser,  who  made  for  himself 
no  pretense  of  title,  and  that,  therefore,  in 
a  trial  under  the  act,  the  question  of  title 
had  not  properly  entered  as  part  of  the 
evidence  at  all.  The  appeal  was  made  from 


240 


The  Squatter  Riot  of  '50  in  Sacramento. 


[Sept. 


this  decision,  and  was  promptly  dismissed. 
The  squatters  were  furious.  Sutter  had  no 
title,  and  a  man  was  a  squatter  on  the  land 
for  just  that  reason ;  and  yet  when  the 
courts  were  appealed  to  for  help  in  sustain- 
ing the  settler,  they  thus  refused  to  hear  the 
grounds  of  his  plea,  and  proposed  to  eject 
him  as  a  trespasser.  Well,  the  United 
States  Courts  could  be  appealed  to  some 
time.  One  could  well  afford  to  wait  for 
them,  if  only  the  process  under  the  State 
act  could  be  stayed,  and  the  squatter  left  in 
peaceable  possession  meanwhile.  To  this 
end,  one  must  appeal  to  the  State  Supreme 
Court.  But  alas  !  Judge  Willis,  when  asked 
in  court,  after  he  had  rendered  decision,  for 
a  stay  of  proceedings  pending  appeal  to  the 
State  Supreme  Court,  replied,  somewhat  in- 
formally, in  conversation  with  the  attorneys, 
that  it  was  not  clear  to  him  whether  the  act 
in  question  or  any  other  law  permitted  ap- 
peal from  the  County  Court's  decision  in  a 
case  like  this.  He  took  the  matter  under 
advisement.  But  the  squatters  present,  in  a 
fit  of  rage,  misunderstood  the  Judge's  hes- 
itating remark.  They  rushed  from  the  court 
to  excited  meetings  outside,  and  spread 
abroad  the  news  that  Judge  Willis  had  not 
only  decided  against  them,  but  had  decided 
that  from  him  there  was  no  appeal.  Woe  to 
such  laws  and  to  such  judges!  The  law  be- 
trays us.  We  will  appeal  to  the  Higher  Law. 
The  processes  of  the  courts  shall  not  be 
served  ! 

Doctor  Robinson  was  not  unequal  to  the 
emergency.  At  once  he  sent  out  notices, 
calling  a  mass-meeting  of  "  squatters  and 
others  interested,"  to  take  place  the  same 
evening,  August  loth.  It  was  Saturday,  and 
when  night  came  a  large  crowd  of  squatters, 
of  land-owners,  and  of  idlers,  had  gathered. 
The  traditional  leisure  of  Saturday  night 
made  a  great  part  of  the  assembly  as  cheer- 
ful as  it  was  eager  for  novelty  and  interested 
in  this  affair.  Great  numbers  were  there  sim- 
ply to  see  fair  play ;  and  this  general  public, 
in  their  characteristically  American  good- 
humor,  were  quite  unwilling  to  recogni/e  any 
sort  of  seriousness  in  the  occasion.  These 
jolly  onlookers  interrupted  the  squatter  ora- 


tors, called  for  E.  J.  C.  Kewen  and  Sam 
Brannan  as  representatives  of  the  land-own- 
ers, listened  to  them  awhile,  interrupted 
them  when  the  thing  grew  tedious,  and  en- 
joyed the  utter  confusion  that  for  the  time 
reigned  on  the  platform.  At  length  the 
crowd  were  ready  for  Doctor  Robinson  and 
his  inevitable  resolutions.  He,  for  his  part, 
was  serious  enough.  He  had  been  a  mod- 
erate man,  he  said,  but  the  time  for  moder- 
ation was  past.  He  was  ready  to  have  his 
corpse  left  on  his  own  bit  of  land,  ere  he 
would  yield  his  rights.  Then  he  read  his 
resolutions,  which  sufficiently  denounced 
Judge  Willis  and  the  laws  ;  and  thereafter  he 
called  for  the  sense  of  the  meeting.  Dis- 
senting voices  rang  out,  but  the  resolutions 
received  a  loud  affirmative  vote,  and  were 
declared  carried.  The  regular  business  of 
the  meeting  was  now  done ;  but  for  a  long 
time  yet,  various  ambitious  speakers  mounted 
the  platform  and  sought  to  address  the 
crowd,  which  amused  itself  by  roaring  at 
thejn,  or  by  watching  them  pushed  from 
their  high  place. 

Next  day  Doctor  Robinson  was  early  at 
work,  drawing  up  in  his  own  way  a  manifesto 
to  express  the  sense  of  his  party.  It  was  a 
very  able  and  reckless  document.  Robin- 
son had  found  an  unanswerable  fashion  of 
stating  the  ground  for  devotion  to  the  High- 
er Law,  as  opposed  to  State  Law.  There 
was,  the  paper  reminded  the  people,  no  true 
State  here  at  all ;  for  Congress  had  not  ad- 
mitted California  as  yet,  and  it  was  still  a 
mere  Territory.  What  the  Legislature  in 
San  Jose  had  done  was  no  law-making.  It 
had  passed  some  "  rules  "  which  had  merely 
"advisory  force."  These  were,  some  of 
them,  manifestly  unconstitutional  and  op- 
pressive. The  act  now  in  question  was 
plainly  of  this  nature.  Worst  of  all,  the 
courts  organized  by  this  advisory  body  now 
refused  an  appeal  from  their  own  decisions 
even  to  the  Supreme  Court  of  the  State. 
Such  a  decision,  thus  cutting  off  an  appeal 
on  a  grave  question  of  title,  that  could  in 
fact  be  settled  only  by  the  Supreme  Court  of 
the  United  States,  was  not  to  be  endured. 
The  settlers  were  done  with  such  law  that 


1885.] 


The  Squatter  Riot  of  '50  in  Sacramento. 


241 


was  no  law.  "  The  people  in  this  commun- 
ity called  settlers,  and  others  who  are  friends 
of  justice  and  humanity,  in  consideration  of 
the  above,  have  determined  to  disregard  all 
decisions  of  our  courts  in  land  cases,  and  all 
summonses  or  executions  by  the  sheriff,  con- 
stable, or  other  officer  of  the  present  county 
or  city  touching  this  matter.  They  will  re- 
gard the  said  officers  as  private  citizens,  as 
in  the  eyes  of  the  constitution  they  are,  and 
hold  them  responsible  accordingly."  If,  then, 
the  document  went  on  to  say,  the  officers  in 
question  appeal  to  force,  the  settlers  "  have 
deliberately  resolved  to  appeal  to  arms,  and 
protect  their  sacred  rights,  if  need  be,  with 
their  lives." 

The  confused  assent  of  the  Saturday  night 
torchlight  meeting  to  a  manifesto  of  this  sort, 
an  assent  such  as  the  previous  resolutions 
had  gained,  would  have  been  worth  very  lit- 
tle. Where  were  the  men  and  the  arms  ? 
Doctor  Robinson  was  man  enough  himself 
to  know  what  this  sort  of  talk  must  require, 
if  it  was  to  have  meaning.  But  what  he  did, 
he  can  best  tell.  In  his  tent,  after  the  crisis, 
was  found  an  unfinished  letter  to  a  friend  in 
the  East.  It  was  plainly  never  intended  for 
the  public  eye,  and  may  surely  be  accepted 
as  a  perfectly  sincere  statement.  The  news- 
papers published  it  as  soon  as  it  was  found, 
and  from  the  "Placer  Times"  of  Aug.  i5th, 
I  have  it  noted  down. 

The  date  is  Monday,  the  i2th  of  August. 
"  Since  writing  you,  we  have  seen  much,  and 
experienced  much  of  .an  important  charac- 
ter, as  well  as  much  excitement.  .  .  .  The 
County  Judge  on  Saturday  morning  declared 
that  from  his  decision  there  should  be  no 
appeal."  Then  the  letter  proceeds  to  tell 
how  the  meeting  was  called,  as  narrated 
above.  The  call  "was  responded  to  by 
both  parties,  and  the  speculators,  as  afore- 
time, attempted  to  talk  against  time.  On 
the  passage  of  a  series  of  resolutions  pre- 
sented by  your  humble  servant,  there  were 
about  three  ayes  to  one  nay,  although  the 
"Transcript"  said  that  they  were  about 
equal.  Sunday  morning  I  drew  up  a  mani- 
festo, carried  it  to  church,  paid  one  dollar 
for  preaching,  helped  them  sing,  showed  it 
VOL.  VI.— 16. 


to  a  lawyer,  to  see  if  my  position  was  cor- 
rect legally,  and  procured  the  printing  of  it 
in  handbills  and  in  the  paper,  after  present- 
ing it  to  a  private  meeting  of  friends  for  their 
approval,  which  I  addressed  at  some  length. 
After  a  long  talk  for  the  purpose  of  comfort- 
ing a  gentleman  just  in  from  the  plains,  and 
who,  the  day  before,  had  buried  his  wife, 
whom  he  loved  most  tenderly,  and  a  few 
days  previous  to  that  had  lost  his  son,  I 
threw  myself  upon  my  blankets,  and  'seri- 
ously thought  of  the  morrow.' 

"  What  will  be  the  result  ?  Shall  I  be  borne 
out  in  my  position  ?  On  whom  can  I  de- 
pend ?  How  many  of  those  who  are  squat- 
ters will  come  out,  if  there  is  a  prospect  of  a 
fight  ?  Have  I  strictly  defined  our  position 
in  the  bill?  Will  the  world,  the  universe, 
and  God  say  it  is  just,  etc.?  Will  you  call 
me  rash,  if  I  tell  you  that  I  took  these  steps 
to  this  point  when  I  could  get  but  twenty- 
five  men  to  pledge  themselves  on  paper  to 
sustain  me,  and  many  of  them,  I  felt,  were 
timid  ?  Such  was  the  case." 

In  the  night  we  deal,  if  we  like,  with  the 
world,  the  universe,  and  God.  In  the  morn- 
ing we  have  to  deal  with  such  things  as  the 
Sheriff,  the  Mayor,  and  the  writs  of  the  Coun- 
ty Court— things  with  which,  as  we  have  al- 
ready learned  from  the  squatters,  God  has 
nothing  whatever  to  do.  One  wonders,  in 
passing,  whether  the  church  in  which  Doctor 
Robinson  so  lustily  sang,  and  so  cheerfully 
paid  his  dollar,  that  bright  August  Sunday, 
was  Doctor  Benton's.  If  so,  the  settlers' 
leader  surely  must  have  noticed  a  contrast 
between  his  own  God  of  the  Higher  Law, 
and  the  far  more  concrete  Deity  that  this 
preacher  always  presented  to  his  audiences. 
That  orthodox  Deity,  whatever  else  may 
have  seemed  doubtful  about  him,  was  surely 
conceived  and  presented  as  having  very  def- 
inite and  living  relationships  to  all  rulers  who 
bear  not  the  sword  in  vain.  And  nobody, 
whatever  his  own  philosophic  or  theological 
views,  ought  to  have  any  hesitation  as  to 
which  of  these  conceptions  is  the  worthier  of 
a  good  citizen.  And  now,  to  state  this  crisis 
in  a  heathen  fashion,  we  may  say  that  the 
concrete  Deity  of  the  actual  law,  and  Doctor 


242 


The  Squatter  Riot  of  '50  in  Sacramento. 


[Sept. 


Robinson's  ideal  abstract  Deity  of  the  Higher 
Law,  were  about  to  enter  into  open  warfare, 
with  such  temporary  result  as  the  relative 
strength  of  unwise  city  authorities  and  weak- 
kneed  squatters  might  determine.  For,  to 
such  earthen  vessels  are  the  great  ideals, 
good  and  evil,  entrusted  on  this  earth. 


V. 


MORNING  came,  and  with  it  the  printed 
manifesto.  The  city,  with  all  its  show  of  care 
and  all  its  warnings  during  the  last  few 
months,  was  wholly  unprepared  for  proper 
resistance  to  organized  rebellion.  The  pop- 
ulace were  aroused,  crowds  ran  to  and  fro, 
rumors  flew  thick  and  fast.  Doctor  Robin- 
son was  found  on  a  lot,  at  the  corner  of  Sec- 
ond and  N  Streets,  where  the  Sheriff  was 
expected  to  appear  to  serve  a  writ.  By 
adroitness  in  making  speeches,  and  by  simi- 
lar devices,  the  Doctor  collected  and  held,  in 
apparent  sympathy  with  himself,  a  crowd  of 
about  two  hundred,  whom  he  desired  to  have 
appear  as  all  squatters,  and  all  "men  of  val- 
or."1 Meanwhile,  names  were  enrolled  by 
him  as  volunteers  for  irrimediate  action,  a 
military  commander  of  the  company  was 
chosen — one  Maloney,a  veteran  of  the  Mex- 
ican War — and  in  all  some  fifty  men  were 
soon  under  arms.  Mayor  Bigelow  now  ap- 
proached on  horseback,  and  from  the  saddle 
addressed  the  crowd.  It  would  be  best,  he 
said,  for  them  to  disperse,  otherwise  there 
might  be  trouble.  Doctor  Robinson  was 
spokesman  in  answer.  "  I  replied,"  he  says, 
in  his  letter, ''  most  respectfully,  that  we  were 
assembled  to  injure  no  one,  and  to  assail  no 
one  who  left  us  alone.  We  were  on  our  own 
property,  with  no  hostile  intentions  while 
unmolested."  The  Mayor  galloped  off,  and 
was  soon  followed  tp  his  office  by  a  little 
committee  of  the  squatters,  Doctor  Robin- 
son once  more  spokesman.  They  wanted, 
so  they  said,  to  explain  their  position,  so 
that  there  could  be  no  mistake.  They  were 
anxious  to  avoid  bloodshed,  and  begged 
Bigelow  to  use  his  influence  to  prevent  ser- 
vice of  the  processes  of  the  Court.  Doctor 
1  See  his  letter,  after  the  passage  quoted  above. 


Robinson  understood  the  Mayor  to  promise 
to  use  the  desired  influence  in  a  private  way, 
and  as  a  peace-loving  citizen.  They  then 
warned  him  that,  if  advantage  should  be 
taken  of  their  acceptance  of  his  assurance, 
and  if  writs  were  served  in  the  absence  of 
their  body  of  armed  men,  they  would  hold 
him  and  the  Sheriff  responsible  according  to 
their  proclamation.  The  "  Placer  Times  " 
of  Tuesday  morning  declares  that  the  May- 
or's reply  assured  the  squatters  of  his  inten- 
tion to  promise  nothing  but  a  strict  enforce- 
ment of  the  law. 

Dr.  Robinson's  letter  seems  to  have  been 
written  just  after  this  interview.  In  the 
evening  the  rumor  was  prevalent  that  a  war- 
rant was  out  for  his  arrest  and  that  of  the 
other  ringleaders.  Many  squatters,  very  va- 
riously and  sometimes  amusingly  armed,  still 
hung  about  the  disputed  lot  of  land.  On 
Tuesday,  possibly  because  of  the  Mayor's 
supposed  assurance,  the  squatters  were  less 
wary.  Their  enemies  took  advantage  of  their 
dispersed  condition,  and  arrested  the  re- 
doubtable McClatchy,  with  one  other  leader. 
These  they  took  to  the  "  prison  brig,"  out  in 
the  river.  In  the  afternoon  the  Sheriff  quietly 
put  the  owners  of  the  disputed  lot  in  posses- 
sion, apparently  in  the  absence  of  squatters. 
The  Mayor's  assurance,  if  he  had  given  one, 
was  thus  seen  to  be  ineffective.  There  was 
no  appeal  now  left  the  squatters  but  to  pow- 
der and  ball. 

It  seems  incredible,  but  it  is  true,  that 
Wednesday  morning,  August  i4th,  found  the 
authorities  still  wholly  unprepared  to  over- 
awe the  lawless  defenders  of  the  Higher 
Law.  When  the  squatters  assembled,  some 
thirty  or  forty  in  number,  all  armed,  and 
"men  of  valor,"  this  time;  when  they  march- 
ed under  Maloney's  leadership  to  the  place 
on  Second  Street,  and  once  more  drove  off 
the  owners;  when  they  then  proceeded  down 
to  the  levee,  intending  to  go  out  to  the 
prison-brig  and  rescue  their  friends;  when 
they  gave  up  this  idea,  and  marched  along  I 
Street  to  Second  in  regular  order,  Maloney 
in  front  with  a  drawn  sword,  there  was  no 
force  visible  ready  to  disperse  them  ;  and 
they  were  followed  by  a  crowd  of  unarmed 


1885.] 


The  Squatter  Riot  of  '50  in  Sacramento. 


243 


citizens,  who  were  hooting  and  laughing  at 
them.1  Reaching  the  corner  of  Second  Street, 
they  turned  into  that  street,  passed  on  until 
J  Street  was  reached,  and  then  marched  out 
J  towards  Fourth  Street. 

At  this    point    Mayor   Bigelow  appeared 
in    the   rear   of  the   crowd   of  sight-seeing 
followers,  on  horseback,    and   called   upon 
good  citizens  to  help  him   to   disperse  the 
rioters  at  once.     His  courage  was  equal  to 
his  culpable  carelessness  in  having  no  better 
force  at  hand  ;  but  to  his  call  a  few  of  the 
unarmed  citizens  replied  (men  such  as  Dr. 
Stillman  himself,  for  instance)  that  the  squat- 
ters could  not  be  gotten  rid  of  so  easily  by 
a  mere  extempore  show  of  authority,  since 
they  surely  meant  to  fire  if  molested.     The 
Mayor  denied,  confidently,  this  possibility; 
the  squatters  were  plainly,  to  his  mind,  but 
a  crew   of  blustering   fellows,    who    meant 
nothing  that  would  lead  them  into  danger. 
He  rode  on  into  the  crowd  of  citizen  follow- 
ers, repeating  his  call;  and  the  mass  of  this 
crowd  gaily  obeyed.     Three  cheers  for  the 
Mayor  were  given,  and  the  improvised  posse, 
led  by  Mayor  and  Sheriff,  ran  on  in  pursuit 
of  their  game.     Only  one  who  has  seen  an 
American  street-crowd  in  a  moment  of  pop- 
ular excitement,  can    understand    the   jolly 
and  careless  courage  that  prevailed  in  this 
band,  or  their  total  lack  of  sense  of  what  the 
whole  thing  meant.     On  J  Street,  at  the  cor- 
ner of  Fourth,  Maloney  of  the  drawn  sword 
turned  to  look,  and  lo !  the  Mayor,  with  the 
Sheriff,  and  with  the  little  army,  was  in  pur- 
suit.    The  moment  of  vengeance  for  broken 
promises  had  come.     Promptly  the  squatter 
company   wheeled,    drew    into    line    across 
Fourth,  and  awaited  the  approach  of  the  en- 
emy, taking  him  thus  in  flank.  •  Undaunted, 
the  Mayor  rode  up,  and  voiced  the  majesty 
of  the  law  by  ordering  the  squatters  to  lay 
down  their  arms,  and  to  give  themselves  up 
as  prisoners.     The   citizen  army  cheerfully 
crowded  about  Bigelow,  and  in  front  of  the 
armed  rioters,  curious  to  watch  the  outcome, 
anxious,  it  would  seem,  to  enjoy  a  joke,  in- 
credulous of  any  danger  from  the  familiar 

1  "Transcript "  of  Aug.  15.     Compare  Dr.  Stillman's 
"  Golden  Fleece,"  p.  172. 


boasters.  Armed  and  unarmed  men  seem 
to  have  been  huddled  together  in  confusion, 
beside  the  Mayor  and  the  Sheriff. 

The  squatters  did  not  choose  to  say  any- 
thing in  answer  to  the  Mayor.  Even  as  he 
spoke,  they  were  talking  among  themselves. 
Maloney  was  heard  giving  directions  in  a 
voice  of  command.  "The  Mayor  !"  he  said 
emphatically;  "Shoot  the  Mayor!"  and  at 
the  word  a  volley  sounded. 

Men  standing  further  down  the  street  saw 
the  crowd  scatter  in  all  directions,  and  in 
a  moment  more  saw  the  Mayor's  horse 
dash  riderless  toward  the  river.  Those 
nearer  by  saw  how  armed  men  among  the 
citizens,  with  a  quick  reaction,  fired  their 
pistols,  and  closed  in  on  the  rioters.  Ma- 
loney fell  dead.  Doctor  Robinson  lay  se- 
verely wounded.  On  the  side  of  the  citizens, 
Woodland,  the  City  Assessor,  was  shot  dead. 
The  Mayor  himself,  thrice  severely  wounded, 
had  staggered  a  few  steps  after  dropping 
from  his  horse,  and  fallen  on  the  pavement. 

In  all,  three  squatters  were  killed,  and  one 
was  wounded;  one  of  the  citizens'  party  was 
killed,  and  four  were  wounded,  in  this  brief 
moment  of  war.  Like  a  lightning  flash  the 
battle  came  and  was  done.  The  array  of 
the  squatters  melted  away  like  a  mist  when 
the  two  leaders  were  seen  to  fall ;  the  con- 
fused mass  of  the  citizens,  shocked  and  awe- 
stricken  when  they  were  not  terrified,  waited 
no  longer  on  the  field  than  the  others,  but 
scattered  wildly.  A  few  moments  later,  when 
Dr.  Stillman  returned  with  his  shot-gun, 
which,  on  the  first  firing,  he  had  gone  but 
half  a  block  to  get,  the  street  was  quite 
empty  of  armed  men.  He  waited  for  some 
time  to  see  any  one  in  authority.  At  length 
Lieutenant-Governor  McDougal  appeared, 
riding  at  full  speed,  "his  face  very  pale." 

"  Get  all  the  armed  men  you  can,"  he 
said,  "and  rendezvous  at  Fowler's  hotel." 

"  I  went  to  the  place  designated,"  says 
Doctor  Stillman,  "  and  there  found  a  few 
men,  who  had  got  an  old  iron  ship's  gun, 
mounted  on  a  wooden  truck;  to  its  axles 
was  fastened  a  long  dray  pole.  The  gun 
was  loaded  with  a  lot  of  scrap  iron.  I 
wanted  to  know  where  McDougal  was.  We 


244 


The  Squatter  Riot  of  '50  in  Sacramento. 


[Sept. 


expected  him  to  take  the  command  and  die 
with  us.  I  inquired  of  Mrs.  McDougal, 
who  was  stopping  at  the  hotel,  what  had  be- 
come of  her  husband.  She  said  he  had 
gone  to  San  Francisco  for  assistance.  •  In- 
deed, he  was  on  his  way  to  the  steamer 
'  Senator '  when  I  saw  him,  and  he  left  his 
horse  on  the  bank  of  the  river." 

In  such  swift,  dreamlike  transformations 
the  experiences  of  the  rest  of  the  day  passed 
by.  Rumors  were  countless.  The  squat- 
ters had  gone  out  of  the  city  ;  they  would 
soon  return.  They  were  seven  hundred 
strong.  They  meant  vengeance.  They  would 
fire  the  city.  Yes,  they  already  had  fired 
the  city,  although  nobody  knew  where.  No 
one  could  foresee  the  end  of  the  struggle. 
The  city  had  been  declared  under  martial 
law.  Everybody  must  come  out.  The 
whole  force  of  the  State  would  doubtless  be 
needed.  If  the  squatters  failed  now,  they 
would  go  to  the  mines,  and  arouse  the  whole 
population  there.  One  would  have  to  fight 
all  the  miners  as  well.  Such  things  flew 
from  mouth  to  mouth ;  such  reports  the 
"  Senator  "  carried  to  San  Francisco,  with  the 
pale-faced  Lieutenant-Governor.  Such  re- 
ports were  even  sent  East  by  the  first  steamer, 
and  printed  in  newspapers  there  ere  they 
could  be  contradicted.  With  such  anxieties 
Sacramento  paid  the  penalty  of  its  recent 
light-hearted  tolerance  of  lawlessness.  Mean- 
while, however,  one  thing  was  secured.  The 
opening  of  the  fight  had  made  the  squatters 
in  the  public  eye  unequivocally  lawless  and 
dangerous  aggressors.  They  could  expect, 
for  the  moment  at  least,  no  sympathy,  but 
only  stern  repression  from  all  the  more  es- 
tablished communities  and  forces  of  the 
State.  The  cause  of  formal  legality  in  deal- 
ing with  the  land  grants  had  already  tri- 
umphed. By  no  conspiracy  of  squatters 
could  the  American  hope  thenceforth  to  do 
away  with  Mexican  titles,  as  such,  in  the 
mass  and  untried. 

In  San  Francisco  the  response  of  the  pub- 
lic was  prompt  and  vigorous.  Militia  and 
firemen  were  soon  on  their  way  to  Sacra- 
mento. The  alarm,  of  course,  was  much 
exaggerated.  I  have  often  heard  my  own 


mother  tell  of  her  terror  at  hearing,  in  San 
Francisco,  of  the  Sacramento  riot ;  for,  as  it 
chanced,  my  father  was  then  temporarily 
absent  in  Sacramento  on  business,  and  did 
in  fact,  as  transient  visitor,  witness  some  of 
the  minor  scenes  of  that  day  of  excitement. 
But,  as  a  fact,  the  city  was  never  safer,  as  a 
whole,  than  a  few  hours  after  the  fatal  meet- 
ing at  the  corner  of  Fourth  and  J  streets. 
A  little  blood-flowing  is  a  very  effective 
sight  for  the  public.  Conscience  and  passion 
and  determination  to  quell  disorder  are  all 
aroused  in  the  community.  American  good- 
humor  gives  way  for  the  instant  to  the  stern- 
est and  most  bigoted  hatred  of  the  offenders. 
Had  it  been  the  Mayor  and  Sheriff  who  had 
wantonly  shed  the  blood  of  others,  without 
due  process  or  provocation,  the  danger  to 
permanent  good  order  might  have  been  very 
great.  But  the  squatter  manifesto,  the  par- 
ade, the  first  firing,  all  made  clear  where  the 
blame  lay.  There  was  just  now  no  mercy 
for  squatters.  Their  late  attorney  was  threat- 
ened with  hanging.  Their  friends  fled  the 
town.  And  even  while  the  wild  rumors 
were  flying,  the  most  perfect  order  had  been 
actually  secured  in  the  city  limits. 

But  neither  the  blood-shed  nor  the  terror 
were  wholly  done.  Outside  the  city  limits 
there  was  yet  to  occur  a  most  serious  encoun- 
ter. The  squatters  were  actually  scattered 
in  all  directions;  but  the  rumors  made  it 
seem  advisable  to  prevent  the  further  ex- 
pected attacks  by  armed  sallies  into  the  coun- 
try, and  by  arrest  of  leaders.  Thursday  af- 
ternoon (just  after  the  funeral  of  Woodland), 
the  Sheriff,  McKinney,  with  an  armed  force 
in  which  were  several  well-known  prominent 
citizens,  set  out  towards  Mormon  Island, 
with  the  intention  of  finding  and  bringing  in 
prisoners.1  At  the  house  of  one  Allen,  who 
kept  a  bar-room  some  seven  miles  out,  the 
Sheriff  sought  for  squatters,  having  been  in- 
formed that  several  were  there.  It  was  now 
already  dark.  Leaving  the  body  of  his 
force  outside,  the  Sheriff  approached  the 
house  with  a  few  men  and  entered.  There 

1  See  on  this  affair  the  "  Transcript  "  and  "  Times  "  of 
Aug.  i6th  and  i7th,  and  Dr.  Stillman's  experiences, 
"Golden  Fleece,"  pp.  176,  177. 


1885.] 


The  Squatter  Riot  of  '50  in  Sacramento. 


245 


were  a  number  of  occupants  visible,  all 
alarmed  and  excited.  The  Sheriff's  party 
were  unaware  that,  in  the  back  room  of  the 
house,  Mrs.  Allen  lay  seriously  ill,  attended 
by  her  adopted  daughter,  a  girl  of  sixteen. 
To  be  seen  at  the  moment  were  only  men, 
and  they  had  arms.  McKinney  called  out 
to  Allen  to  surrender  himself  to  the  Sheriff. 
Allen  replied  that  this  was  his  house,  his 
castle.  He  proposed  to  fight  for  it.  Mc- 
Kinney repeated:  "I  am  Sheriff;  lay  down 
your  arms."  What  followed  is  very  ill-told 
by  the  eye-witnesses,  for  the  darkness  and 
the  confusion  made  everything  dim.  At  all 
events,  some  of  the  Sheriff's  party  left  the 
house,  perhaps  to  call  for  assistance  from 
the  main  body ;  and  in  a  moment  more  the 
occupants  had  begun  firing,  and  McKinney 
was  outside  of  the  house,  staggering  under  a 
mortal  wound.  He  fell,  and  in  a  short  time 
was  dead.  That  the  firing  from  without  soon 
overpowered  all  resistance,  that  two  of  the 
occupants  of  the  house  were  shot  dead, 
that  others  lay  wounded,  and  that  the  assail- 
ants shortly  after  took  possession  of  the  place 
and  searched  it  all  through,  not  sparing  the 
sick  room :  these  were  very  natural  conse- 
quences. After  about  an  hour,  the  arresting 
party  left,  taking  with  them  four  men  as  pris- 
oners. Allen  himself,  sorely  hurt,  had  escaped 
through  the  darkness,  to  show  his  wounds 
and  to  tell  his  painful  story  in  the  mines.  The 
littledwelling  was  left  alone  in  the  night.  No- 
body remained  alive  and  well  about  the  place 
save  the  young  girl  and  two  negro  servants. 
The  patient  lay  dying  from  the  shock  of  the 
affair.  Fora  long  time  the  girl,  as  she  after- 
wards deposed,  waited,  not  daring  to  go  to 
the  bar-room,  ignorant  of  who  might  be  killed, 
hearing  once  in* a  while  groans.  About  ten 
o'clock  a  second  party  of  armed  men  came 
from  the  city,  searched  again,  and  after  anoth- 
er hour  went  away.  "  Mrs.  Allen  died  about 
the  time  this  second  party  rode  up  to  the ' 
house,"  deposes  the  girl.  She  had  the  rest  of 
the  night  to  herself. 

The  city  was  not  reassured  by  the  news 
of  the  Sheriff's  death.  In  the  unlighted 
streets  of  the  frightened  place,  the  alarm  was 
sounded  by  the  returning  party  about  nine 


o'clock.  Of  course,  invasion  and  fire  were 
expected.  The  militia  companies  turned 
out,  detailed  patrolling  parties,  and  then  or- 
dered the  streets  cleared.  The  danger  was 
imminent  that  the  defenders  of  the  law 
would  pass  the  night  in  shooting  one  anoth- 
er by  mistake  in  the  darkness  ;  but  this  was 
happily  avoided.  The  families  in  the  town 
were,  of  course,  terribly  excited.  "  The  la- 
dies," says  Dr.  Stillman,  "were  nearly  fright- 
ened out  of  their  wits  ;  but  we  assured  them 
that  they  had  nothing  to  fear — that  we  were 
devoted  to  their  service,  and  were  ready  to 
die  at  their  feet ;  being  thus  assured,  they 
all  retired  into  their  cozy  little  cottages,  and 
securely  bolted  the  doors."  Morning  came, 
bringing  with  it  the  steamer  from  San  Fran- 
cisco. Lieutenant-Governor  McDougal  was 
on  board.  He  felt  seriously  the  responsibil- 
ities of  his  position,  and  accordingly  went  to 
bed,  sick  with  the  cares  of  office.  In  the 
city  Sam  Brannan  and  others  talked  mightily 
of  law,  order,  and  blood.  There  were,  how- 
ever, no  more  battles  to  fight.  In  a  few  days, 
quiet  was  restored;  people  were  ashamed 
of  their  alarm.  Squatters  confined  them- 
selves to  meetings  in  the  mining  districts 
and  in  Marysville,  to  savage  manifestoes, 
and  to  wordy  war  from  a  distance,  with  sul- 
len submission  near  home.  The  real  war 
was  done.  A  tacit  consent  to  drop  the  sub- 
ject was  soon  noticeable  in  the  community. 
Men  said  that  the  laws  must  be  enforced, 
and  meanwhile  determined  to  speak  no  ill  of 
the  dead.  There  was  a  decided  sense,  also, 
of  common  guilt.  The  community  had  sin- 
ned and  suffered.  And  soon  the  cholera, 
and  then  the  winter,  "closed  the  autumn 
scene." 

OF  the  actors  in  this  drama  little  needs 
further  to  be  narrated  here.  Doctor  Robin- 
son disappeared  for  the  moment  as  wound- 
ed prisoner  in  a  cloud  of  indictments  for  as- 
sault, conspiracy,  treason,  murder,  and  what 
else  I  know  not.  Mayor  Bigelow  was  taken 
to  San  Francisco,  where  he  slowly  recovered 
from  his  three  bad  wounds,  only  to  die  soon 
of  the  cholera.  The  squatter  movement  as- 
sumed a  new  phase.  Doctor  Robinson,  in- 


246 


El  Mahdi. 


[Sept. 


deed,  was  in  little  danger  from  his  indict- 
ments, when  once  the  heat  of  battle  had 
cooled.  He  was  felt  to  be  a  man  of  mark  ; 
the  popular  ends  had  been  gained  in  his  de- 
feat ;  the  legal  evidence  against  him  was  like 
the  chips  of  drift-wood  in  a  little  eddy  of 
this  changing  torrent  of  California  life. 
With  its  little  horde  of  drift,  the  eddy  soon 
vanished  in  the  immeasurable  flood.  After 
a  change  of  venue  to  a  bay  county,  and  after 
a  few  months'  postponement,  the  cloud  of 
indictments  melted  away  like  the  last  cloud- 
flake  of  our  rainy  season.  Nolle  pros,  was 
entered,  and  the  hero  was  free.  Doctor 
Robinson  had,  meanwhile,  recovered  his 
health,  and  had  begun  in  a  new  field  of  la- 
bor. As  nowadays  we  elect  a  displaced 
university  professor  to  the  superintendency 
of  public  instruction,  just  to  give  him  a  fair 
chance  to  do  good  to  the  university,  so,  then, 
it  was  felt  by  some  good  natured  folk  reason- 
able to  elect  Doctor  Robinson  to  the  Legisla- 
ture, not  because  people  believed  wholly  in 
his  ideas,  but  because  his  services  merited 
attention.  At  all  events,  in  a  district  of  Sac- 
ramento County,  Dr.  Robinson's  friends 
managed,  with  the  connivance  of  certain  op- 
timists, to  give  him  a  seat  in  the  Assembly, 
that  late  "  advisory  "  body,  whose  "  rules," 
before  the  admission  of  the  State,  he  had  so 
ardently  despised.  The  State  was  admitted 
now,  and  Doctor  Robinson  cheerfully  under- 
took his  share  of  legislation.  But  the  Leg- 
islature cared  more  for  th«  senatorial  elec- 
tion,andsuch  small  game,  than  for  the  High- 
er Law.  Doctor  Robinson  was  not  perfectly 
successful,  even  in  pleasing  his  constituents. 
Ere  yet  another  year  passed,  he  had  forever 
forsaken  our  State,  and  for  his  further  career, 


you  must  read  the  annals  of  the  New  Eng- 
land Emigrant  Aid  Society  and  the  history 
of  Kansas.  I  have  found  an  account  of  his 
career  in  a  Kansas  book,  whose  author  must 
have  a  little  misunderstood  Doctor  Robin- 
son's version  of  this  old  affair.  For  the  ac- 
count says  that  the  good  Doctor,  when  he 
was  in  California  in  early  days,  took  valiant 
part  for  the  American  settlers  against  certain 
wicked  claimants  under  one  John  Sutter, 
who  (the  wretch)  had  pretended  to  own 
"  99,000  square  miles  of  land  in  California." 
Alas,  poor  Sutter,  with  thy  great  schemes  ! 
Is  it  come  to  this? 

I  cannot  close  without  adding  that  a  cer- 
tain keen-eyed  and  intelligent  foreigner,  a 
Frenchman,  one  Auger,  who  visited  our 
State  a  little  later,  in  1852,  took  pains  to  in- 
quire into  this  affair  and  to  form  his  own 
opinion.  He  gives  a  pathetic  picture  of  poor 
Sutter,  overwhelmed  by  squatters,  and  then 
proceeds  to  give  his  countrymen  some  no- 
tion of  what  a  squatter  is.  Such  a  person, 
he  says,  represents  the  American  love  of 
land  by  marching,  perhaps  "pendant  des  mois 
entiers"  until  he  finds  a  bit  of  seemingly 
vacant  land.  Here  he  fortifies  himself,"*?/ 
se  fait  massacrer  avec  toute  sa  familie  plut6t 
que  de  renoncer  a  la  moindre parcelle  du  terrain 
qu'il  a  usurped  This  is  well  stated.  But 
best  of  all  is  the  following :  "  Celui  qui  se 
livre  d,  cette  investigation  prend  des  lors  le 
titre  de  'squatter,'  qui  vient,  je  le  suppose,  du 
mot  '  square.'  (place),  et  signifie  chercheur  d1- 
emplacement."  It  is  evident  to  us,  therefore, 
that  Doctor  Robinson  and  all  his  party  were 
"on  the  square."  And  herewith  we  may 
best  conclude. 

1  Auger,   Voyage  en  Californie,  Paris,  1854,  p.  154. 

Josiah  Royce. 


EL  MAHDI. 

"BELIEVE  in  me,"  the  Prophet  cried, 

"  I  hold  the  key  of  life  and  light !  " 
And  lo,  one  touched  him,  and  he  died 
Within  the  passing  of  a  night. 


Thomas  S.  Collier. 


1885.] 


How  the  Blockade  was  Run. 


247 


HOW  THE   BLOCKADE    WAS   RUN. 


DURING  the  last  year  of  the  war,  so  strict- 
ly was  the  Federal  blockade  maintained 
along  our  Atlantic  and  Gulf  coasts,  that  but 
few  Confederate  ports  remained  where  even 
theswiftest  and  most  skillfully  managed  block- 
ade-runners could  elude  detection  and  pur- 
suit, and  could  land  their  much-needed  car- 
goes in  safety,  under  cover  of  Confederate 
batteries. 

On  the  Atlantic  sea-board,  a  small  steamer 
would  occasionally  slip  through  the  Federal 
fleet  at  Savannah,  or  into  some  shallow  and 
unguarded  cove  on  the  coast  of  Florida ;  as 
they  did,  also,  at  long  intervals,  in  the  Gulf 
at  Mobile  and  Galveston.  But  the  main 
point  for  successful  blockade-running  in  the 
last  twelve  months  of  our  protracted  struggle 
was  Wilmington,  North  Carolina ;  and  this 
was  the  case  until  General  Terry's  forces 
succeeded  in  capturing  Fort  Fisher,  Janu- 
ary 1 5th,  1865,  and  the  evacuation  of  Wil- 
mington followed,  February  2ist,  on  the  ap- 
proach of  General  Schofield's  army. 

A  glance  at  the  map  of  North  Carolina 
will  show  how  peculiar  facilities  for  running 
a  blockade  are  offered  by  a  double  entrance 
to  Cape  Fear  River,  on  which  Wilmington 
is  situated,  some  twenty-five  miles  above  its 
most  southerly  mouth.  The  position  of 
Smith's  Island,  jutting  out  into  the  ocean  far 
south  of  the  main  coast — its  most  southern 
point  forming  Cape  Fear — makes  this  double 
entrance.  The  main  mouth  of  the  river  lies 
west  of  Smith's  Island,  and  New  Inlet,  the 
mouth  by  which  most  of  the  blockade-run- 
ners made  their  entrance  and  exit,  is  north 
of  the  island,  between  it  and  Federal  Point, 
on  the  main  land,  in  New  Hanover  county. 
Fort  Caswell,  supported  by  batteries,  de- 
fended the  southern  or  main  entrance,  while 
Fort  Fisher  and  its  supporting  batteries  pro- 
tected New  Inlet,  the  latter  entrance  being 
situated  about  ten  miles  north  of  Cape  Fear. 
Smith's  Island  not  only  afforded  the  advan- 
tage of  a  long  screen  between  these  two  en- 


trances to  Cape  Fear  river,  but  the  shallow 
water  over  Frying  Pan  shoals,  which  extend 
southward  along  the  coast  from  New  Inlet, 
often  enabled  blockade-runners  that  drew 
only  a  few  feet  of  water  to  escape  from  Fed- 
eral blockaders  of  deep  draft.  Then  the 
long  coast  line  of  twenty  miles  or  more, 
which  had  thus  to  be  closely  guarded  by  a 
blockading  fleet,  made  an  entirely  success- 
ful blockade  of  Wilmington  much  more  diffi- 
cult than  that  of  most  other  Southern  ports. 
Surprising  as  it  may  seem,  it  became 
known  in  the  early  months  of  1864  that,  of 
the  numerous  finely  built  Clyde  steamers 
then  engaged  in  running  military  supplies  for 
the  Confederacy  through  the  blockade  at 
Wilmington,  about  nineteen  out  of  every 
twenty  succeeded,  in  spite  of  many  armed 
ships  and  the  vigilance  of  the  blockading 
fleet.  This  fact  even  became  known  to  the 
many  Southern  prisoners  of  war  then  in 
Camp  Chase,  Ohio,  among  whom  was  the 
writer  of  this  sketch,  who  had  been  disabled 
by  a  wound  and  captured  in  the  battle  of 
Missionary  Ridge,  where  Bragg's  army  was 
so  badly  worsted  by  the  masterly  maneu- 
vers and  attacks  of  Grant  and  Sheridan.  In 
Camp  Chase  we  learned  this  success  in 
running  the  blockade  through  letters  from 
North  Carolina  to  our  prison  comrade,  Gen- 
eral Robert  B.  Vance — member  of  Congress 
from  his  State  for  the  past  ten  years.  Those 
of  us  who  were  inclined  to  escape  and  to 
return  to  old  "Dixie,"  concluded  that  our 
surest  plan  was  to  make  our  way  to  Canada, 
and  thence  via  some  of  the  English  West 
India  Islands,  through  the  blockade  at  Wil- 
mington. Besides  being  a  more  certain  route 
to  reach  our  Southern  homes  and  commands 
than  to  venture  to  pass  through  the  closely- 
guarded  Federal  lines  in  Virginia,  Georgia, 
and  elsewhere,  it  offered  the  advantage  of 
bringing  in  some  much  needed  blockade 
goods  to  our  families — if  an  escaped  "  Reb  " 
could  be  so  fortunate  as  to  raise  the  funds 


248 


How  the  Blockade  was  Run. 


[Sept. 


to  purchase  such  stock  of  goods,  as  some 
succeeded  in  doing.  A  number  of  escaped 
Confederates  did  eventually  return  to  their 
commands  by  this  very  circuitous  route,  the 
Confederate  government  having  provided 
means  by  which  all  prisoners  who  made  their 
escape  to  Canada  or  any  of  the  British  Is- 
lands, should  have  their  expenses  paid  from 
those  points  to  their  commands  through  the 
blockade. 

On  the  22d  of  April,  1864,  the  staunch 
English  schooner  "  Mary  Victoria,"  of  eighty- 
nine  tons  burden,  with  Captain  Carron 
and  crew  of  five  men,  all  Canadian  French, 
set  sail  from  the  little  harbor  of  Bic,  on  the 
south  bank  of  the  St.  Lawrence  river,  about 
two  hundred  miles  below  or  northeast  of 
Quebec.  She  was  the  first  outward  bound 
vessel  of  the  season.  For  the  first  few  days, 
huge  blocks  of  river-ice  floated  near  and  with 
her,  and  for  half  a  day  the  little  ship  drifted 
in  masses  of  this  ice,  the  miniature  of  a  polar 
sea.  The  schooner,  with  English  papers,  and 
flying  the  British  flag,  was  loaded  with  a  car- 
go valued  at  $40,000  for  the  Richmond  gov- 
ernment. She  had  but  two  passengers.  One 
of  them  was  Captain  P.  C.  Martin,  formerly 
of  Baltimore,  but  then  of  Montreal,  who  was 
really  supercargo,  having  a  large  interest  in 
the  cargo,  in  connection  with  Southern  friends 
in  Canada.  He  was  under  an  assumed  name 
as  an  Englishman.  The  other  passenger  was 
the  writer  of  this  sketch,  who  had  been  so 
fortunate  as  to  escape  from  the  cars  in  Penn- 
sylvania the  preceding  March,  while  in  tran- 
sit, under  guard,  with  a  number  of  fellow 
prisoners  from  Camp  Chase  to  Fort  Dela- 
ware, and  had  made  his  way  on  the  cars 
through  Philadelphia  and  New  York  to  Can- 
ada, publicly,  though  incognito.  My  name, 
then,  for  security,  in  case  the  schooner  should 
be  boarded  or  captured  by  any  Federal  cruis- 
er, was  John  N.  Colclough,  one  of  Her  Majes- 
ty's humble  subjects,  with  an  official  certif- 
icate to  prove  it,  and  Burnside  whiskers, 
worn  a  I' Anglais,  the  better  to  establish  iden- 
tity as  a  veritable  Johnny  Bull,  if  occasion 
required.  It  may  as  well  be  added  that  the 
name  and  certificate  belonged  to  a  bona  fide 
Canadian  citizen,  a  resident  of  Bic,  who  was 


merely  personated  for  the  risky  voyage  by  an 
escaped  prisoner  of  war. 

Touching  at  Gaspe  Bay  for  supplies — just 
at  the  mouth  of  the  St.  Lawrence  River — 
and  anchoring  at  Sydney,  Cape  Breton  Is- 
land, ten  days,  on  account  of  headwinds,  we 
reached  our  destination,  St.  George's,  Ber- 
muda, on  the  29th  of  May,  having  required 
twenty  days  of  sailing  to  accomplish  a  dis- 
tance of  i, 600  miles,  thanks  to  constant  un- 
favorable winds,  and  a  terrific  storm  while 
crossing  the  upper  portionof  the  Gulf  Stream, 
immediately  south  of  Newfoundland,  near 
where  the  steamer  "  San  Francisco  "  was 
wrecked  by  a  gale  in  December,  1853,  while 
carrying  a  regiment  of  United  States  troops 
to  California. 

On  entering  the  charmingly  picturesque 
harbor  of  St.  George's,  we  found  two  steam- 
ers receiving  their  valuable  cargoes  for  Wil- 
mington. One  was  the  "  Lillian,"  under  com- 
mand of  Captain  John  Newlen  Maffit,  pre- 
viously commander  of  the  Confederate  war 
steamer  "  Florida,"  and  the  other  the  "  Clio." 
Both  of  these  vessels  belonged  to  that  fine 
class  of  swift  iron  steamers,  which  were  built 
on  the  Clyde,  near  Glasgow,  Scotland,  ex- 
pressly for  this  hazardous  trade,  and  which 
gained  a  just  and  remarkable  reputation  as 
successful  blockade  runners.  They  were 
long,  narrow,  and  low-lying,  with  low  pressure 
and  almost  noiseless  engines,  and  were  paint- 
ed uniformly  of  a  dingy  light  gray  color,  like 
the  horizon  where  sea  and  sky  meet.  Each  of 
these  model  steamers,  so  many  of  which  were 
built  to  pierce  the  close  blockade  of  our 
Southern  ports,  was  indeed  "  a  thing  of  beau- 
ty," and  when  at  full  speed,  a  thing  of  life. 
They  were  said  to  have  a  speed  of  fifteen  to 
eighteen  knots  an  hour,  at  the  best,  which 
means  from  seventeen  and  a  half  to  twenty- 
one  statute  or  common  miles.  No  Federal 
steamer  could  catch  them  in  a  stern  chase. 

As  the  "  Lillian  "  was  one  of  the  swiftest 
and  largest  of  these  splendid  steamers,  and 
under  so  skillful  a  captain  as  Maffit,  Martin 
and  his  chum,  "  Colclough,"  secured  passage 
on  her  to  Wilmington,  though  she  was  to 
sail  on  the  third  day  after  we  landed.  This 
allowed  but  little  time  to  select  and  pack  in 


1885.] 


How  the  Blockade  was  Run. 


249 


two  large  trunks  a  stock  of  useful  "blockade- 
goods  "  for  one's  home-folks  in  Dixie,  and 
less  time  than  we  wanted  to  test  for  a  while 
that  most  delightful  maritime  and  semi-trop- 
ical climate  of  the  far-famed  Bermudas,  or 
Sommers  Islands. 

Where  and  what  are  these  charming  little 
isles,  that  form  so  small  and  yet  so  fair  a 
portion  of  the  broad  realms  of  the  Empress 
of  Great  Britain  and  India  ?  This  group  of 
nearly  four  hundred  small  islands,  but  only 
five  principal  ones,  lies  due  south  of  Cape 
Sable.  Nova  Scotia,  some  eight  hundred 
statute  miles;  then  about  the  same  distance 
northeast  of  Nassau,  one  of  the  Bahamas — 
another  favorite  port  for  blockade-runners ; 
and  not  far  from  seven  hundred  miles  slightly 
south  of  east  from  the  mouth  of  Cape  Fear 
river.  These  islands  are  built  up  by  nature 
with  corals  and  shells  on  coral  reefs,  their 
highest  point,  Tibb's  Hill,  on  Bermuda  Is- 
land, being  only  one  hundred  and  eighty  feet 
above  sea-level.  The  greatest  surface  cov- 
ered by  all  their  reefs,  which  rise  abruptly 
from  the  deep  waters  of  the  Atlantic,  is  only 
twenty-three  miles  from  northeast  to  south- 
west, and  thirteen  miles  east  and  west ;  while 
the  five  principal  and  only  inhabited  islands, 
named  from  north  to  south  and  west,  St. 
George's,  St.  David's,  Bermuda  (or  Long  Is- 
land), Somerset,  and  Ireland — separated  by 
very  narrow  channels — -form  a  continuous 
line  on  the  southeast  edge  of  the  reefs,  only 
thirteen  miles  long,  little  more  than  a  mile 
wide  in  their  broadest  part,  and  embracing 
about  12,000  acres,  of  which  only  500  are  in 
cultivation  and  3,000  in  pasture.  The  town 
of  St.  George's,  on  the  most  northerly  island 
of  the  same  name,  afforded,  with  its  fine  and 
closely-locked  harbor,  every  facility  for  block- 
ade-runners. 

At  sunset,  June  ist,  1864,  the  "Lillian" 
hove  anchor,  with  a  cargo  for  the  Confeder- 
acy valued  at  $1,000,000  in  gold,  the  "  Clio  " 
having  left  port  an  hour  earlier.  We  had  a 
stormless,  calm,  delightful  voyage,  with  no 
event  of  special  interest — except  that  the 
"  Lillian  "  overtook  and  passed  the  "  Clio  " 
by  her  superior  speed — until  noon  of  the 
third  day  out.  We  enjoyed  a  perfect  type  of 


halcyon  weather.  Most  of  the  time  the  sur- 
face of  the  Atlantic  was  truly  like  a  sea  of 
glass.  Scarcely  a  ripple  was  seen,  except  en 
entering  and  leaving  the  Gulf  Stream,  and 
the  only  roughness  there  was  the  peculiar 
line  of  surf  where  the  moving  and  deep  blue 
water  of  this  curious  ocean  current  rushes 
past  the  great  walls  of  the  greenish  water  of  the 
Atlantic,  through  which  the  stream  flows  with 
the  velocity  of  three  or  four  statute  miles  per 
hour.  Flying  fish,  from  ten  to  twelve  inches 
in  length,  frequently  rose  from  the  glassy  sur- 
face, frightened  by  our  rushing  prow.  They 
flew  in  straight  lines  only  a  few  feet  above 
the  water,  occasionally  rising  high  enough  to 
drop  on  the  deck  of  our  low-set  steamer. 
A  hundred  yards  was  a  long  flight  for  them. 
This  voyage,  as  well  as  the  longer  one  upon 
our  schooner,  afforded  one  of  the  best  op- 
portunities to  study  some  of  the  wonders  of 
the  sea,  including  some  of  the  odd  forms  of 
the  "  Portuguese  man-of-war  "  (Physalia  are- 
thusa),  floating  on  the  surface  like  a  pearly 
bladder;  also  sea-nettles,  and  other  jelly 
fish  (Medusa),  some  specimens  of  which, 
known  as  "  Lamps  of  the  Sea,"  produce  at 
night  the  beautiful  phosphorescence  on  the 
surface  of  the  briny  deep.  Wherever  that 
surface  is  agitated,  by  the  motion  of  either 
a  ship  or  a  boat,  the  splashing  of  an  oar,  the 
pouring  of  water,  or  throwing  any  substance 
overboard,  there  are  seen  the  soft  flashes  of 
this  wonderful  phosphorescence.  In  the  dark 
blue  waters  at  Sydney,  Cape  Breton,  it  was 
especially  brilliant.  It  is  a  surprise,  to  one 
to  observe,  in  first  watching  this  beautiful 
phenomenon,  that  the  phosphorescence  is 
not  seen  on  an  unbroken  surface  of  sea  wa- 
ter. It  must  be  disturbed  in  some  way  to 
give  forth  this  soft  light. 

In  such  studies  at  sea,  under  any  circum- 
stances, how  deeply  one  is  sensible  of  the 
truth  of  the  following  impressive  words  of 
a  distinguished  writer  on  ocean  life :  "  In 
the  pursuit  of  this  subject,  the  mind  is  led 
from  nature  up  to  the  Great  Architect  of  na- 
ture ;  and  what  mind  will  the  study  of  this 
subject  not  fill  with  profitable  emotions? 
Unchanged  and  unchanging  alone,  of  all 
created  things,  the  ocean  is  the  great  emblem 


250 


How  ike  Blockade  was  Run. 


[Sept. 


of  its  everlasting  Creator.  '  He  treadeth 
upon  the  waves  of  the  sea,'  and  is  seen  in 
the  wonders  of  the  deep.  Yea,  '  He  calleth 
for  its  waters,  and  poureth  them  out  upon 
the  face  of  the  earth.'  " 

But,  to  return  to  the  equally  impressive 
seriousness  of  blockade-running.  On  the 
voyage  from  the  Bermudas  to  Wilmington, 
a  few  steamers  and  sailing  vessels  were  sight- 
ed every  day,  and  were  always  watched  with 
intense  interest  when  first  seen,  until  it  was 
clear  that  they  did  not  consider  it  their  bus- 
iness to  chase  us. 

Captain  Maffit  was  very  affable  and  atten- 
tive to  his  passengers,  who,  besides  our  party 
and  two  other  Southern  men,  included  Mr. 
Lawler,  who  succeeded  Doctor  William  H. 
Russell,  as  correspondent  -of  the  London 
"  Times,"  and  Mr.  Vizitelli,  the  distinguished 
correspondent  of  the  London  "  Illustrated 
News,"  and  lately  of  the  London  "  Graphic," 
who  accompanied  Hicks  Pasha's  recent  dis- 
astrous campaign  against  El  Mahdi,  and  was 
either  killed  or  captured.  The  two  South- 
ern passengers  just  mentioned  were  Captain 
Young  of  Kentucky,  who  afterwards  com- 
manded the  escaped  Confederate  prisoners 
in  their  startling  raid  from  Canada  against 
St.  Albans,  Vermont ;  and  a  capitalist  from 
Augusta,  Georgia,  who  was  investing  in  block- 
ade goods. 

June  4th,  while  we  were  at  dinner  in  the 
Captain's  cabin,  the  startling  cry  came  from 
the  lookout  on  deck,  "  A  whole  fleet  ahoy  !" 
All  interest  in  that  dinner  was  lost  at  once. 
Everybody  rushed  on  deck,  Captain  Maffit 
in  the  lead. 

On  the  bright  horizon,  directly  ahead  of 
us,  the  tops  of  numerous  masts,  and  the 
smoke  of  several  steamers,  were  visible. 
Could  this  be  a  fleet  of  Federal  transports 
and  their  convoying  steamers,  that  we  were 
running  into  so  unexpectedly  ?  Our  skillful 
pilot,  a  Mr.  Gresham,  who  was  then  making 
his  twenty-sixth  successful  attempt  to  run 
the  blockade,  went  aloft,  and  with  his  prac- 
tised eye  he  saw  that  it  was  the  blockading 
squadron  of  New  Inlet  and  Cape  Fear. 
Our  steamer  had  made  in  the  calm  sea  bet- 
ter time  than  was  anticipated. 


No  sooner  did  we  recognize  them  than 
they  recognized  us,  and  a  large  steam  frigate 
started  for  us  in  hot  pursuit.  For  the  next 
twelve  hours  came  the  fun,  the  calm  excite- 
ment, the  uncertainty,  the  intense  anxiety  of 
blockade  running.  All  was  astir  on  our 
steamer,  every  man  at  his  post.  A  full  head 
of  steam  was  put  on,  and  our  bow  was  turned 
southward  towards  Frying  Pan  shoals.  Cap- 
tain Maffit  and  his  first  officer  sat  together 
on  deck,  watching  carefully  the  movements 
and  speed  of  the  pursuing  steamer,  and 
making  their  mathematical  calculations  for 
the  best  course  of  the  "  Lillian,"  with  her 
superior  speed,  to  avoid  our  pursuer  without 
running  too  far  out  to  sea. 

We  steadily  distanced  the  frigate,  and,  in 
the  increasing  twilight,  she  passed  out  of 
sight.  Meanwhile,  we  had  run  considerably 
south  and  seaward  from  New  Inlet,  where 
we  were  to  attempt  to  run  the  gauntlet.  So 
soon  as  it  was  dark,  Captain  Maffit  reversed 
the  course  of  the  "Lillian,"  till  she  regained 
the  northing  which  she  had  lost  in  the  chase. 
Then,  heading  west,  he  steamed  slowly  and 
cautiously  towards  New  Inlet.  By  ten 
o'clock,  the  signal  lights  at  Fort  Fisher, 
which  we  found  were  arranged  and  worked 
with  the  greatest  skill,  began  to  be  distin- 
guished. Then  came  our  most  thrilling  ex- 
perience, the  last  hazard. 

Coke  was  supplied  to  the  furnaces  instead 
of  coal,  in  order  to  show  no  smoke.  No 
lights  were  allowed  on  the  upper  deck,  ex- 
cept the  one  in  the  binnacle,  to  light  the 
compass  for  the  helmsman,  and  a  dim  one  in 
the  Captain's  cabin,  which  could  be  seen 
only  from  the  stern.  Strict  orders  were  giv- 
en that  none  should  speak  above  a  whisper. 
A  fine  Newfoundland  dog,  which  the  Cap- 
tain was  bringing  to  a  friend,  was  taken  be- 
low and  securely  fastened,  that  his  bark 
might  be  muffled ;  for,  by  instinct,  dogs  will 
always  bark  when  they  approach  shore  on 
shipboard.  It  was  astonishing  with  how  lit- 
tle noise,  by  all  these  precautions,  our  fine 
low-pressure  steamer  glided  swiftly  through 
the  two  dark  grim  lines  of  blockading  ves- 
sels, completely  unseen  and  unheard  by  any 
of  them.  Dark  as  was  the  night,  we  could 


1885.] 


How  the  Blockade  was  Run. 


251 


easily  see  the  black  hulls  of  the  war-ships  to 
right  and  left  of  us,  in  hailing  distance,  as  we 
sped  on  under  every  pound  of  steam  through 
the  outer  line,  and  soon  through  the  inner 
line  of  blockaders.  Their  distinctness  was 
startling  as  we  hastened  past  them,  not  know- 
ing at  what  moment  they  might  detect  us 
and  open  fire  with  their  big  guns.  One  rea- 
son the  slight  noise  produced  by  our  en- 
gines was  not  heard  on  board  these  war- 
ships was,  that  their  machinery  made  much 
more  noise  than  ours,  and  they  were  obliged 
to  keep  their  engines  in  motion,  to  be  ready 
at  any  moment  to  give  chase. 

Twice  we  thought  our  time  had  come. 
As  we  rushed  near  one  dark  man-of-war,  a 
bright  lantern  was  suddenly  displayed  over 
her  side  towards  us.  We  at  first  took  this 
for  a  signal  of  detection,  and  expected  a  shot 
to  follow.  But  none  came.  Soon,  to  our 
left  there  was  a  flash  and  the  boom  of  a  dis- 
tant gun.  But  no  ball  passed  near  us,  and 
we  concluded  it  was  meant  for  some  one 
else.  In  the  midst  of  this  we  heard  the 
muffled  bark  of  our  dog  below,  true  to  his 
instinct. 

When  at  last  we  crossed  the  bar,  a  large 
launch  full  of  Federal  seamen  lay  there  on 
guard.  Captain  Maffit,  who  was  on  the 
watch,  called  out,  "Hard  aport !  Run  her 
down!"  wishing  our  steamer  to  sink  the 
launch,  if  possible. 

But  they  were  too  quick  with  their  oars,  and 
we  rushed  by  them  harmlessly.  As  we 
passed  them  an  order  came  from  one  of  our 
ship's  officers : 

"Look  out  for  musketry  !     Lie  down  !  " 

All  dropped  at  the  word,  but  no  volley 
was  sent  into  us,  though  it  was  not  expected 
that  they  would  lose  such  an  opportunity. 
So  soon  as  we  had  left  them  astern,  they  sig- 
naled with  Roman  candles  to  the  blockad- 
ing fleet,  informing  them,  as  we  concluded, 
of  our  success.  For  we  were  safe  then,  and 
cast  anchor  under  the  protecting  guns  of 
Fott  Fisher  about  midnight. 

The  relief  and  rejoicing  on  the  "  Lillian  " 
may  be  imagined,  but  cannot  be  adequately 
described.  By  the  time  our  officers  had 
communicated  with  Fort  Fisher,  and  we  had 
received  and  read  the  daily  papers,  giving 


details  of  the  desperate  fighting  between 
Generals  Grant  and  Lee  the  day  before  at 
Cold  Harbor,  we  heard  a  lively  rush  of  wa- 
ter near  us,  and  there  came  our  consor.t,  the 
"  Clio,"  and  she,  too,  uninjured.  Leaving  the 
Bermudas  an  hour  before  us,  she  arrived  only 
three  hours  later.  She  had  been  chased 
over  Frying  Pan  Shoals  after  dark.  The 
flash  we  saw  south  of  us,  while  we  were  run- 
ning in,  was  from  a  shot  fired  at  her.  It 
passed  harmlessly  across  her  deck,  and  soon 
she  followed  in  our  wake. 

None  felt  much  like  sleeping  that  night. 
It  was  a  time  of  general  congratulation  and 
enthusiasm.  Two  most  valuable  cargoes 
made  safe  in  one  night !  On  inquiry,  we 
learned  it  was  not  exaggerating  to  say  that 
at  least  nineteen  out  of  twenty  blockade  run- 
ning steamers  did  come  in  safely  at  Wil- 
mington. Not  so,  however,  with  those  going 
out.  A  much  larger  proportion  of  the  out- 
ward bound  vessels  were  captured.  This  we 
accounted  for  at  the  time  by  the  scarcity  and 
value  of  the  cotton  with  which  they  were 
loaded.  It  seemed  to  incite  the  blockaders 
to  more  vigilance  and  success.  It  was,  also, 
perhaps,  easier  to  detect  steamers  going 
through  a  narrow  channel  to  sea,  than  those 
coming  in  from  the  broad  ocean. 

No  one  enjoyed  the  excitement  and  suc- 
cess of  that  night  more  than  Captain  Maffit. 
He  was  usually  sedate  and  undemonstrative, 
but  his  expression  of  enthusiasm  that  night 
was  memorable,  and  furnished  great  amuse- 
ment, into  which  he  entered  as  fully  as  any 
one.  He  had  retired  just  before  the  "  Clio  " 
arrived.  But  when  he  heard  that  she,  too, 
was  in  safely,  he  sprang  out  of  his  stateroom 
in  his  night  "  rig,"  drew  from  under  the  ta- 
ble a  large  hand  organ,  which  he  had  brought 
in  as  a  present  for  a  friend,  and  there  stood 
the  hero  of  the  "Florida,"  grinding  out  a 
lively  tune  with  a  vim  that  added  no  little  to 
the  general  hilarity  of  the  occasion. 

How  beautiful  did  the  green  banks  of 
Cape  Fear  River  appear  next  morning,  as 
we  steamed  slowly  towards  Wilmington,  and 
gratefully  remembered  that  we  were  once 
more  safe  in  Dixie,  after  all  the  hazards  of 
battle  and  wounds,  prison  and  escape,  a  sea- 
voyage,  and  running  the  blockade. 

/    W.  A.  Wright. 


252 


A  Plea  before  Judge  Lynch. 


[Sept. 


A  PLEA  BEFORE  JUDGE  LYNCH. 


THE  incident  I  am  about  to  relate  hap- 
pened during  the  early  days  of  the  California 
gold  excitement,  when  miners'  laws  held  su- 
preme sway  in  the  mines,  and  the  courts  of 
Judge  Lynch  were  the  frequent  resorts  for 
justice. 

I  had  strolled  over  one  evening  to  the 
cabin  of  my  nearest  neighbor,  Cyrus  Thorne, 
or  "  Uncle  Cy,"  as  he  was  generally  called, 
to  have  a  quiet  chat  with  him,  before  retiring 
for  the  night.  The  old  man  had  come 
amongst  us  but  a  few  months  before,  but 
had  in  that  time  endeared  himself  to  us  all 
by  his  kind  heart  and  gentle  ways.  The 
roughest  and  most  unmanageable  men  in  our 
camp  soon  came  to  respect  him,  from  the 
very  fact  that  he  took  no  part  in  their  wild 
amusements.  As  a  peacemaker,  he  was  a 
decided  success,  and  many  a  dispute  amongst 
the  miners  which  might  have  led  to  blood- 
shed had  been  peaceably  adjusted  by  being 
left  to  him  for  arbitration. 

All  we  knew  of  his  early  history  was  from 
the  few  hints  he  had  himself  given  us.  Edu- 
cated for  the  law,  he  had,  after  a  short  sea- 
son, retired  from  its  practice.  The  reason 
for  this,  we  had  cause  to  infer,  was  his  ex- 
treme abhorrence  for  anything  even  remotely 
approaching  the  boundaries  of  falsehood  or 
deceit.  His  almost  morbid  sensitiveness  on 
this  point  was  ridiculed  by  some;  others 
looked  upon  him  as  a  religious  enthusiast ; 
but  all  were  agreed  in  this,  that  any  statement 
he  made  was  thus  at  once  placed  beyond  all 
manner  of  dispute  or  doubt. 

He  was  too  old  to  labor  successfully  at 
mining,  but  his  little  garden,  carefully  tended, 
brought  him  in  many  a  dollar;  while  tfie 
poultry  he  kept,  which  at  that  time  laid 
golden  eggs  in  good  earnest,  made  up  to  him 
enough  to  supply  all  his  modest  wants. 

As  we  sat  quietly  talking,  several  pistol 
shots  came  echoing  up  from  the  gulch  below 
us,  near  the  town.  We  hardly  gave  this  a 
passing  thought,  such  fusillades  being  of 


common  occurrence;  but  when,  a  little  later, 
the  deep  silence  that  surrounded  us  was 
broken  by  the  thrilling  sound  of  seven  slow, 
solemn  strokes  on  our  alarm  bell,  repeated 
over  and  over  after  each  short  interval,  all 
listlessness  and  apathy  on  our  part  instantly 
vanished,  for  all  who  heard  that  measured 
ringing  knew  too  well  its  import.  As  far  as  its 
vibrations  reached  they  carried  the  story  of 
some  great  crime  committed,  and  of  swift 
retribution  to  follow  at  the  hands  of  the  Vigi- 
lantes, who  were  being  summoned  to  coun- 
cil by  this  signal. 

An  hour  later  I  was  seated  apart  from  the 
crowd,  gazing  almost  entranced  upon  the  most 
impressive  scene  I  had  ever  witnessed.  Seat- 
ed upon  the  ground  before  me,  with  uncovered 
heads,  were  some  three  or  four  hundred  men, 
rough,  uncouth  characters  many  of  them, 
waiting,  orderly  and  silent,  to  see  the  just  pen- 
alty of  his  crime  inflicted  upon  yon  poor 
wretch  who  stood  bound  in  their  midst,  and 
who  had  been  taken  red-handed,  as  it  were. 
Everything  was  to  be  done  decently  and  in 
order.  One  of  their  number  had  been  se- 
lected to  act  as  judge;  a  jury  had  been  em- 
panelled, and,  as  the  judge  remarked,  "the 
prisoner  was  to  have  a  show  for  his  life  ac- 
cording to  law  " — though  what  that  show  was, 
the  dangling  noose  from  the  high  flume  near 
by  too  plainly  foretold.  No  impatience  at 
the  slowness  of  the  proceedings  was  mani- 
fested by  the  crowd,  for  all  fears  of  interrup- 
tion had  been  removed  by  attending  to  the 
telegraph  line  that  connected  us  with  the 
county  seat,  the  only  point  from  which  a  res- 
cuing party  could  come. 

The  case,  briefly  summed  up,  stood  thus  : 
A  cabin  near  the  edge  of  the  town  had  for 
some  weeks  been  occupied  bythreesuspicious 
characters,  about  whom  but  little  was  known. 
They  were  evidently  night-hawks,  as  no 
smoke  was  ever  seen  issuing  from  their 
chimney  until  long  after  the  noon  hour, 
and  the  men,  though  often  seen  coming 


1885.] 


A  Plea  before  Judge  Lynch. 


253 


from  their  cabin  at  night,  held  themselves 
aloof  from  all  their  neighbors.  A  cutting 
affray  had  occurred  the.  night  before  in  one 
of  the  gambling  houses  of  the  town,  and  the 
proprietor  of  the  house  had  sworn  out  a 
warrant  for  the  arrest  of  one  of  the  occupants 
of  this  cabin,  as  the  aggressor.  Our  consta- 
ble was  away  on  other  business,  and  did  not 
return  until  after  nightfall;  then,  on  approach- 
ing the  cabin  to  serve  the  warrant,  he  was 
shot  dead  by  one  of  its  inmates,  who  escaped 
in  the  darkness.  While  active  search  was 
being  made  for  him,  a  secret  watch  was  put 
upon  the  cabin,  as  a  kind  of  forlorn  hope, 
which  was  unexpectedly  rewarded  by  the  ar- 
rest of  the  prisoner,  who  had  been  caught 
stealing  cautiously  in,  bareheaded,  pistol  in 
hand,  and  evidently  under  great  excitement. 

He  had  been  roughly  handled  and  well 
nigh  dispatched  before  the  trial  had  been 
decided  upon,  and  hardly  seemed  conscious 
of  the  nature  of  the  proceedings  against  him 
while  they  were  progressing.  We  all  felt 
there  was  no  hope  for  turn ;  if  not  guilty  of 
the  crime,  he  was  at  least  an  accomplice, 
and  the  camp  would  feel  safer  if  he  was  put 
out  of  the  way  and  his  cabin  given  to  the 
flames.  It  was  only  after  the  evidence  was 
all  in  that  he  found  his  voice,  and  then,  in 
tones  that  it  seemed  to  me  must  carry  con- 
viction to  the  hearts  of  some  of  his  hearers, 
he  exclaimed:  "  Gentlemen,  as  true  as  there 
is  a  God  in  heaven,  I  am  innocent  of  all 
knowledge  of  this  murder !  " 

The  next  moment  I  saw  Uncle  Cy  making 
his  way  through  the  throng  towards  the 
judge,  and  after  a  few  whispered  words  with 
him,  retracing  his  steps.  The  judge  arose, 
and  said  that  he  had  been  reminded  by  a 
question  just  asked  him,  that  he  had  com- 
mittee the  oversight  of  not  appointing  any 
counsel  for  the  prisoner,  and  as  he  ought  to 
have  some  one  as  a  mere  matter  of  form, 
and  couldn't  have  a  better  man  than  Uncle 
Cy,  he  would  appoint  him. 

The  old  man,  much  excited,  and  apparently 
laboring  under  great  embarrassment,  pleaded 
earnestly  to  be  excused,  saying,  finally,  that 
his  previous  knowledge  of  the  prisoner  might 
prevent  him  from  defending  him  as  he  should. 


This  hint  was  immediately  caught  at  by 
the  crowd,  who  were  eager  to  obtain  all  the 
evidence  they  could  against  the  fellow,  as  a 
fuller  justification  for  the  course  they  had 
already  fully  determined  on;  and  so,  in  a  few 
minutes,  Uncle  Cy,  with  a  willingness  that 
completely  surprised  and  shocked  me,  was 
giving  his  evidence  against  him,  which,  though 
fastening  no  specific  crime  upon  him,  proved 
him  to  be  a  worthless  character,  and  a  bad 
man  to  have  around. 

While  mining  on  a  little  stream  near  Au- 
burn, the  previous  summer,  he  first  met  this 
man,  who  went  there  by  the  name  of  "  Shaky 
Jim,"  from  a  kind  of  palsy  he  had ;  he  took 
pity  on  him,  and  tried  in  various  ways  to  be- 
friend him  ;  got  suitable  work  for  him  sev- 
eral times;  let  him  stay  in  the  cabin  with 
them  for  a  while,  and  supplied  him  with 
money  frequently  ;  but  his  kindness  was  all 
thrown  away.  His  partners  warned  him  that 
Jim  was  only  getting  the  lay  of  the  land  in 
order  to  rob  them.  Events  seemed  to  prove 
the  truth  of  this  ;  their  cabin  was  twice  rob- 
bed during  their  absence,  their  dog  shut  up 
in  it  giving  no  alarm.  They  also  found  their 
sluices  were  being  systematically  robbed, 
though  all  attempts  to  catch  the  thief  were 
unavailing.  About  this  time  Jim  quit  com- 
ing near  them,  but  was  well  supplied  with 
funds  from  some  source,  which  he  squan- 
dered at  the  gambling  tables  and  saloons. 

As  Uncle  Cy  gave  his  evidence,  it  was 
plain  that  the  feeling  of  revenge  had  com- 
plete possession  of  him,  possibly  because  the 
officer  killed  had  been  his  particular  friend. 
His  very  nature  seemed  to  have  been  chang- 
ed by  the  cry  for  blood  that  was  in  the  air, 
and  it  was  painful  to  see  how  he  dwelt  upon 
each  little  detail  that  was  likely  to  tell  against 
poor  Jim.  He  had  at  least  proved  to  the 
crowd  that  he  was  in  perfect  unison  with 
them,  and  they  rejoiced  thereat,  for  they  felt 
that  with  Uncle  Cy  on  their  side,  they  would 
have  full  warrant  for  all  they  did. 

"There  is  one  thing,  however,"  he  con- 
tinued, "connected  with  this  murder,  that  I 
don't  rightly  understand  :  Jim  used  to  be  as 
keen  as  a  steel  trap,  and  cover  up  all  his 
tracks ;  that  he  should  walk  right  into  the 


254 


A  Plea  before  Judge  Lynch. 


[Sept. 


trap  that  he  might  know  had  been  laid  for 
him,  and  be  taken  so  easily,  either  proves 
that  he  had  forgotten  his  cunning,  or  that  he 
had  been  off  on  some  other  lay,  his  old  one 
of  sluice  robbing,  possibly,  and  knew  nothing 
of  the  shooting  his  partners  had  been  doing. 
Boys,"  said  he,  with  a  sudden  and  complete 
change  of  manner  that  none  could  help  no- 
ticing, "you  all  know  my  theory  that  you 
can  find  some  good  in  every  man,  if  you  only 
know  where  to  sink  for  it.  There  is  not  a 
man  in  this  crowd  but  what  believes  in  fair 
play,  and  therefore  it  is  no  more  than  right 
that  I  should  tell  you  of  a  little  thing  that 
took  place  later  in  the  fall,  when  Shaky  Jim 
rather  redeemed  himself.  He  may  be  a 
thief,  but  he  carries  some  things  about  with 
him  that  he  didn't  steal.  He  didn't  steal 
those  marks  with  which  his  face  is  covered; 
he  came  honestly  by  them,  and  I'll  tell  you 
how  it  happened. 

"  You  know  the  small-pox  was  pretty  bad 
in  Sacramento  last  summer,  and  spread  from 
there  to  a  great  many  places  in  the  mines. 
We  didn't  let  the  reports  about  it  worry  us 
much  where  we  were  ;  but  I  tell  you  we  were 
badly  demoralized  one  day,  when  we  heard 
that  we  had  two  cases  of  it  right  in  our  midst. 
As  a  general  thing,  men  didn't  make  many 
preparations  for  leaving,  but  just  suddenly 
left.  My  thre'e  partners  and  myself  conclud- 
ed we'd  face  it  out,  as  we  were  near  the  head 
of  the  creek,  and  thought  we  should  be  as 
safe  there  as  anywhere.  During  the  next 
few  days  we  had  seven  deaths  on  the  creek, 
and  there  were  not  well  men  enough  left  to 
take  care  of  the  sick. 

"  Our  company  had  escaped  so  far,  but  one 
day  when  I  came  home  from  helping  bury  a 
poor  fellow,  and  saw  the  doctor's  horse  tied 
in  front  of  our  cabin,  I  knew  our  turn  had 
come.  Harry  Thayer,  our  boy,  as  we  called 
him,  for  he  was  only  about  twenty-five,  while 
the  rest  of  us  were  comparatively  old  men, 
had  been  taken  very  suddenly,  and  it  was 
going  to  be  a  bad  case.  But  what  hurt  me 
most  was  to  find  a  note  from  my  two  partners, 
saying  they  did  not  see  any  use  in  their  stay- 
ing there  any  longer,  and  as  they  knew  I 
would  want  to  stay  anyhow  and  take  care  of 


the  boy,  I  might  have  their  interest  in  the 
cabin  for  so  doing.  I  don't  believe  any 
written  words  ever  came  so  near  burning  out 
from  a  man's  heart  all  faith  in  his  kind,  as 
those  words  did  from  mine. 

"The  next  two  days  and  nights  that  I 
passed  in  that  cabin  with  that  poor  stricken 
lad  were  the  most  terrible  and  lonesome  ones 
of  my  life,  for  no  one  but  the  doctor  had  been 
near  me.  On  the  second  night,  Harry  was 
wildly  delirious  all  night,  and  the  doctor's 
visit  in  the  morning  left  me  slight  hopes  for 
his  recovery.  Is  it  any  wonder  that  I  felt 
pretty  blue,  and  that  when  I  saw  Shaky  Jim's 
face  peering  in  at  the  cabin  door  I  should 
speak  rather  rough  to  him  ?  I  supposed,  of 
course,  that  he  had  come  begging  again,  as 
usual,  so  I  told  him,  very  abruptly,  to  leave  ; 
that  I  didn't  want  to  be  bothered  with  hav- 
ing him  around,  for  I  had  trouble  enough  of 
my  own. 

"  It  vexed  me  to  see  he  didn't  start  right 
off,  so  I  said  to  him,  pointing  over  to  Harry's 
bunk  :  '  Do  you  knowthat  man  lying  there  is 
your  old  friend  Thayer,  and  that  he  is  nearly 
dead  with  the  small-pox  ? ' 

"Now,  Harry  had  always  been  particular- 
ly down  on  Jim,  and  never  missed  any  chance 
to  abuse  him  ;  and  I  thought  that  fact  alone 
would  make  him  leave  at  once,  if  the  fright 
didn't  do  it.  But  my  rough  words  had  quite 
a  different  effect  on  him.  He  just  stepped 
quietly  inside  the  cabin,  took  off  his  old  rag- 
ged hat  and  threw  it  down  on  the  floor  in  the 
corner,  and  said  to  me,  speaking  low  so  as 
not  to  disturb  the  sick  man,  '  O,  I  know 
all  about  that,  Uncle  Cy ;  that's  what  brought 
me  here.' 

"  I  was  too  surprised  to  speak,  but  took  a 
good  square  look  at  him.  He  was  perfectly 
sober  for  the  first  time  for  many  a  day,  and 
the  poor  fellow  had  fixed  himself  up  as  well 
as  he  could.  Laying  his  hand  gently  on  my 
arm,  he  continued,  '  I  heard  about  him  last 
night  for  the  first  time.  I  know  how  to  nurse. 
I  got  my  instructions  about  him  from  the 
doctor  just  now.  And  now,  Uncle  Cy,  I 
want  you  to  go  and  stay  away  from  here,  and 
leave  him  to  me.' 

"  Boys,  you  might  have  knocked  me  down 


1885.J 


A  Plea  before  Judge  Lynch. 


255 


with  a  feather,  as  that  poor  man  stood  there, 
pleading  to  take  my  place.  I  thought  of  a 
good  many  things  in  a  few  seconds,  and 
amongst  others,  whether  those  partners  of 
mine  might  not  have  been  the  thieves  and 
done  all  the  stealing,  and  given  poor  Jim 
money  enough  to  keep  him  drunk,  so  as  to 
throw  suspicion  on  him. 

"  Not  reading  my  thoughts  aright,  he 
broke  in  upon  them  by  saying,  '  Please  don't 
be  afraid  to  trust  me,  Uncle  Cy,  for  as  true 
•as  there  is  a  God  in  heaven,  I  will  bring  him 
through  all  right,  if  it  is  in  my  power  to  do 
it.  You  are  the  only  man  in  this  camp  who 
has  ever  taken  me  by  the  hand  and  given  me 
a  kind  word.  I  want  you  to  know  I  am  not 
the  ungrateful  wretch  they  all  take  me  to  be. 
I  know  how  worthless  I  am,  and  I  won't  be 
missed ;  all  I  ask  is  to  live  long  enough  to 
see  him  well  once  more.  But  you  are  doing 
good  in  the  world,  and  your  life  is  worth  a 
thousand  like  mine ;  I  want  you  to  go.'  " 

For  some  minutes  the  most  intense  silence 
had  fallen  upon  the  throng  ;  every  eye  was 
turned  towards  the  speaker  ;  every  man  was 
listening  almost  breathlessly,  eager  to  catch 
each  word  as  it  fell  from  his  lips,  and  he  him- 
self had  been  completely  transformed.  His 
form  was  now  erect,  all  signs  of  hesitation 
had  disappeared,  and  a  glad  look  of  triumph 
lit  up  his  face,  as  he  saw  his  eager,  homely 
words  striking  home  to  the  hearts  of  his  hear- 
ers with  a  telling  force.  Our  old  kind  Uncle 
Cy  had  come  back  to  us  again ;  he  had 
thrown  a  pall  over  his  dead  friend  yonder  in 
the  town,  and  was  now  pleading  with  all  the 
earnestness  of  his  nature  for  the  life  of  the 
man  before  him. 

I  noticed,  too,  the  great  change  that  had 
taken  place  in  the  manner  of  the  prisoner. 
He  had  attempted  several  times  to  interrupt 
the  speaker,  but  had  been  summarily  quiet- 
ed. His  sullen,  defiant  looks  had,  however, 
all  ceased,  and  he  seemed  to  know  him  now 
as  his  friend.  He  was  eagerly  watching  the 
jury  and  noticed  the  changed  glances  they 
now  cast  upon  him,  and  his  excessive  tremor, 
which  had  been  explained,  was  now  scarcely 
noticeable. 

My  attention,  however,  was  quickly  taken 


from  him,  and  for  a  moment  I  was  terribly 
startled  by  what  I  saw  taking  place  within 
arm's  reach  of  him.  "  Old  Virginia,"  one  of 
the  most  desperate  characters  in  our  camp, 
was  acting  as  a  special  guard  over  him.  I 
saw  the  old  man  draw  his  hunting-knife  from 
its  sheath,  and  partly  rising,  turn  towards 
him.  Before  I  had  time  to  think  what  his 
object  could  be,  or  to  utter  the  warning  cry 
that  involuntarily  rose  to  rny  lips,  it  had  done 
its  work ;  its  keen  edge  had  touched  the 
cords  that  bound  the  poor  man's  wrists,  and 
his  arms  were  once  more  free;  and  then,  as 
Old  Virginia  replaced  the  knife  in  his  belt, 
and  passed  his  tobacco  over  to  the  surprised 
man  to  sample,  I  knew  that  Uncle  Cy's  words 
were  doing  their  work  thoroughly.  Old  Vir- 
ginia had  probably  never  heard  what  break- 
ing bread  or  tasting  salt  with  an  enemy  im- 
plied in  other  lands,  but,  though  you  may 
not  be  aware  of  it,  Jim,  you  have  had  all  the 
evidence  of  his  friendship  and  protection  that 
you  need.  He,  who  was  a  few  minutes  ago 
your  bitter  enemy,  is  now  your  friend,  and 
one  who  will,  if  necessary,  without  a  mo- 
ment's hesitation,  prove  himself  such  by 
bridging  the  chasm  that  separates  you  from 
freedom  and  safety  with  his  life. 

After  a  moment's  hesitation,  Uncle  Cy  con- 
tinued :  "  My  friends,  I  cannot  tell  you  how 
keenly  I  felt  the  wrong  I  had  done  poor  Jim, 
for  more  than  once,  in  speaking  of  him,  I 
had  said  that  he  was  a  poor,  worthless  char- 
acter, and  did  not  pan  out  worth  a  cent ;  but 
now,  as  I  listened  to  him,  and  saw  how  eager 
he  was  to  catch  some  sign  in  my  face  that  I 
had  faith  in  him,  I  felt  that  no  matter  what 
he  had  been  or  done  before,  I  was  now  stand- 
ing face  to  face  with  a  man.  I  knew  I  ran 
no  risk  in  trusting  him — he  would  do  all  he 
promised  ;  and  by  the  way,  although  I  did 
not  leave  him,  he  kept  his  word  nobly.  He 
nursed  the  bitterest  enemy  he  had  in  that 
camp  back  to  life  and  health,  and  the  story 
of  how  nearly  he  paid  for  it  with  his  life,  his 
poor,  disfigured  face  too  plainly  tells.  Not 
pan  out  worth  a  cent  ?  I  tell  you,  boys,  I 
think  you  would  have  to  prospect  around  a 
long  time  before  you  found  richer  diggings 
than  I  struck  down  there  in  poor  Jim's  heart." 


256 


A  Pita  before  Judge  Lynch. 


[Sept. 


Ere  the  echo  of  his  words  had  died  away, 
a  murmur  of  suppressed  excitement  ran 
through  the  crowd,  whose  feelings  had  been 
worked  up  to  such  an  intense  strain  that  I 
knew  they  must  speedily  find  vent  either  in 
words  or  in  acts.  Eager  glances  were  ex- 
changed to  see  who  would  take  the  lead, 
when  the  foreman  of  the  jury  sprang  excited- 
ly to  his  feet,  and  in  tones  that  were  heard 
more  than  a  mile  away,  exclaimed  :  "  You 
are  right  about  that,  Uncle  Cy  !  You  struck 
the  very  biggest  kind  of  high  old  diggings, 
that  time — 'an  ounce  to  the  pan,  bed-rock 
a-pitching,  and  gravel  turning  blue  !'" 

These  words,  destined  later  to  become  as 
familiar  as  household  words  to  all  who  mined 
upon  the  great  blue  lead,  chimed  in  so  per- 
fectly with  the  feelings  of  his  audience  that 
they  instantly  brought  every  man  to  his  feet, 
and  a  scene  of  the  wildest  excitement  fol- 
lowed. Amidst  the  perfect  babel  of  cries 
that  rent  the  air,  those  of  "  Verdict ! "  "  Not 
Guilty!"  and  cheer  after  cheer  for  Uncle 
Cy  and  Jim  predominated.  But  high  above 
all  could  be  heard  the  voice  of  the  judge 
endeavoring  to  restore  order  to  his  unruly 
court.  As  soon  as  he  could  make  himself 
heard,  he  said  : 

"Hold  on,  boys!  hold  on!  What  is  the 
use  of  getting  excited  ?  Keep  cool,  and  go 
slow!  Remember  this  is  a  court,  and  every- 
thing we  do  here  has  got  to  be  done  on  the 
square,  and  according  to  Hoyle.  No  matter 
if  we  did  come  pretty  near  making  a  mis- 
take ;  we  meant  well :  but  we  can  see  now 
that  Jim  had  been  off  on  some  other  lay. 
What  it  was,  we  don't  know,  and  we  are  not 
trying  to  find  out;  for  I  rather  think  you  will 
all  agree  with  me,  that  when  a  man  walks  up 
and  faces  death  as  he  did,  he  takes  out  a 
regular  license,  good  anywheres  in  the  mines, 
to  go  a  little  crooked  once  in  a  while  when 
he  gets  in  a  tight  place.  The  superintendent 
of  the  jury  says  their  verdict  is  Not  Guilty, 
but  it  strikes  me  we  are  all  entitled  to  have 
some  say  in  this  business ;  so  I  move  we 
now  proceed  to  adjourn  this  court  by  making 
that  verdict  unanimous." 

This  somewhat  irregular  proceeding  met 
the  full  approval  of  his  audience,  and  in  a 


few  minutes  the  entire  throng  was  on  its  way 
back  to  the  town,  while  the  poor  wretch' who 
had  just  been  snatched  from  the  very  jaws 
of  death  was  still  the  object  of  its  attention, 
but  this  time  only  in  the  way  of  kindness. 

Uncle  Cy  kept  constantly  near  him,  and 
soon  after  reaching  the  town  managed  to 
evade  the  crowd,  and  got  away  unnoticed 
with  his  charge. 

Some  time  after  his  disappearance  I  again 
repaired  to  his  cabin,  expecting  to  find  him 
there.  But  he  had  not  returned  ;  and  it  was 
only  after  several  hours'  anxious  waiting  that 
I  saw  him  slowly  coming  up  the  -gulch 
alone. 

I  hastened  forward  to  meet  him,  and 
eagerly  inquired  what  he  had  done  with  his 
friend.  He  replied  that  he  had  been  with 
him  down  to  the  crossing  on  the  river,  some 
four  miles  away,  and  had  arrived  there  just 
in  time  to  intercept  the  Sacramento  stage. 

"Thank  God!"  he  continued  with  a  sigh 
of  relief,  "  he  is  safe  now.  I  was  rather  wor- 
ried when  I  found  I  had  not  change  enough 
to  pay  his  fare  through,  but  the  driver  acted 
splendidly.  '  I  see  he  is  a  friend  of  yours, 
Uncle  Cy,'  said  he,  'and  that  you  take  a 
particular  interest  in  him;  that  is  enough. 
Just  you  leave  him  to  me.  I'll  see  him  safe 
aboard  the  'Frisco  boat  today,  and  as  for  the 
balance  of  his  fare,  I'll  arrange  that  with  the 
agent.'" 

Seating  myself  by  Uncle  Cy's  side  at  the 
door  of  his  cabin,  I  said  to  him,  "  I  envy 
you  your  feelings,  Uncle  Cy.  If  there  are 
any  pleasant  dreams  to  be  distributed  in  the 
mines  tonight,  a  good  share  of  them  will 
surely  find  their  way  to  your  pillow." 

"  I  feel  very  thankful  and  happy  now,"  he 
replied,  "  but  this  has  been  a  terrible,  bewil- 
dering night  to  me.  I  have  tried  to  do  right, 
and  am  very  glad  you  approve  of  my  course. 
I  little  expected  ever  to  take  part  in  another 
trial,  but  how  could  I  do  less  than  I  have 
done?  When  I  heard  his  piteous  cry  to 
heaven,  I  felt  certain  he  was  innocent.  I 
was  no  longer  my  own  master.  I  was  irre- 
sistibly impelled  to  rush  in  and  try  to  save 
him.  But  my  task  was  a  hard  one.  Con- 
sider for  a  moment  the  kind  of  men  I  had 


1885.] 


Buskin. 


257 


to  deal  with  :  a  direct  appeal  to  them  was 
useless;  they  would  not  even  have  listened 
to  me  if  they  had  known  my  desire  was  to 
rob  them  of  their  prey.  All  force  was  out 
of  the  question,  for  I  knew  that  a  hundred 
of  the  bravest  men  alive,  armed  to  the  teeth, 
could  not  make  them  swerve  an  inch  from 
their  purpose.  But  I  also  knew  if  I  could 
touch  them  in  the  right  place,  a  little  child 
might  lead  them.  I  could  think  of  no  course 
to  insure  a  hearing,  but  to  appear  to  be  in 
perfect  unison  with  them,  and  then  some- 
thing had  to  be  sprung  upon  them  suddenly 
to  enlist  their  sympathy,  and  cause  them  to 
act  before  they  had  time  to  consider.  But 
oh,  my  friend,  it  was  terrible — groping  blindly 
in  the  dark,  not  a  single  ray  of  light  ahead, 
talking  wildly  to  kill  time  until  some  opening 
might  appear ;  and  all  the  time  I  was  almost 
crazed  with  the  knowledge  that  if  I  did  not 
extricate  him,  he  would  look  upon  me  as  a 
wilful  murderer ;  and  you  would  all,  in  your 
sober  moments,  loathe  and  detest  me.  But 
my  efforts  were  all  in  vain  until,  at  last,  my 
heart,  almost  crushed  with  despair,  went  up 
in  a  great  agonizing  cry  to  the  Father  to  aid 
me.  Instantly  I  felt  his  strong  arm  around 
me,  supporting  me,  and  as  I  turned  towards 
the  prisoner,  the  marks  upon  his  poor  scarred 
face,  lit  up  by  the  flickering  of  the  huge  fires 
that  surrounded  us,  suggested  at  once  the 
path  to  victory,  and  oh,  how  eagerly  and  joy- 
ously I  pursued  it !  For  I  knew  his  life  was 
saved,  and  that  our  little  community  was 
also  saved  from  the  commission  of  a  great 
crime." 

Astounded  and  mystified  by  his  words,  I 


exclaimed :  "  I  am  not  sure  that  I  understand 
you  right,  Uncle  Cy;  was  it  not  all  true  that 
you  told  us  of  him?  " 

"  All  true  ?  "  he  replied,  looking  at '  me 
earnestly,  as  though  not  comprehending  my 
question.  "All  true?  I  was  sure  you  knew 
my  secret.  That  poor  hunted  creature  was 
a  perfect  stranger  to  me.  I  never  saw  or 
heard  of  him  before  tonight." 

I  was  too  completely  surprised  to  make 
any  reply  to  him,  and  he  quickly  continued: 

"I  understand  your  thoughts  perfectly; 
you  are  wondering  how  I  can  reconcile  my 
course  tonight  with  my  teachings.  I  shall 
make  no  attempt  to  do  so.  I  do  not  under- 
stand myself.  My  conscience  does  not  re- 
prove me  in  the  least  for  what  I  have  done ; 
on  the  contrary,  I  never  felt  more  perfect 
rest  and  peace  than  I  do  at  this  moment. 
It  is  a  great,  a  wondrous  mystery  to  me. 
Can  it  be  possible  that  the  old  poetic  fancy, 
that  the  recording  angel  does  sometimes  blot 
out  with  a  tear  the  entry  he  has  just  made 
on  the  wrong  side  of  our  account,  may  be  a 
heavenly  truth?" 

Far  away  in  the  east  the  first  faint  glimmer 
of  the  new  day  was  appearing,  and  thither 
the  old  man  was  intently  gazing,  as  though 
searching  there  for  the  inward  light  his  soul 
so  earnestly  craved.  I  saw  he  had  lapsed 
into  a  kind  of  waking  trance  to  which  he  was 
at  times  subject.  He  was  waiting  patiently 
for  an  answer  to  his  question,  but  not  from 
me.' '  He  had  become  entirely  oblivious  of 
my  presence,  so  I  silently  slipped  away,  and 
left  him  in  the  full  enjoyment  of  his  pleas- 
ant thoughts. 

W.S.  H. 


VOL  VI.— 17. 


RUSKIN. 

AND  is  he  dying ;  he,  whose  silver  tone 
Has  long  resounded  in  the  solemn  place, 
Where  beauty  shows  unveiled  her  holy  face, 

As  he  has,  led  the  reverent  to  her  throne  ? 

• 

How  shall  she  fitly  canonize  her  priest, 

Thus  to  repay  the  loving  zeal  of  years  ? 
Vain  thought !     For  in  that  life  of  zeal  appears 
A  sainthood  now  that  cannot  be  increased. 

Charles  S. 


Greene. 


258 


The  Doctor  of  Leidesdorff  Street. 


[Sept. 


THE  DOCTOR  OF  LEIDESDORFF  STREET. 


I. 


LEIDESDORFF  STREET,  San  Francisco,  in 
1863,  presented  an  appearance  very  different 
from  that  which  it  presents  now.  At  the 
earlier  date  the  narrow  thoroughfare  dis- 
played many  of  the  characteristics  of  the 
San  Francisco  of  pioneer  days.  Many  of 
the  houses  were  low,  wooden  structures, 
dingy  in  appearance,  and  of  fragile  construc- 
tion; their  unsubstantial  character  recalling 
unpleasantly  to  the  mind  of  the  observer  the 
numerous  devastating  fires  which  swept  over 
the  city  in  the  first  years  of  its  existence. 
Possibly  some  of  these  primitive  dwellings 
still  remain  at  the  northern  end  of  the  street. 
The  early  conflagrations  were  still  more  forci- 
bly called  to  mind  by  one  or  two  of  those 
peculiar  buildings  erected  by  harassed  prop- 
erty owners  in  the  fond  but  delusive  hope 
that  they  would  withstand  future  visitations 
of  flame  ;  these  were  ugly  structures  of  con- 
siderable size,  entirely  covered  with  corrugat- 
ed plates  of  thin  sheet-iron. 

The  straggling,  irregular  houses  were  occu- 
pied by  carpenters,  tailors,  shoemakers,  bar- 
bers, keepers  of  lodgings,  and  the  inevitable 
saloon-keepers  and  Chinese  laundrymen.  In 
the  upper  stories  dwelt  families,  who  found 
inducements  in  moderate  rent  and  proximity 
to  the  then  chief  business  portion  of  the  city 
to  take  up  their  abode  there.  A  noisy  tribe 
of  children  made  the  street  their  playground, 
and  swarmed  out  in  surprising  numbers  at 
the  sound  of  drums  or  martial  music  on  the 
larger  streets  of  the  vicinity ;  for  marching 
regiments  were  not  an  infrequent  sight  even 
at  this  extreme  end  of  the  Union  in  the  days 
of  the  civil  war.  The  ponderous  wheels  of 
drays  had,  in  places,  cut  through  the  plank- 
ing of  the  street,  and  worn  chasms  in  the  soft 
sand  of  the  "  made  ground"  ;•  for  Leidesdorff 
Street  existed  where  the  first  Argonauts  had 
seen  nothing  but  the  shallow  water  near  the 
beach  of  Yerba  Buena  Cove.  In  spite  of 


the  provincial  aspect  of  the  street,  modern 
improvement  asserted  its  coming  sway  with 
here  and  there  a  lofty  building  of  brick, 
which  cast  upon  its  humbler  neighbors  a 
shade  like  a  frown. 

One  day,  in  the  Spring  of  1863,  the  inhab- 
itants of  a  portion  of  Leidesdorff  Street  were 
attracted  to  their  doors  by  the  appearance  of 
an  express  wagon  with  a  load  of  modest  fur- 
niture, pausing  at  the  door  of  Number  in. 
A  family  was  evidently  about  to  take  posses- 
sion of  the  rooms  over  Fisher's  carpenter 
shop.  A  slender  young  man,  with  a  very 
pleasant  face  and  manner,  superintended  the 
removal  of  the  furniture  into  the  building  ; 
though  Mr.  Taack,  the  shoemaker,  remarked 
to  his  friend,  the  barber,  that  the  young  fel- 
low did  not  seem  inclined  to  render  much 
physical  assistance.  During  the  day  two 
more  loads  arrived ;  and  the  interest  of  the 
people  was  intensified  by  observing  a  great 
number  of  books  and  several  strange  pack- 
ages carried  in  with  great  care.  Mr.  Taack 
managed  to  speak  to  the  young  man  in  the 
course  of  the  day,  and  was  answered  very 
politely,  though  he  did  not  succeed  in  ac- 
quiring much  information.  The  young  man 
had  a  slight  infirmity  in  his  speech,  which 
added  a  peculiar  charm  to  whatever  he  said. 
His  language  proved  him  to  be  a  person  of 
education,  and  his  white  hands  indicated  a 
total  unacquaintance  with  manual  labor — as 
Mr.  Taack  assured  a  number  of  curious  per- 
sons. 

Late  in  the  afternoon,  a  hack  drove  into 
the  street  and  stopped  at  Number  in,  from 
the  door  of  which  the  young  man  hastily 
emerged  to  meet  the  new-comers.  Leides- 
dorff Street  was  on  tiptoe  at  this  crowning 
moment,  and  curious  eyes  peered  from  doors 
and  windows.  A  small  man  in  well  worn 
black  stepped  from  the  hack.  His  face  was 
thin  and  sallow ;  his  mustache,  and  thin 
beard,  and  his  long  black  hair,  were  thickly 
streaked  with  gray ;  his  eyes  were  deep-sunk- 


1885.] 


The  Doctor  of  Leidesdorff  Street. 


259 


en  and  feverishly  bright.  A  graceful  and 
pretty  young  lady  with  dark  eyes  and  hair 
followed  him,  and  the  three  almost  lifted 
from  the  carriage  a  sick  lady,  whose  emaci- 
ated form  and  pallid  features  plainly  told 
that  her  hold  on  life  was  but  feeble.  The 
new-comers  disappeared  within  the  doors  of 
their  new  home,  the  hack  drove  away,  and 
the  little  world  of  Leidesdorff  Street  bestirred 
itself  to  discuss  the  remarkable  event. 

In  a  few  days  a  dingy  tin  sign  appeared  at 
one  of  the  upper  windows  of  the  house.     It 
bore  the  simple  announcement : 
"  DOCTOR  GODSMARK." 

Time  did  not  much  lessen  the  mystery 
surrounding  the  new  arrivals.  The  physi- 
cian's sign — at  first  regarded  as  a  clearing 
away  of  all  doubts  and  surmises  —  only 
served  to  increase  the  wonderment;  for  it  was 
observed  that  Doctor  Godsmark  seldom  left 
his  house,  and  but  few  persons  were  seen  to 
enter  it.  He  was  evidently  a  doctor  without 
patients.  At  one  of  his  windows  a  light  was 
seen  every  night  until  a  late  hour.  These 
things  conspired  to  awaken  a  feeling  of  awe 
in  the  minds  of  the  dwellers  in  Leidesdorff 
Street,  and  Doctor  Godsmark  soon  came  to 
be  regarded  as  a  sort  of  wizard,  deeply  sus- 
pected of  being  in  league  with  unholy  powers. 

"Yet,"  said  Mr.  Taack  to  Mrs.  Keagan, 
the  tailor's  wife,  as  he  critically  inspected  a 
shoe  which  he  was  restoring,  "  Yet,  an  indi- 
vidual cannot  be  wholly  depraved  who  pos- 
sesses such  estimable  children.  That  young 
man,  now,  is  really  neeper  sultry''1  (he  may 
have  meant  ne  plus  ultra). 

•  "  Yes,"  replied  Mrs.  Keagan,  in  her  quick, 
eager  way,  "  but  the  young  man's  gone  away, 
nobody  knows  where  —  been  gone  a  long 
time." 

"  Indeed,  said  Mr.  Taack  with  interest. 
The  Keagans  were  good  customers,  and  it 
was  policy  to  let  her  tell  news. 

"  Yes;  V  have  you  heard  about  the  daugh- 
ter ?  " 

"  No." 

"She's  an  actress  — didn't "^ou  know't; 
Plays  at  the  American  theater." 

"  Indeed,"  said  Mr.  Taack,  this  time  with 
real  surprise. 


"  Yes  ;  my  Billy  see  her  go  into  th'  stage 
door  twice.  Her  name's  on  the  bills  today. 
I  seen  it:  Irene  Godsmark." 

"  Well,  this — is — astonishing,"  said'  Mr. 
Taack,  half  sincerely,  and  half  politically. 

"  But  who  knows  who  they  air  ?  "  contin- 
ued Mrs.  Keagan  in  a  suppressed  voice. 
"  What  does  the  fairther  keep  s'  close  for  ? 
He  may  be  an  ould  r-r-rebel  for  all  we  know 
— a  c'missioner  p'raps."  At  this  moment  a 
shriek  from  some  of  the  young  Keagans 
across  the  way  recalled  the  good  woman 
from  her  pleasant  bit  of  gossip. 


II. 


THE  old  American  theater  was  crowded 
on  the  night  of  one  of  the  most  brilliant  per- 
formances of  the  season.  The  entertainment 
consisted  of  the  comedy  of  " Mon  Etoile" 
with  an  afterpiece.  In  one  of  the  prosceni- 
um boxes  two  young  men  were  lounging. 
One  of  them,  whose  existence  is  closely 
linked  with  this  story,  was  especially  noticea- 
ble. He  was  languidly,  effeminately  hand- 
some, graceful,  and  elegant.  He  was  richly 
dressed,  and  his  white  fingers  sparkled  with 
gems.  He  lay  back  on  the  luxurious  cush- 
ions with  an  indolence  which  became  him 
perfectly  ;  not  even  a  movement  of  his  fine 
hands  disturbed  the  careless  grace  of  his  re- 
clining attitude.  This  was  Charles  X.  Val- 
lier,  familiarly  known  throughout  the  city  as 
Charley  Vallier,  a  young  man  whose  posses- 
sions in  lands  and  money  were  known  to  be 
almost  boundless.  He  was  just  of  age,  and 
had  lately  obtained  possession  of  his  vast 
fortune.  He  was  generally  surrounded  by  a 
crowd  of  gay  companions,  who  were  exceed- 
ingly willing  to  help  him  in  spending  his 
abundant  income.  They  were  not  disap- 
pointed in  their  expectations,  for  young  Val- 
lier was  a  veritable  Sybarite,  devoted  to 
pleasure  and  luxury — one  upon  whom  the 
wind  had  never  blown  rudely. 

The  brilliant  strains  of  the  orchestra  died 
away,  and  the  curtain  flew  aloft.  Vallier 
and  his  companion  carelessly  observed  the 
play,  the  former  too  indolent  to  raise  his 
jeweled  lorgnette  to  his  eyes.  Suddenly, 


260 


The  Doctor  of  Leidesdorff  Street. 


[Sept. 


however,  his  languid  attention  was  caught 
by  the  figure  of  one  of  the  actresses,  and 
his  unusually  quick  movement  attracted  the 
attention  of  his  companion. 

"By — "  he  said,  with  his  glass  to  his  eyes  ; 
but  he  gazed  intently  without  finishing  his 
mild  and  classic  oath.  "  Who  is  that  new 
face,  Kulcannon  ?  "  he  asked  at  last,  gently 
sinking  back. 

"  That  is  Irene  Godsmark,  the  one  whom 
I  spoke  to  you  about,"  said  his  companion. 
"I  was  simply  waiting  to  see  whether  you 
would  be  struck." 

"She  is  graceful  and  pretty,^ said  Vallier, 
with  gentle  serenity.  "  I  shall  make  her  ac- 
quaintance as  soon  as  convenient." 

"Trust  you  for  that,"  said  Kulcannon ; 
but  Vallier  did  not  smile  at  the  flattering  re- 
mark, nor  did  he  seem  to  hear  it.  He  was 
gazing  with  calm  enjoyment  at  the  girl  whose 
beauty  pleased  him.  He  was  very  young, 
and  the  gentlest  of  Sybarites. 

"  Say,  Charley,"  said  Kulcannon,  present- 
ly, when  the  curtain  had  fallen,  "  I  will  warn 
you  that  there  may  be  a  slight  difficulty.  It 
is  said  that  she  is  engaged  to  a  young  lawyer 
on  Montgomery  Street.  He  accompanied 
her  from  the  theater  last  night.  His  name 
is  Urquhart." 

"  Well,"  said  Vallier,  with  slight  impa- 
tience. 

"  He  is  here  tonight,"  continued  Kulcan- 
non. "  Move  this  way  a  little,  and  you  can 
see  him  over  there  in  the  gallery." 

"  I  do  not  care  to  see  him  at  present,"  said 
Vallier,  serenely  dismissing  the  troublesome 
circumstance  from  his  mind. 

Contrary  to  his  usual  custom,  Vallier,  sat 
out  the  performance  on  this  particular  even- 
ing. When  the  curtain  fell  on  the  closing 
scene,  he  and  Kulcannon  strolled  out,  and 
after  a  pause  of  a  few  moments  entered  his 
elegant  close  carriage,  which  stood  near  the 
entrance.  Vallier  simply  desired  the  coach- 
man to  wait  a  few  minutes,  then  lighted  a 
fragrant  cigar,  offered  one  to  his  companion, 
and  comfortably  wrapped  himself  in  his  warm 
cloak.  They  sat  silently  while  the  crowd 
dispersed.  Presently  two  persons  came  out 
of  the  narrow  street  on  which  the  stage  en- 


trance of  the  theater  was  situated.  They 
were  Urquhart  and  Irene  Godsmark.  Kul- 
cannon touched  his  companion's  foot ;  Val- 
lier leaned  forward  in  the  darkness  of  the 
carriage,  and  gazed  at  them  until  they  disap- 
peared. 

"  What  did  you  say  was  the  number  ?"  he 
asked. 

"in  Leidesdorff  Street,"  answered  Kul- 
cannon ;  and  presently  he  added,  "  She  is 
too  pretty  for  a  lawyer." 

Vallier  did  not  answer.  His  cigar  gleamed 
brightly;  he  was  wrapped  in  a  calm  reverie. 

"  Shall  we  drive  on  ?  "  asked  Kulcannon. 

The  lighted  cigar  made  a  slight  downward 
movement.  "  Drive  on,"  said  Kulcannon 
to  the  coachman. 

As  Urquhart  stood  at  the  door  of  the  the- 
ater waiting  for  Irene,  an  observer  would 
have  considered  him  a  very  fine  specimen  of 
a  man.  He  was  tall  and  erect,  his  features 
massive,  rather  than  handsome,  his  eyes 
showing  evidences  of  fire  easily  blown.  His 
face  testified  to  his  Scotch  ancestry.  But 
however  pleasant  an  impression  he  might 
have  created  in  the  mind  of  an  observer,  his 
own  mind  was  far  from  being  satisfied  and 
composed.  Several  things  conspired  to  dis- 
turb him.  His  jealous  eyes  had  been  fixed 
upon  Vallier  and  Kulcannon  in  their  box, 
and  he  had  wished  that  Irene's  acting  was 
not  so  vivacious  and  pretty.  Vallier's  wait- 
ing carriage  had  not  escaped  his  notice.  He 
knew  it  well,  although  he  was  not  personally 
acquainted  with  the  owner.  Again,  his  law 
business  was  not  in  a  satisfactory  condition, 
for  although  he  was  far  from  being  without 
clients,  yet  his  income  was  not  at  all  sufficient 
to  marry  on,  and  set  up  an  establishment 
such  as  he  conceived  to  be  suitable  for 
Irene  Godsmark. 

"  Let  us  go  by  way  of  California  Street," 
he  said,  when  Irene  appeared,  drawing  on 
her  glove;  "the  other  way  is  too  short." 
His  voice  was  deep,  and  there  was  a  slight 
burr  in  his  speech. 

"  Very  well,"  said  Irene,  brightly. 

"  They  are  there  yet,"  he  said  in  his  im- 
pulsive way,  as  he  saw  the  carriage  still  stand- 
ing at  the  corner. 


1885.] 


The  Doctor  of  Leidesdorff  Street. 


261 


"Who? "asked  Irene. 

"  Never  mind — some  idlers.  Let  us  cross 
here.  I  feel  melancholy,  Irene  ;  I've  got  to 
go  to  San  Jose  this  week  to  conduct  a  case 
there.  I  may  be  gone  a  week." 

"  My  dear  child,"  said  Irene,  with  mock 
dignity,  "a  week  will  soon  pass  away.  Be- 
sides, there  is  a  blessed  institution  called  the 
United  States  mail,  which  can  be  called  into 
service." 

"  That  is  so— but— " 

"  I  consider  it  a  dispensation  of  Provi- 
dence that  you  have  to  go  down  there,"  con- 
tinued Irene,  "  for  you  can  go  and  see  Ar- 
thur at  the  college,  and  find  out  how  the 
poor  boy  is  getting  on." 

"  Yes,  I  can,"  said  Urquhart,  heartily ; 
"  that,  at  any  rate,  is  a  comforting  thought." 

They  walked  a  little  way  in  silence.  Ur- 
quhart was  frowning  meditatively.  Sudden- 
ly he  said  :  "  You  are  a  true  heroine,  Irene, 
holding  your  family  together  with  your  own 
slender  hands — paying  your  brother's  way 
through  college,  supporting  your  sick  moth- 
er, and  even  furnishing  your  father  money 
for  his  mad  schemes.  You  make  me  feel  in- 
ferior beside  you." 

"No  heroine,  I  assure  you,"  answered 
Irene,  laughingly,  yet  with  a  thrill  of  feeling 
in  her  voice.  "  I  simply  do  what  common 
sense,  and  perhaps  a  little  ^nbition,  compel 
me  to  do.  My  heart  is  set  on  Arthur's  suc- 
cess. I  want  him  to  succeed  in  law — you 
know  what  a  deep  regard  I  have  for  the 
law.  If  I  can  see  him  a  judge  sometime  in 
the  future  I  shall  be  satisfied." 

"  Arthur  is  a  fine  fellow,"  said  Urquhart, 
"  and  there  is  no  reason  why  he  should  not 
succeed.  There  is  one  point,  however,  on 
which  you  should  endeavor  to  influence  him. 
Try  to  keep  his  mind  on  practical  things.  He 
is  inclined  to  be  a  little  visionary  in  his 
mode  of  thought.  For  instance,  on  the 
question  of  the  war,  he  ardently  advocates 
the  cause  of  the  South,  not  logically  and 
practically,  but  on  fanciful  notions  of  chival- 
ry, aristocracy,  and  so  forth. 

"  I  think  I  shall  have  no  difficulty  in  keep- 
ing him  at  his  work,"  said  Irene.  "As  for 
the  South,  I  myself  think  that  they  are  he- 
roic soldiers." 


"  Heroic  madmen  ! "  said  Urquhart,  ve- 
hemently, his  quick  temper  flashing  up  like 
fire. 

"There  is  method  in  their  madness,"  said 
Irene,  with  energy. 

"  Is  it  possible  you  are  so  blind  and  fool- 
ish as  to  uphold  treason  ? "  cried  Urquhart. 

Irene  passionately  dropped  his  arm. 

"  I  was  so  blind  and  foolish  as  to  think 
that  I  could  walk  home  with  you  without  be- 
ing insulted.  I  love  the  South.  I  love  he- 
roes*nd  gentlemen." 

At  that  moment  Vallier's  elegant  carriage 
rolled  swiftly  by  them. 

"I  have  been  hasty,  Irene,"  said  Urquhart, 
his  sense  of  honor  and  right  overcoming 
his  quick  anger.  He  took  her  hand  in  his 
firm  grasp.  "  Do  you  not  know  that  I  say 
many  things  in  anger  that  I  am  afterwards 
sorry  for  ?  Forgive  me ;  I,  too,  love  heroes 
and  gentlemen." 

They  walked  on  silently  until  they  reached 
Dr.  Godsmark's  door. 

"Will  you  come  in?"  asked  Irene, gently. 

"  Not  tonight,  I  think,"  replied  Urquhart, 
with  a  curious  accent  of  contrition.  "  It  is 
late,  and  I  must  go  on  the  early  steamer. 
How  is  your  mother  tonight  ?  " 

"She  is  better,"  said  Irene,  sadly.  It  was 
her  usual  answer,  though  she  knew  that  her 
mother  was  fast  sinking  in  death. 

"  Irene,"  said  Urquhart,  impulsively,  "  let 
us  be  married  at  once.  Let  me  help  you  sup- 
port your  burden.  My  income  is  not  what  I 
could  wish,  but  it  will  serve.  Further  delay 
is  useless.  Say  yes,  and  make  me  happy." 

"  No,  no,"  answered  Irene,  laying  her 
hand  on  his  arm.  "  I  cannot  consent  yet. 
Wait  till  Arthur  graduates.  You  are  kind 
and  thoughtful,  but,  really,  my  task  is  not 
above  my  strength.  I  have  a  good  position 
in  the  theater,  and  can  manage  very  well." 

Urquhart  made  a  thrust  at  the  door-knob 
with  his  cane. 

"  Good  night,"  continued  Irene,  entering; 
"  do  not  forget  me  at  San  JoseV' 

"Forget  you ! "  said  Urquhart,  indignantly. 
He  caught  her  hand  and  kissed  it.  The  door 
closed  behind  her,  and  he  turned  away  slow- 
ly. He  had  not  gone  three  yards  when  the 
door  reopened. 


262 


The  Doctor  of  Leidesdorff  Street. 


[Sept. 


"  Edward,"  said  Irene,  softly,  "  I  don't 
love  the  South  very  much." 

He  turned  back  hastily,  but  she  had  van- 
ished. 

Irene  ran  up  the  stairs  smiling  to  herself. 
On  entering  the  plainly  furnished  parlor,  she 
heard  her  mother  coughing  in  her  room,  and 
immediately  went  to  her  bedside.  She  sat 
down  on  a  low  chair  by  the  bed,  and  took 
her  mother's  hand,  and  kissed  her.  "  Back 
again,  mother,"  she  said  tenderly. 

"I  was — so  glad — when — I  heard *tyou," 
said  the  invalid  ;  but  the  effort  made  her 
cough  severely. 

"Was  there — a — full  house."  she  whis- 
pered presently. 

"  Yes,  mother — a  splendid  house.  Dress 
circle,  parquet,  and  galleries  all  crowded." 

"  And  the  boxes  ?  " 

"  All  but  one  were  occupied.  They  were 
rich  and  elegant  people." 

"  Did  they  applaud  you,  'Rene  ?" 

"  Yes,  they  were  very  kind." 

"  Ah — Good  night,  then ;  you  are  tired. 
Kiss  me,  'Rene." 

Irene  kissed  her  mother,  smoothed  her 
pillow,  and  softly  went  out,  after  placing  the 
night-lamp  behind  the  screen.  She  stood  in 
the  little  parlor,  gazing  wistfully  across  at  the 
door  of  her  father's  study.  She  knew  that  he 
was  there,  deeply  engaged  on  some  wonder- 
ful apparatus,  which  was  to  revolutionize  the 
world  when  completed,  and  that  he  was  very 
impatient  of  any  interruption.  Yet  she 
wished  that  she  could  speak  to  him  before 
retiring. 

Suddenly  the  study  door  opened,  and  Doc- 
tor Godsmark  stepped  nervously  out.  His 
hair  was  thrust  back  from  his  forehead,  wild 
and  disorderly,  and  he  looked  more  haggard 
than  usual.  Irene  knew  at  once  what  this 
unexpected  appearance  meant.  Her  father 
wanted  more  money  to  carry  on  his  vision- 
ary projects,  and  was  about  to  apply  to  her 
as  usual.  Her  quick  mind  instantly  ran 
over  her  resources,  and  settled  the  amount 
which  she  could  spare.  Godsmark  came 
forward  with  a  look  of  sincere  affection,  and 
Irene  put  her  arms  about  his  neck  and 
kissed  his  sallow  cheek. 


"Ah,  you  naughty  papa,  how  late  you 
work,"  she  said,  chidingly.  "No  fresh  air, 
no  exercise — you  must  really  reform." 

"Ah,  'Rene,  what  could  I  do  without 
you?"  sighed  Godsmark,  and  a^tear  was  in 
his  eye.  "But  the  work  progresses,"  he 
said,  with  a  flash  of  triumph.  "Soon  it  will 
be  completed,  and  then  fame  will  be  ours. 
And  we  shall  have  abundance  of  money,  too, 
and  my  little  'Rene  can  leave  the  theatre. 
Would  you  not  like  to  leave  the  theatre  and 
live  in  a  beautiful  house,  'Rene  ?  " 

"  Yes,  indeed,  father,"  said  Irene  with  af- 
fected delight.  "But  do  you  not  need  more 
money  to  finish  the  work  ?  "  she  asked.  She 
had  not  the  slightest  confidence  in  her  fath- 
er's new  invention,  but  she  knew  that  his  life 
was  bound  up  in  his  work,  and  that  the 
prospect  of  fame  and  fortune  at  the  close 
was  a  certainty  to  him.  Therefore  she  con- 
cluded, with  patient  resignation,  that  since 
he  was  living  in  a  dream-world  it  was  best  to 
give  him  what  money  she  could  spare,  and 
to  secure  his  happiness,  even  though  the 
burden  was  great  upon  her.  "  I  can  let  you 
have  fifty  dollars  tomorrow,  if  you  wish  it," 
she  continued,  for  she  knew  that  it  was  a  se- 
vere task  for  him  to  ask  her  for  money. 

"You  are  thoughtful  and  generous,  'Rene," 
said  Godsmark,  gratefully.  "  I  will  accept 
the  loan  freely  »  it  is  offered ;  but  you  shall 
soon  be  repaid  with  interest,  dear  daughter. 
We  will  all  leave  this  dark,  cold  dwelling  and 
go  away  to  a  beautiful  country — the  most 
beautiful  country  in  the  world,  'Rene."  As 
he  spoke,  he  moved  slowly  back  toward  his 
study.  Irene  saw  that  he  was  longing  to  be 
at  his  work  again,  so  she  said  : 

"I  am  tired,  and  must  say  good  night, 
father,"  and,  kissing  him  again,  she  went  to 
her  room.  She  had  hardly  entered  when  she 
heard  the  door  of  the  study  close. 

The  next  evening  at  the  theater,  Irene  re- 
ceived a  beautifully  delicate  bouquet,  in  the 
depths  of  which  a  small  card  reposed.  On 
the  card,  written  in  a  pencil,  were  the  words  : 
"  Compliments  of  Vallier."  Irene  felt  a  curi- 
ous little  flutter  of  gratification,  for  she  knew 
young  Vallier  well  by  sight,  and  had  not 
been  insensible  to  the  admiring  glances  he 


1885.] 


The  Doctor  of  Leidesdorff  Street. 


2:8 


had  cast  at  her  from  his  box.  She  had 
heard  many  stories  of  his  great  wealth  and 
generous  deeds ;  and  mysterious  hints  of 
certain  wild  escapades  in  which  he  had  been 
engaged  only  added  a  romantic  flavor  to  his 
character.  She  glanced  at  his  box  later  in 
the  evening,  and  saw  him  sitting  there  alone 
in  his  usual  position  of  easy  indolence.  She 
was  wise  enough  to  suspect  that  he  would 
seek  an  introduction,  but  he  did  not  do  so 
that  evening.  The  next  night  he  was  in  the 
box  again  with  two  brilliant  and  beautiful 
ladies,  and  Irene  thought  the  stage  had  but 
few  attractions  for  him.  However,  she  re- 
ceived an  exquisite  design  in  flowers,  ar- 
ranged in  the  most  perfect  taste,  and  accom- 
panied with  a  card  as  before. 

The  next  evening  one  of  the  leading 
actors  approached  her  and  said  that  Mr. 
Vallier  begged  the  honor  of  an  introduction. 
Irene,  after  a  moment's  thought,  consented 
with  gratified  pleasure,  which  she  carefully 
concealed.  She  could  not  resist  a  feeling  of 
innocent  delight  at  being  sought  by  a  rich, 
handsome,  and  elegant  young  gentleman  of 
whom  she  had  heard  nothing  wrong.  Vallier 
came  forward  and  was  introduced.  He  was 
graceful  and  fair,  almost  boyish,  and  the  rich 
color  came  to  his  cheek  as  he  bowed. 

"Miss  Godsmark,"  he  said,  frankly,  "I 
feel  under  such  obligations  for  the  pleasure 
you  have  given  me,  with  many  others,  that  I 
mustered  boldness  enough  to  thank  you  in 
person,  even  at  the  risk  of  being  thought 
impertinent." 

"The  fear  was  needless,"  replied  Irene. 
It  is  gratifying  to  afford  pleasure  to  any  one." 

"Then  you  should  be  happy,  certainly," 
said  Vallier,  sincerely.  "  You  have  achieved 
a  great  success." 

"  At  least,  I  have  been  delightfully  reward- 
ed by  receiving  some  most  exquisite  flowers," 
said  Irene,  smiling.  "Your  card  informed 
me  who  was  the  donor  of  some  of  the  most 
beautiful." 

"  I  am  glad  they  pleased  you,"  said  Val- 
lier; "I  arranged  them  myself." 

"I  must  compliment  your  artistic  taste; 
they  were  finely  arranged." 

"  Thank  you.     I  have  sometimes  half  de- 


termined to  turn  florist,  and  such  commenda- 
tion almost  decides  the  matter." 

"  I  am  not  the  only  one  who  has  received 
pleasure  from  your  skill  on  this  occasion," 
said  Irene.  "  I  sent  the  flowers  to  the  hos- 
pitals, after  permitting  my  friends  to  admire 
them ;  but  the  most  beautiful  I  could  not 
resist  keeping  for  my  mother's  table.  She 
is  an  invalid,  and  loves  flowers  very  much." 

"  Whatever  disposition  you  made  of  the 
trifles  is  fitting  and  right,"  said  Vallier  with 
a  mixture  of  wonder,  indignation,  and  admi- 
ration. Then  he  said  with  apparent  sincerity  : 
"  One  cannot  but  feel  that  only  tender  and 
beautiful  acts  could  harmonize  with  a  person 
so  lovely." 

"You  are  a  little  extravagant,  I  think," 
said  Irene. 

"  No,  indeed,  I  am  not,"  said  Vallier  in  a 
tone  of  contrition.  "  But  I  assure  you  that 
often  it  is  such  a  simple,  angelic  deed  per- 
formed by  a  gentle,  pitying  spirit  that  exhibits 
to  one  like  me  his  blind  selfishness.  With 
abundant  means  of  doing  good  at  my  hand, 
I  assure  you  that  I  never  thought  of  sending 
flowers  to  hospitals.  I  shall  claim  the  privi- 
lege hereafter  of  supplying  you  with  flowers 
for  that  purpose,  as  you  know  so  much  better 
how  to  bestow  them,  and  from  your  hands 
they  will  be  trebly  sweet  and  beautiful." 

"  I  thank  you  very  much — but — 

"  I  will  hear  of  no  objection.  I  fear  I 
detain  you  too  long.  I  thank  you  for  con- 
senting to  see  me,  and  for  the  kind  and 
Christian  lesson  you  have  taught  me."  He 
bowed  low  and  hurried  away,  leaving  Irene 
greatly  surprised  and  somewhat  vexed  at  the 
turn  affairs  had  taken.  She  had  sent  Val- 
lier's  flowers  to  the  hospitals,  and  informed 
him  of  it  merely  to  prevent  him  from  send- 
ing more;  and  instead,  here  she  was  engaged 
in  a  sort  of  charitable  compact  with  him, 
which  had  been  brought  about,  she  felt,  with 
palpable  flattery;  but  the  flattery  had  some 
effect,  after  all. 

Vallier  retired  influenced  by  a  variety  of 
emotions,  all  of  a  gentle  character,  as  befit- 
ted a  Sybarite.  Irene  Godsmark  was  a  novel 
character  in  his  experience.  To  send  choice 
and  beautiful  flowers  to  an  actress,  and  after- 


264 


The  Doctor  of  Leidesdorff  Street. 


[Sept. 


wards  learn  from  her  own  lips  that  she  had 
admired  them,  and  sent  them  to  the  hospi- 
tals, was  a  little  surprising.  His  unwounded 
self-esteem  did  not  permit  him  to  think  for 
a  moment  that  she  was  making  sport  of  him. 
He  was  interested,  and  felt  that  this  new  at- 
traction would  dispel  ennui  for  a  time.  He 
thanked  his  good  luck,  and  the  episode,  so 
to  speak,  of  the  hospitals,  that  enabled  him 
to  make  so  auspicious  a  beginning.  Every 
•day  afterwards  he  made  beautiful  purchases 
at  the  florist's,  which  he  sent  to  Irene ;  but 
he  arranged  no  more  bouquets  with  his  own 
hands. 

A  few  evenings  afterwards,  Vallier  came 
behind  the  scenes  after  the  play,  and  awaited 
Irene's  appearance.  He  was  "more  royal 
than  the  king,"  as  usual. 

"  Good  evening,  Miss  Godsmark,"  he  said 
in  his  soft,  indolent  tone.  "  I  have  come  to 
inform  you  that  the  sky  is  overcast,  and  the 
floods  are  descending.  I  beg  that  you  will 
take  my  carriage  to  return  home;  it  is  here 
at  the  door.  My  coachman  will  take  you 
to  your  address  quickly  and  safely." 

"You  are  very  kind,"  replied  Irene,  "but 
I  could  not  think  of  doing  so.  My  little  es- 
cort and  I  do  not  fear  a  shower." 

Vallier  looked  around,  and  saw  one  of  the 
little  Keagan  boys  nodding  on  a  bench  near 
the  door,  and  sleepily  grasping  a  bundle  of 
wraps. 

"  The  little  chap  will  not  object  to  a  ride," 
he  said.  "  I  insist  that  you  take  the  car- 
riage." 

"  I  feel  obliged  to  decline  your  kindness, 
Mr.  Vallier." 

Vallier  felt  a  little  ruffled.  Who  would 
have  supposed  that  the  actress  would  refuse 
{he  offer  of  his  elegant  carriage  on  a  rainy 
night.  It  was  ridiculous. 

"Miss- Godsmark,"  he  said,  "do  you  not 
see  that  it  is  just  the  same  as  if  I  saw  a  lady 
walking  unprotected  in  the  rain,  and  offered 
her  my  umbrella?" 

"  Do  you  not  see,  Mr.  Vallier,"  replied 
Irene,  "  that  it  is  just  the  same  as  if  the  lady 
walking  in  the  rain  politely  declined  your 
umbrella,  knowing  that  it  was  unnecessary  to 
-deprive  you  of  it." 


Vallier  smiled  rather  faintly.  "  I  fear  you 
aspire  to  heroism,"  he  said.  "Let  me  beg 
you  to  relinquish  that  sort  of  thing.  It  is 
always  troublesome,  and  sometimes  danger- 
ous." After  a  few  casual  or  witty  remarks, 
he  strolled  out,  giving  the  little  Keagan  boy 
a  bright  half-dollar  as  he  passed. 

III. 

URQUHART  spent  a  very  dull,  unsatisfactory 
week  at  San  Jose.  The  case  which  he  con- 
ducted was  decided  adversely  to  his  client, 
and  he  himself  had  been  fined  for  contempt 
of  court ;  but  two  letters  from  Irene,  bright, 
witty,  and  affectionate,  took  away  the  sting 
of  these  disasters.  He  gladly  welcomed  the 
day  of  his  return  to  San  Francisco.  He  had 
seen  Arthur,  who  was  in  good  health  and 
spirits,  and  ardently  anticipating  the  coming 
vacation.  Arthur  was  inclined  to  be  a  little 
fast,  and  rather  regarded  studies  as  a  bore. 

On  reaching  the  city,  early  in  the  evening, 
Urquhart  went  at  once  to  his  lodgings,  where 
he  made  a  careful  toilet,  and  then  set  out 
for  the  theater,  anxious  to  see  Irene  as  soon  as 
possible.  He  heard  the  orchestra  playing  the 
interlude,  and  hastened  to  the  stage  door  be- 
fore the  curtain  should  rise.  As  he  emerged 
from  behind  a  mass  of  scenery,  a  sight  met 
his  eyes  that  first  seemed  to  turn  him  to 
stone,  and  then  sent  his  fiery  blood  flying  in 
fury  through  his  veins.  Vallier  and  Irene 
stood  at  the  wings,  where  the  bright  light  from 
above  poured  down  on  them.  She  was  in  the 
elegant  dress  of  the  character  she  was  repre- 
senting that  evening,  and  her  beauty  was 
dazzling.  He  held  her  hand,  and  was  say- 
ing something,  at  which  she  smiled  brightly. 
Irene  was  facing  Urquhart,  and  saw  him  at 
once.  She  started  in  surprise,  blushed,  and 
at  once  came  eagerly  forward,  calling  him  by 
name.  Urquhart,  quivering  with  fierce  an- 
ger, merely  made  a  low  bow,  turned  on  his 
heel,  and  hastily  left  the  theater;  but  not 
before  he  had  seen  the  expression  of  grieved 
astonishment  on  her  face. 

He  hurried  along  the  dusky  streets,  scarcely 
knowing  where  he  went,  and  at  last  began  to 
ascend  rapidly  the  California  Street  hill,  now 


1885.] 


The  Doctor  of  Leidesdorff  Street. 


265 


known  as  Nob  Hill,  and  famous  for  the  vast 
and  magnificent  palaces  of  octomillionaires. 
He  hastened  up  the  steep  incline,  as  if  by 
that  vigorous  exertion  to  give  vent  to  the 
fiery  passions  that  filled  his  heart,  and  reached 
the  top,  panting.  Muttering  a  malediction 
at  his  own  folly,  he  threw  himself  down  on 
a  sand-bank,  and  bared  his  forehead  to  the 
cold  ocean  breeze.  He  sat  there  a  long  time, 
his  angry  feelings  breaking  out  in  curses  and 
disjointed  sentences,  till  at  last  he  found  him- 
self shivering,  and  heard  the  clock  in  a  church 
tower  below  him  strike  eleven.  He  arose, 
and  slowly  descended,  with  his  hat  slouched 
over  his  eyes,  and  his  hands  in  his  pockets, 
and  as  he  reached  Kearney  street,  Vallier's 
carriage  glided  smoothly  by  on  the  street 
railroad  track.  Urquhart,  beneath  the  gas 
lamps,  glared  after  it  with  the  eyes  of  a  basi- 
lisk. 

His  anger  was  as  foolish  as  it  was  fierce. 
Trifles  influence  our  destinies.  Vallier  was 
disappointed  at  the  slow  progress  of  his  ac- 
quaintance with  Irene.  While  treating  him 
politely,  she  never  permitted  the  slightest 
approach  to  intimacy.  She  received  his  ex- 
quisite bouquets,  and  gladly  sent  them  to 
the  hospitals,  where  the  dim  and  wistful  eyes 
of  the  sick  gazed  on  them  as  almost  heavenly 
things.  Though  this  gave  her  much  pleas- 
ure, she  felt  many  misgivings  in  regard  to  it, 
for  she  knew,  and  secretly  feared,  Urquhart's 
jealous,  passionate  nature.  She  resolved  to 
tell  him  everything  as  soon  as  he  returned. 
Vallier  was  drowsily  disappointed,  for  he 
saw  that  to  win  special  marks  of  favor  from 
the  pretty  young  actress  would  call  for  exer- 
tions that  he  hardly  cared  to  make,  and  even 
then  the  result  would  be  doubtful.  On  the 
evening  of  Urquhart's  return  he  had  made 
Irene  a  more  beautiful  floral  present  than 
usual,  and,  with  rather  amusing  seriousness, 
had  begged  her  to  keep  it  herself.  He  then 
remarked  that  he  intended  going  to  Sacra- 
mento next  day,  but  only  because  he  felt  it 
to  be  a  duty — his  friends  were  importunate 
—  and  so  forth.  He  added,  with  a  senti- 
mental look,  that  he  hardly  knew  how  to 
endure  absence  from  San  Francisco. 

Irene  made  a  laughing  reply,  and  at  his 


.melancholy  request,  took  his  hand  and  bade 
him  good  bye.  It  was  at  that  moment  that 
Urquhart  entered,  and  interrupted  what  he 
imagined  to  be  a  tender  scene  between  Irene 
and  Vallier.  When  Vallier  turned  and  saw  the 
pale  and  furious  look  on  Urquhart's  face,  he 
instantly  divined  his  jealous  thoughts.  From 
that  moment  the  Sybarite  began  to  plot,  and 
from  an  indolent  admirer  became  a  calm, 
yet  subtle  and  determined,  contestant  for  the 
prize  he  coveted. 

The  next  morning  Vallier  sat  in  his  car- 
riage on  California  Street,  near  the  entrance 
of  Leidesdorff.  His  friends  in  Sacramento 
were  not  destined  to  see  him  that  day. 
About  a  block  away  his  coachman,  in  plain 
clothes,  stood  gazing  intently  up  Montgom- 
ery street,  in  the  direction  of  Urquhart's  of- 
fice and  lodgings.  Presently  he  came  hurry- 
ing back  to  the  carriage.  "  He's  coming,"  he 
said. 

"  Very  well,"  replied  Vallier.  "  Drive  in 
quickly."  And  then,  very  curious  to  relate,  he 
threw  away  his  cigar,  and  sank  down  to  the 
bottom  of  the  vehicle,  so  that  he  was  com- 
pletely concealed  from  any  one  outside.  The 
coachman  leaped  to  his  seat,  and  drove  rap- 
idly into  Leidesdorff  street,  and  drew  up  di- 
rectly in  front  of  Nijfciber  1 1 1.  He  remained 
sitting  with  an  air  of  calm  indifference.  In  a 
few  minutes  Urquhart  turned  the  corner  and 
came  hurriedly  along,  looking  pale  and  tired, 
as  if  he  had  not  slept.  He  had  not  gone 
far  along  the  street  when  he  perceived  the 
carriage  at  Doctor  Godsmark's  door.  An 
expression  of  rage  and  despair  came  over 
his  face.  He  remained  standing  irresolutely, 
and  once  turned  back ;  then  he  came  along 
slowly,  and  paused  beside  the  carriage.  Val- 
lier hardly  breathed. 

"Is  Mr.  Vallier  in  this  house?"  asked 
Urquhart  grimly. 

"  He  is,  sir,"  answered  the  imperturbable 
coachman. 

"  Will  he— remain  long  ?  " 

"  I'm  afraid  he  will,  said  the  coachman, 
with  a  grin.  "  It*s  one  of  the  special  attrac- 
tion places.  I  generally  get  tired  waitin'." 

Urquhart  turned  on  his  heel,  ashamed 
that  he  had  questioned  the  coachman. 


266 


The  Doctor  of  Leidesdorff  Street. 


[Sept. 


"  Shall  I  tell  'im  you  wanted  to  see  'im  ?  " 
drawled  the  latter.  . 

"  No,  never  mind,  it's  of  no  consequence," 
said  Urquhart,  hurriedly,  and  he  walked 
away  with  his  head  bent  down. 

Fifteen  minutes  passed — twenty  minutes. 
The  coachman  seemed  to  become  uneasy, 
and  glanced  around  once  or  twice.  At  last 
he  got  down  from  his  seat  as  if  to  stretch 
his  limbs.  He  glanced  into  the  carriage 
door.  Vallier  was  asleep  with  a  cushion  un- 
der his  head.  He  had  "  made  a  night  of  it " 
the  night  before. 

Later  in  the  day  Urquhart  again  appeared 
in  Leidesdorff  Street,  and  entered  the  door 
of  Number  1 1 1.  He  ascended  the  dark  stair- 
way, and  paused  on  the  landing.  A  con- 
stant, distressing  cough  was  heard  inside. 
He  knocked,  and  a  faint  voice  said,  "  Come 
in."  He  entered  the  little  parlor,  and  found 
Madame  Godsmark  seated  in  a  low  chair 
by  the  stove.  She  looked  still  more  pallid, 
still  more  emaciated  than  when  he  saw  her 
last,  but  her  face  lighted  up  as  she  saw 
him. 

"  Home  again,"  she  said  gladly,  holding 
out  her  thin  hand.  He  took  it  gratefully. 

"  Yes,"  he  said,  with  much  emotion  in  his 
voice.  He  could  say  Nothing  more,  and 
looked  about  uneasily.  The  invalid  felt  that 
something  was  the  matter,  but  thought  that 
he  was  merely  anxious  to  see  Irene. 

"'Rene  is — out  there,"  she  said,  pointing 
to  a  door.  Urquhart  knew  that  it  led  to  a 
small,  open  platform  at  the  back  of  the  house, 
hemmed  in  by  tall  buildings,  whose  rear 
yards  formed  a  dingy,  dark  abyss  lower  than 
the  street,  and  very  much  lower  than  the  el- 
evated platform.  At  close  of  day,  men  ap- 
peared in  these  deep  yards  from  the  dusky 
doors  of  assay  works,  black  and  grimy  as  de- 
mons of  the  pit,  but  really  honest  laborers 
released  from  toil,  who  gladly  emerged  into 
the  cool  air  to  wash  from  their  brawny  arms 
and  heated  faces  the  soot  of  the  furnaces. 

Irene  was  in  the  habit  of  resorting  to  this 
platform  to  rehearse,  so  as'not  to  disturb  her 
father's  studies,  and  as  Urquhart  opened  the 
door,  he  heard  her  voice  in  pleading  entreaty, 
and  paused  a  moment  to  listen  : 


"  'That  death's  unnatural  that  kills  for  loving — 
Alas,  why  gnaw  you  so  your  nether  lip  ? 
Some  bloody  passion  shakes  your  very  frame  : 
These  are  portents  ;  but  yet,  I  hope,  I  hope 
They  do  not  point  on  me.' " 

He  closed  the  door  with  a  slight  noise, 
and  stepped  out  on  the  platform.  She  turned 
nervously,  and  saw  him. 

"Oh,  Edward,"  she  said  faintly,  coming 
towards  him  with  outstretched  hands,  and 
with  a  look  on  her  face  that  haunted  him  to 
the  day  of  his  death :  it  was  appealing,  lov- 
ing, angelic ;  but  he  hardened  his  heart. 
She  stopped  with  a  piteous  look,  as  she  noted 
his  pale  face  and  set  lips.. 

"  I  am  not  come,"  he  said  coldly,  "  to  be 
cajoled  with  honeyed  words,  but  to  receive 
the  thorough  explanation  of  your  conduct 
which  I  think  is  my  right." 

The  words  stung  her. 

"  If  you  have  come  to  quarrel,"  she  replied 
haughtily,  "  I  will  say  at  once  that  I  have 
neither  time  nor  inclination  for  anything  of 
the  sort." 

"  A  quarrel  is  not  necessary  ;  but  an  expla- 
nation is,"  said  Urquhart,  trembling  with  sup- 
pressed anger. 

"  I  can  accuse  myself  of  nothing,"  said 
Irene.  "  Will  you  have  the  kindness  to  say 
what  you  wish  explained  ?" 

"  I  had  thought,"  cried  Urquhart  vehe- 
mently, all  his  jealous  anger  bursting  forth, 
"  I  had  thought  that  a  woman's  constancy 
could  endure  for  a  week  in  spite  of  absence  ; 
it  is  maddening  to  find  I  was  mistaken.  I 
shall  never  believe  again." 

"  This  is  very  dramatic,"  said  Irene,  "  but 
it  would  be  more  satisfactory  if  one  could 
understand  what  you  mean  by  it." 

"If  you  have  any  explanation  to  offer,  I 
want  to  hear  it  "  said  Urquhart,  with  a  strong 
effort  at  self-control. 

"  Explanation  of  what  ?  "  asked  Irene,  in- 
differently, half  turning  away,  and  tapping 
the  toe  of  her  boot  on  the  boards. 

"  Explanation  of  what  ?  "  gasped  Urqu- 
hart, still  more  pallid.  "Of  this:  I  go  to 
San  Jose"  for  a  week  on  business,  contenting 
myself  as  well  as  possible  with  your  falsely 
affectionate  letters.  I  hasten  my  business, 


1885.1 


The  Doctor  of  Leidesdorff  Street. 


267 


as  you  might  have  supposed,  knowing  my 
fond  devotion  to  you,  and  return  home  a 
little  earlier  than  I  expected.  I  enter  the 
theater,  impatient  to  see  you,  and — find  you 
—with  another  man  holding  your  hand,  and 
—and — you — smiling  on  him." 

Irene  laughed  scornfully.  "  Your  jealousy 
is  quite  unendurable,"  she  said.  "  I  ought 
to  make  you  apologize  humbly  for  your  rude- 
ness, before  I  dispel  your  silly  fears.  Mr. 
Vallier  sought  an  introduction  to  me  a  few 
days  ago,  and  I  have  found  him  an  amusing 
young  gentleman." 

"A  libertine !  a  profligate ! "  ejaculated  Ur- 
quhart. 

"  You  are  a  prejudiced  accuser.  At  differ- 
ent times  I  exchanged  a  few  friendly  words 
with  him,  and  last  evening,  when  you  so  sud- 
denly entered  and  so  foolishly  departed,  he 
had  just  told  me  that  he  intended  going  to 
Sacramento  today,  and  I  was  bidding  him 
good  bye  in  a  very  mocking  spirit,  I  assure 
you.  My  dear  Mr.  Jealousy,  what  have  you 
to  complain  of?  " 

"  He  has  sent  you  costly  bouquets." 

"And  I  have  sent  them  to  the  hospitals, 
which  he  is  aware  of." 

"A  slight  palliation.  He  has  paid  other 
attentions,  I  presume  ?  " 

"  Let  me  think.  Oh,  he  offered  me  his 
carriage  one  rainy  night." 

"Ah!" 

"  I  walked  home  in  the  rain  with  Willie 
Keagan." 

"Who?"  thundered  Urquhart. 

"The  tailor's  little  boy,"  said  Irene,  put- 
ting her  hand  over  her  mouth,  and  looking 
at  him  with  merriment  in  her  eyes. 

Urquhart  was  not  mollified ;  he  thought 
that  she  was  trifling  with  him. 

"Irene,"  he  said,  "I  am  not  so  blind  as 
you  think.  Vallier  has  visited  you  here  at 
your  house." 

"  Never  ! "  cried  Irene  in  astonishment. 

"  And  stayed  long." 

"  He  has  never  entered  this  house." 

"  He  has  been  here  more  than  once." 

"  It  is  not  true.  Some  one  has  deceived 
you." 

"Unfortunately,  I  know" 


"  You  do  not  know.  Why  do  you  say 
so  ?  He  has  never  been  here." 

"  He  was  here  this  morning." 

"You  are  mad." 

"  I  am,  nearly.  You  are  false  in  words 
as  well -as  in  acts." 

"You  dare  accuse  me  of  falsehood!" 
cried  Irene,  thoroughly  angry.  "You  are 
stupidly  jealous  and  boorishly  insulting. 
Leave  me  this  instant.  I  do  not  wish  to  see 
you  again  until  you  can  behave  at  least  de- 
cently." 

"  Irene,"  cried  Urquhart,  imploringly, 
"  promise  me  that  you  will  never  permit 
Vallier  to  visit  you  again,  and  I  will  beg 
your  pardon  for  all  the  rash  and  angry  words 
I  have  spoken.  Only  promise,"  he  repeated, 
seizing  her  hand. 

"  I  will  not,"  she  said,  releasing  it.  "Mr. 
Vallier  politely  asked  permission  to  call ;  I 
declined  the  honor.  Another  time  his  polite- 
ness will  not  be  met  with  rudeness  on  my  part, 
since  my  scruples  are  rewarded  only  with 
insults  from  you." 

Urquhart  made  an  inarticulate  exclama- 
tion, and  wildly  brushed  his  hand  across  his 
forehead.  He  turned  abruptly  and  hurried 
away.  He  wandered  aimlessly  about  the 
streets  for  several  hours.  Had  he  met  Val- 
lier, there  might  have  been  a  tragedy  for  the 
morning  papers  to  recount.  In  his  state  of 
mad  jealousy,  he  was  convinced  that  Irene 
had  spoken  falsely  regarding  Vallier's  visit, 
and  this  seemed  to  raise  between  them  an 
insuperable  barrier  of  distrust.  It  seemed 
to  him  that  all  hope  and  joy  in  life  were 
gone,  and  that  the  future  held  nothing  for 
him.  The  thought  of  suicide  entered  his 
mind,  but  he  dismissed  it  with  bitter  con- 
tempt. He  was  too  strong  to  stoop  to  such 
folly. 

In  this  condition  his  eye  was  attracted  by 
an  object  which  appealed  powerfully  to  one 
of  his  strongest  passions — his  patriotism, 
love  for  his  country,  which  was  then  strug- 
gling in  the  scorching  fever  of  civil  war. 
This  object  was  a  large  placard  on  a  dingy 
building,  calling  for  "  Men  for  the  United 
States  Army."  A  staff  protruded  from  an 
upper  window,  and  the  American  flag 


268 


The  Doctor  of  Leidesdorff  Street. 


[Sept. 


streamed  out  on  the  breeze.  Urquhart's  eye 
brightened  as  he  read  the  placard.  A  new 
direction  was  given  to  his  thoughts,  and 
raised  them  slightly  from  the  despair  into 
which  they  were  plunged.  He  stood  a  few 
moments  in  deep  thought,  and  then  entered 
the  building.  In  less  than  half  an  hour  he 
had  abandoned  his  budding  practice  of  the 
law,  and  enlisted  as  a  private  soldier  in  the 
United  States  Army. 

IV. 

ON  a  certain  evening  about  two  weeks 
after,  one  of  the  most  popular  billiard  sa- 
loons of  San  Francisco  was  crowded  with  a 
rather  noisy  assemblage  of  young  men,  either 
actively  engaged  in  pushing  the  balls  or  look- 
ing on  at  the  games.  Kulcannon  was  con- 
spicuous as  one  of  the  noisiest  players,  and 
was  evidently  a  little  the  worse  for  liquor. 
At  another  table  near  by  was  a  young  man 
of  medium  height  and  graceful  manners,  who 
was  noticeable  for  a  slight  infirmity  in  his 
speech.  He,  too,  had  evidently  drunk  too 
much,  and  by  his  unsteadiness  had  lost  sev- 
eral games,  becoming  more  excited  at  each 
defeat.  In  a  corner  somewhat  removed  from 
•  the  crowd,  Vallier  was  conversing  in  low 
tones  with  a  tall,  light-haired  young  man, 
whose  pleasant  blue  eyes  were  constantly 
glancing  about  the  large,  smoky  apartment. 
Vallier  was  evidently  refusing  to  be  convinced 
of  something,  which  the  other  was  ardently 
though  cautiously  advocating. 

"  We  do  not  expect  you  to  compromise 
yourself  personally,"  said  the  stranger ;  "  that 
would  not  be  wise  for  a  man  of  your  wealth 
and  station.  But  money  is  as  necessary  as 
men  for  this  enterprise.  I  address  you  with- 
out fear,  because  I  am  well  assured  of  your 
favorable  feelings  toward  the  Southern  Con- 
federacy." 

"  Be  careful,  if  you  please,"  said  Vallier 
indolently.  "  There  are  many  ears  here." 

"  We  are  safe,"  replied  the  other.  "  I 
fear  only  when  I  plot  in  secret ;  for  walls 
have  ears — near  them,  sometimes  ;  but  on 
the  street  or  in  a  crowded  saloon  I  laugh  at 
danger.  You  should  be  willing  to  venture 


something,  if  only  to  aid  the  Southern  cause. 
The  chances  are  greatly  in  our  favor,  and  we 
shall  reap  wealth  as  well  as  fame.  The 
mail  steamers  will  be  an  easy  prey,  and  we 
shall  sweep  the  broad  Pacific  from  San  Fran- 
cisco to  the  Islands." 

"You  are  very  sanguine,"  drawled  Vallier. 
"  My  private  opinion  is  that  in  less  than  a 
month  you  will  have  a  dungeon  to  plot  in,  or 
else  dangle  uncomfortably  at  a  yard-arm." 

"Bosh,  my  dear  fellow.  If  we  were  all 
as  indolent  as  you,  there  might  be  some  fear ; 
but  the  boys  are  all  fiery,  active  fellows,  and 
if  it  comes  to  the  worst,  will  die  at  their 
guns.  But  there  is  scarcely  a  chance  of 
that,  I  assure  you." 

"  Well,  I  hope  you  will  come  out  all  right." 

"  There  can  be  no  doubt  of  that  to  men 
of  energy." 

"  What  is  your  vessel,  Misson  ? "  asked 
Vallier,  rousing  himself. 

"  The  '  Chapmann  '  schooner,"  answered 
the  other  in  a  low  voice ;  she  is  lying  at  the 
Street  wharf." 

"Now,  have  the  kindness  to  tell  me  how 
you  intend  to  get  your  guns  and  stores 
aboard  and  muster  your  crew,  without  being 
detected  by  policemen,  soldiers,  and  spies, 
who  are  constantly  about  the  city-front?" 
asked  Vallier  with  interest. 

"  My  dear  fellow,"  said  Misson,  smiling, 
"  it  is  almost  the  easiest  thing  in  the  world. 
What  is  more  ordinary  than  a  schooner  sail- 
ing for  Mazatlan,  carrying  mining  machinery 
for  Mexico,  and  also  taking  a  limited  num- 
ber of  passengers  ?  " 

"  I  must  certainly  commend  your  audaci- 
ty," said  Vallier  coolly.  "  I  will  think  it 
over,  and  let  you  know  in  a  day  or  two  what 
I  will  do." 

"Very  well,"  replied  Misson,  "and,  see 
here  " — he  spoke  in  a  low  voice  for  a  few 
minutes  with  great  energy,  until  he  was  in- 
terrupted by  the  approach  of  Kulcannon, 
who  had  finished  his  game,  and  now  swag- 
gered noisily  towards  them. 

"  Well,  gentlemen,  plotting  against  the 
whites?"  he  said,  laughing  loudly.  "By 
the  way,  Vallier,"  he  continued,  mouthing 
his  cigar,  "  seems  to  me  you're  not  getting 


1885.] 


The  Doctor  of  Leidesdorjf  Street. 


269 


on  so  well  lately  with  the  pretty  little  actress. 
What's  the  matter,  eh  ?  I've  got  some  news 
for  you.  Bet  you  couldn't  guess  in  a  year, 
or  two  years,  what  it  is.  You  know  Ur- 
quhart,  the  fellow  she  was  engaged  to  ?  Well, 
he's  'jined  the  army' — a  high  private  in  the 
rear  rank,  ha,  ha,  ha." 

Vallier  calmly  selected  another  cigar  and 
lighted  it. 

"Fact,  my  dear  fellow,"  continued  Kul- 
cannon.  "  I  met  him  on  the  street  today, 
in  blue,  walking  like  a  grenadier  of  the  Old 
Guard."  Kulcannon  cast  a  maudlin,  know- 
ing look  at  Misson.  "  Ever  seen  Vallier's 
matchless  queen  of  the  night,  Mr.  Misson  ?  " 
he  asked.  "  Irene  Godsmark,  at  the  Ameri- 
can. The  sweetest  little — " 

"  Hush  ! "  said  Misson,  emphatically. 
"That  slight  young  man  at  the  table  yon- 
der is  her  brother.  If  he  should  overhear 
your  remarks  you  might  regret  it." 

"Her  brother  ?  "  said  Vallier,  with  a  slight- 
ly startled  air. 

"Yes — Arthur  Godsmark  —  college  stu- 
dent in  the  country ;  home  for  vacation," 
said  Misson,  as  if  reading  from  a  list. 

"Begad,  that's  news,"  said  Kulcannon. 
"I  must  go  and  see  what  manner  of  man  he 
is,"  and  he  strolled  away  with  his  hat  on  the 
side  of  his  head. 

"  Misson,"  said  Vallier,  looking  straight  in 
the  Cher's  eyes,  "you  know  this  young 
Godsmark  ?  " 

"  Yes,  I  know  him." 

"  Induce  him  to  join  your  expedition,  and 
you  shall  receive  five  thousand  dollars." 

Misson  gazed  at  him  for  a  few  moments 
silently,  his^calm  face  giving  no  clue  to  his 
thoughts.  Then  he  said  : 

"  Done.  The  young  man's  sentiments 
are  favorable,  but  I  have  not  approached  him 
before  for  three  reasons,  which  it  would  per- 
haps be  as  well  not  to  mention." 

"  It  is  unnecessary,"  said  Vallier. 

Again  Misson  gazed  at  Vallier  intently. 
The  latter  bore  the  scrutiny  calmly  and  care- 
Jessly. 

"  Vallier,"  said  Misson  at  length,  "  what  a 
devil  you  are  under  your  gentle,  lazy  man- 
ners." 


"  You  are  mistaken,"  replied  Vallier,  gent- 
ly, "  only  a  man.  There  is  at  able  deserted; 
let  us  have  a  game." 

"No,"  said  Misson,  "  I  observe  that  our 
young  friend  is  in  a  very  approachable  state 
this  evening,  and  I  must  make  the  best  of  the 
opportunity." 

That  night  Arthur  Godsmark  returned 
home  very  late,  with  a  confused  conscious- 
ness of  having  drank  too  much,  of  having 
taken  terrible  oaths,  and  of  possessing  an 
important  secret. 


V. 


OLD  residents  of  San  Francisco  will  re- 
member the  discovery  of  the  "  Chapmann" 
conspiracy,  and  the  arrest  and  trial  of  some  of 
the  conspirators.  Arthur  Godsmark  was  ar- 
rested with  others.  It  was  almost  a  death- 
blow to  Irene,  but  she  rallied  bravely  to  her 
brother's  defense,  and  kept  all  knowledge 
of  the  great  trouble  from  her  parents.  This 
was  not  at  all  hard,  for  her  father  had  lately 
shut  himself  up  more  closely  than  ever  in 
his  study,  and  her  mother  hardly  ever  left 
her  room,  and  was  evidently  failing  fast. 
Irene  employed  skillful  counsel  to  defend 
Arthur,  and  made  the  most  heroic  efforts  to 
obtain  his  acquittal.  These  unusual  expen- 
ses swallowed  up  her  salary  and  savings,  and 
rendered  it  impossible  for  her  to  pay  to  her 
father  the  allowance  she  usually  set  apart  for 
him.  Several  times  the  Doctor  had  emerged 
from  his  study  upon  hearing  her  return  at 
night,  thus  asking,  in  his  silent  way,  for 
money,  but  she  had  none  to  give  him.  This 
seemed  to  depress  him  very  much,  and  to 
put  a  stop  to  his  mysterious  work,  for  he  took 
to  sitting  in  the  little  parlor  for  hours  at  a 
time,  with  his  chin  in  his  hands,  and  his  eyes 
gazing  on  vacancy. 

During  this  sad  time  Vallier  took  many 
opportunities  of  proving  to  Irene  what  he 
was  pleased  to  term  his  friendship  for  her. 
He  displayed  the  deepest  interest  in  Ar- 
thur's defense,  and  was  a  constant  attendant 
at  court  during  the  trial.  His  own  lawyer 
waited  upon  Irene  and  tendered  his  services, 
which  were  declined.  These  exhibitions  of 


270 


The  Doctor  of  Leidesdorff  Street. 


[Sept. 


regard  did  not  fail  of  producing  their  effect 
upon  Irene.  In  her  loneliness  and  deep 
trouble,  she  came  to  look  upon  Vallier  as  a 
friend ,  still,  she  doubted  slightly,  wondering 
if  she  could  trust  him.  Thus  interesting  him- 
self, and  entering  uncalled  into  Irene's  ser- 
vice, Vallier  managed  to  call  a  number  of 
times  at  Doctor  Godsmark's.  Irene  treated 
him  with  gentle  kindness,  and  on  one  occa- 
sion he  even  thought  he  perceived  an  expres- 
sion of  pleasure  on  her  face  at  his  appear- 
ance. 

He  called  one  day  and  found  Doctor 
Godsmark  alone,  sitting  at  the  cold  parlor 
stove.  He  looked  like  a  mummy,  and  was 
evidently  deeply  depressed.  From  an  ad- 
joining room  came  at  intervals  a  faint,  hol- 
low cough.  Vallier  had  been  warned  by 
Irene  not  to  utter  a  word  to  her  parents 
about  Arthur's  trouble,  so  he  merely  made 
some  polite  inquiries  concerning  Madame 
Godsmark's  health,  before  asking  when  Irene 
would  return.  To  his  surprise  the  Doctor 
presently  seized  his  hand,  and  began,  rather 
wildly,  to  pour  out  the  story  of  his  distress ; 
something  about  a  wonderful  instrument 
which  he  was  about  completing,  but  which 
required  an  outlay  that  he  was  entirely  un- 
able to  make.  The  poor  Doctor's  tale  of 
sorrow  and  despair,  having  begun  to  flow, 
poured  forth  with  increasing  violence,  until 
Vallier,  having  but  a  dim  idea  of  what  it  all 
meant,  but  understanding  that  money  was 
needed,  took  out  his  pocket-book  and  tossed 
a  thousand  dollars  on  the  table.  He  then 
shook  Godsmark  s  hand,  wished  him  success, 
and  hastily  departed  before  the  Doctor  had 
recovered  from  his  surprise ;  for  to  do  the 
latter  justice,  he  never  thought  of  asking 
Vallier  for  money. 

In  spite  of  all  the  efforts  made  in  Arthur's 
behalf,  he  was  convicted  and  sentenced  to 
imprisonment  for  a  term  of  years  in  the  fort 
on  Alcatraz  Island.  As  Irene  left  the  court- 
room at  the  conclusion  of  the  trial,  accom- 
panied by  Vallier,  they  met  a  tall  soldier 
walking  rapidly,  who  stiffly  raised  his  cap  as 
he  passed.  Irene  trembled,  and  became  paler 
than  before.  It  was  Urquhart. 

Arthur   went   to   prison ;     but    although 


Irene  had  failed  in  one  effort  to  obtain  his 
freedom,  she  did  not  despair,  but  at  once 
began  to  lay  other  plans,  which  were  destined 
to  produce  results. 

About  a  week  after  Arthur's  conviction, 
another  blow  fell  upon  her,  as  if  fate  were 
determined  to  do  its  worst.  Upon  her  en- 
tering the  theater  one  evening,  the  manager 
requested  a  few  moments'  conversation  with 
her.  When  they  were  alone,  he  said  : 

"  Miss  Godsmark,  it  pains  me  to  say  what 
I  am  obliged  to  communicate  to  you  this 
evening.  Your  acting  heretofore  has  given 
perfect  satisfaction;  in  fact,  it  has  been  a 
drawing  card ;  but  this  unfortunate  affair  of 
your  brother's,,  we  find,  has  given  rise  to 
considerable  feeling  of  an  adverse  sort,  and 
we  apprehend  that  your  remaining  in  the 
theater  will  seriously  affect  the  receipts.  Be- 
lieve me,  there  is  nothing  personal  in  this  on 
my  part ;  but  you  are  aware  that  there  are 
certain  jealousies  in  the  profession,  and  that 
we  must  be  guided  to  a  certain  extent  by  pub- 
lic feeling.  Of  course,  you  will  remain  dur- 
ing the  term  of  your  contract,  which  has 
nearly  expired,  but  after  that — you  perceive 

'  and  the  worthy  man  coughed  a  little. 
"You  have  our  best  wishes,"  he  concluded. 

"  Very  well,  sir,"  replied  Irene.  "  I  am 
not  surprised." 

"  This  is  my  last  night  at  the  American," 
said  Irene,  as  she  left  the  theater  with^Val- 
lier  on  the  evening  that  her  engagement 
closed, 

"The  American  will  never  see  a  more 
charming  actress,"  replied  Vallier,  smoothly. 
But  Irene  did  not  notice  the  compliment ; 
she  was  thinking  of  something  else.  "  Have 
you  made  another  engagement?"  he  asked. 

"  No;  there  is  no  chance  for  me  in  San 
Francisco." 

"  Not  at  another  theater?  " 

"No." 

"  May  I  ask  what  you  intend  to  do  ?" 

"  I  intend  to  do  my  duty." 

"That is  rather  indefinite." 

"  It  is  definite  to  me." 

It  was  a  beautiful  evening,  and  at  Vallier's 
request  they  extended  their  walk  to  Ports- 
mouth Square,  the  old  Plaza  of  San  Francis- 


1885.] 


The  Doctor  of  Ltidesdorff  Street. 


271 


co,  which  at  that  time  had  not  yet  fallen  un- 
der the  yellow  shadow  of  Chinese  invasion. 
A  military  band  was  playing  in  the  vicinity 
as  they  strolled  along  the  gravel  walk.  The 
loud,  martial  notes  seemed  to  affect  Vallier 
unusually  ;  he  felt  a  peculiar  thrill,  and  won- 
dered at  it  indolently.  There  were  no  prom- 
enaders  near.  He  paused  in  the  shade  of  a 
tree — a  thick  cypress,  like  a  monument. 

"  Irene,"  he  said,  taking  her  hand,  and 
speaking  low,  "  you  need  never  act  again 
unless  you  wish.  You  shall  not  be  depen- 
dent on  selfish  managers.  Irene,  I  love 
you — " 

"  Hush,"  she  said,  withdrawing  her  hand, 
"  not  another  word  or  I  shall  leave  you." 

"  Irene,"  he  said,  going  on  volubly  yet 
gently,  "  nothing  can  prevent  me  from  say- 
ing these  words  :  I  love  you — I  always  have 
loved  you — I  will  love  you  always.  No  one 
will  ever  love  you  as  I  do.  You  cannot  es- 
cape me — I  shall  always  be  near  you.  I 
would  go  through  fire  and  flood  for  you — I 
would  face  any  danger  for  you — I  would  suf- 
fer death  for  you  —  I  would  burn  in  the 
flames  of  hell  for  you.  If  you  smiled,  I 
would  be  repaid.  Irene — "  more  eagerly, 
yet  gently,  "  I  have  a  splendid  palace  here  ; 
I  have  a  lovely  villa  in  Monterey  ;  my  yacht 
lies  in  the  bay —  the  '  Cleopatra  ' —  she  flies 
over  the  water  like  a  bird — " 

Irene  had  stood  as  if  in  a  dream  ;  but  she 
roused  herself  and  said  :  "  You  would  not 
soil  your  gloves  for  me." 

"  I  would  gladly  die  for  you,"  he  said,  in 
a  sentimental  tone.  There  was  a  conflict  of 
expressions  in  her  face.  She  gazed  at  him 
earnestly,  and  seemed  to  make  a  resolve. 

"  Will  you  risk  disgrace  ?  "  she  asked. 

"Yes." 

"And  imminent  danger — even  death." 

The  crash  of  warlike  music  burst  forth  in- 
spiringly. 

"  Yes,"  he  cried ;  he  had  never  felt  so 
earnest  before. 

"Then,"  said  Irene,  speaking  rapidly, 
"  meet  me  tomorrow  night  at  ten  o'clock  on 
the  old  wharf  at  North  Beach.  Think  once 
more  :  Will  you  venture  everything?  " 

"  I  will.  I  shall  meet  you  there,"  said 
Vallier  eagerly. 


-  "G-ood  night,  then,"  said  Irene,  holding 
out  her  hand.  "  We  will  part  here."  She 
pressed  his  hand  lightly,  and  walked  quickly 
away. 

The  next  night  the  fog  rolled  in  from  the 
ocean  heavily,  and  a  cold  wind  blew.  Irene, 
on  the  old  wharf  at  North  Beach,  shivered 
and  wrapped  her  cloak  about  her  as  she 
crouched  behind  an  old  boat.  She  tried  to 
tell  the  time  by  her  watch,  but  it  was  too 
dark  to  see  the  hands.  She  felt  certain  that 
Vallier  was  late.  The  water  lapped  eagerly 
among  the  piles ;  it  occurred  to  her  that  the 
bay  would  be  very  rough  that  night.  She 
became  very  impatient.  Presently  a  figure 
appeared,  muffled  in  a  long,  dark  overcoat. 
Irene  knew  by  the  indolent,  graceful  walk 
that  it  was  Vallier.  He  peered  to  the  right 
and  left  as  he  came,  and  she  rose  to  meet 
him.  He  hurried  forward  when  he  saw  her, 
saying  something  which  she  did  not  under- 
stand. 

"You  are  late,"  she  said.  "Do  you  re- 
gret your  promise?  Do  you  want  to  go 
back  ?  " 

"Command  me,"  he  replied;  "nothing 
that  you  desire  can  be  appalling." 

"Then  I  will  trust  you.  Listen,  and  I 
will  tell  you  why  I  am  here,  and  in  what  I 
want  assistance.  There  is  no  one  else  I  can 
rely  on.  Arthur  is  to  make  his  escape  from 
prison  tonight ;  he  has  been  furnished  means 
to  do  so.  We  must  row  over  to  Alcatraz, 
and  bring  him  away  in  the  boat.  Come,  let 
us  go  at  once  ;  there  is  no  time  to  lose." 

Vallier  gazed  aghast  over  the  black,  stormy 
water.  The  icy  breeze  struck  a  chill  through 
him. 

"What?  In  this  gale?  Do  you  know 
how  rough  the  bay  is  out  there  ?  " 

"  You  are  not  afraid  !  "  cried  Irene,  with 
doubt  and  astonishment  mingled  in  her  voice 
and  manner. 

"  We  should  be  upset  as  sure  as  fate,"  he 
said. 

Irene  remained  silent. 

"  It  would  be  terrible  to  die,  Irene,"  he 
murmured,  with  a  shiver. 

"  It  is  more  terrible  to  live,"  said  Irene, 
in  a  tone  of  indescribable  pathos. 

Vallier  suddenly  caught  her  in  his  arms. 


272 


The  Doctor  of  Leidesdorff  Street. 


[Sept. 


"  Irene,  he  said,  in  an  agitated  voice,  "  do 
not  venture  out  there;  there  is  no  need. 
Arthur  shall  be  free  without  that ;  I  swear 
it.  I  have  money,  plenty  of  it.  I  have  in- 
fluence with  great  men;  more  than  you 
think.  I  will  spend  a  million  dollars;  Arthur 
shall  be  pardoned ;  I  swear  it.  Irene,  go 
with  me  tonight — now.  See  those  lamps 
yonder  ?  It  is  my  traveling  carriage.  My 
bays  go  like  the  wind.  They  will  take  us 
to  my  white  villa  of  the  Golden  Lilies,  at 
Monterey —  a  beautiful  house,  Irene,  in  the 
midst  of  blooming  gardens,  where  birds  sing 
forever ;  and  the  blue  water  before  it,  and 
the  white  surf  murmuring  on  the  sands. 
And  the  'Cleopatra'  shall  come,  and  we 
will  sail  away  to  the  sweet  islands  of  the 
south ;  and  Arthur  shall  be  free,  and  I  will 
make  him  rich.  He  shall  be  freer  than  you 
can  make  him  by  this  dangerous  act.  I 
swear  it — I  swear  it — by  heaven,  the  saints, 
the  holy  angels — 

"  Hush !  "  cried  Irene,  in  a  tone  of  mere 
horror.  Her  head  whirled  dizzily.  A  new 
light,  hideous  and  noxious,  broke  upon  her. 
The  poor  girl's  mind  had  been  so  centered 
upon  Arthur  and  his  dreadful  trouble,  that 
she  had  been  blind  to  other  things.  The 
wagging  tongues  of  the  crowd  had  sneeringly 
connected  her  name  with  Vallier's  long  ago. 
She  gave  a  gasp  and  a  moan  as  if  she  had 
been  suddenly  stabbed.  She  saw  in  Vallier 
a  trifler,  who  had  deceived  her  with  a  perfid- 
ious friendship.  She  pushed  him  backward 
with  all  her  force,  ran  down  the  steps  of  the 
landing,  and  sprang  into  a  small  boat  lying 
there.  Vallier  followed,  but  she  had  already 
pushed  off,  and  was  fitting  the  oars  in  the 
rowlocks. 

A  strange  emotion  filled  the  young  man's 
breast.  He  did  not  wonder  at  it,  but  was 
intensely  conscious  of  a  deep  and  thrilling 
sensibility  never  felt  before.  It  was  as  if  the 
coarse  husk  of  selfishness  had  burst,  and 
disclosed  the  existence  of  nobler  and  purer 
feelings.  It  was,  perhaps,  the  first  upspring- 
ing  of  genuine  love.  He  looked  with  some- 
thing like  despair  at  the  water  which  sepa- 
rated him  from  Irene,  and  stretched  out  his 
arm  as  if  to  stay  her  departure. 


"  Let  me  go  with  you,  Irene,"  he  called. 
"All  I  ask  is  to  go.  I  will  be  silent ;  I  will 
not  say  a  word.  Come  back,  I  beg,  I  pray. 
Irene,  I  mean  no  wrong;  I  am  honorable. 
Let  me  go — only  let  me  go.-  Irene ! " 

She  made  a  reply  as  she  rowed  away,  but 
the  wind  blew  strongly,  and  he  did  not  un- 
derstand what  it  was.  He  sprang  up  the 
steps  and  ran  to  the  end  of  the  wharf  just  in 
time  to  see  her  vanish  in  the  rolling  fog.  He 
would  have  called  again,  but  he  feared  to 
attract  attention.  He  took  off  his  hat  and 
dashed  it  on  the  planks.  He  cursed  himself, 
not  sincerely,  but  because  it  was  a  natural 
thing  to  do  under  such  circumstances  of  self- 
reproach.  Never  had  the  Sybarite  been  so 
agitated.  He  hurried  away;  then  he  hurried 
back  again.  He  looked  about  for  another 
boat.  None  practicable  could  be  seen.  At 
last,  he  surprised  his  coachman  by  bolting 
hastily  into  his  carriage,  and  ordering  to  be 
driven  to  the  city-front.  Arrived  at  the  city- 
front,  he  was  again  perplexed.  He  wished 
to  hire  a  boat,  but  he  was  afraid  of  exciting 
suspicion.  He  became  confused.  He  had 
never  had  to  actually  think  before. 

He  passed  an  unhappy  night.  He  re- 
mained on  the  street.  He  walked,  and  rode. 
He  could  decide  on  nothing.  His  coachman 
swore  terribly  under  his  breath.  About  three 
o'clock  he  concluded  that  he  would  go  to 
Doctor  Godsmark's  house,  and  see  if  Irene 
had  returned;  yet  he  did  not  know  whether 
she  intended  returning  home  or  not.  He 
knew  that  the  Doctor  often  worked  late  into 
the  night,  and  he  depended  on  finding  him 
up.  He  tried  to  make  himself  believe  that 
his  suspense  would  soon  be  ended. 

He  entered  Leidesdorff  Street,  and  saw  that 
the  window  of  the  Doctor's  study  was  lighted 
up.  The  street  door  was  unlocked ;  he  went 
in,  ascended  the  stairs,  and  knocked  gently 
upon  the  door.  Then  it  occurred  to  him 
that  his  appearance  at  that  hour  would  seem 
very  strange  to  the  Doctor.  A  ray  of  light 
shot  from  the  keyhole,  and  the  door  was 
nervously  opened.  Doctor  Godsmark  ap- 
peared with  a  lamp  in  his  hand.  His  appear- 
ance was  startling.  He  was  scarcely  more 
than  a  shadow,  but  his  sunken  eyes  were  di- 


1885.] 


The  Doctor  of  Leidesdorff  Street. 


273 


lated,  and  shone  brilliantly  and  triumphantly. 
He  gazed  atVallierfor  a  moment,  and  then, 
reaching  out  his  nervous  hand,  drew  him 
inside. 

"  I  am  glad  you  have  come,"  he  said,  in 
an  eager  whisper.  "You  lent  me  money;  I 
haven't  forgotten  that,  and  you  shall  be  re- 
paid tenfold.  It  is  finished  at  last,  and  just 
in  time — just  in  time.  Come,  I  am  all 
ready.  You  helped  to  complete  it,  and  you 
shall  share  the  triumph.  Come."  He  drew 
Vallier,  mystified  and  startled,  into  the  study, 
and  shut  the  door  carefully.  The  scanty 
furniture  was  thrust  back  against  the  walls, 
leaving  the  room  clear.  Before  the  sofa,  at 
the  side  of  the  room,  stood  an  instrument  of 
marvelous  workmanship.  It  consisted  of 
something  like  a  camera-obscura,  in  conjunc- 
tion with  other  intricate  apparatus,  among 
which  could  be  seen  receptacles  of  glass  con- 
taining strange  liquids. 

This  mysterious  mechanism  received  but 
a  glance  from  Vallier ;  his  eyes  were  fixed 
on  a  still  figure  placed  in  a  sitting  position 
on  the  sofa,  and  entirely  covered  with  a 
white  sheet,  which  dimly  showed  the  outlines 
of  the  human  form.  Vallier  gazed  on  this 
awful  figure,  and  almost  dropped  to  the  floor, 
so  weak  was  he  with  superstitious  terror. 

"  It  is  Irene,"  murmured  the  Doctor. 

"  Irene  ! "  gasped  Vallier,  in  a  horror- 
stricken  whisper. 

"My  wife — yes,"  sighed  Godsmark,  "she 
died  suddenly  tonight." 

Vallier  sank  into  a  chair  and  pressed  his 
hand  on  his  heart. 

"Before  the  final  triumph,  I  must  explain 
to  you,"  whispered  Godsmark,  with  gleaming 
eyes.  "  You  are  the  first  human  being  to 
hear  these  wonderful  things.  All  other  in- 
ventions are  confined  to  the  earth — to  mortal 
things ;  but  this  is  destined  to  penetrate  the 
unknown,  and  reveal  to  our  view  the  images 
of  celestial  or  infernal  beings.  You  have 
often  heard  of  sudden  death,  have  you  not  ?  " 

"  My  God,  yes,"  gasped  Vallier. 

"Of  course;  we  all  have.      Now   listen: 

When  a  human  being  is  deprived  of  life  so 

suddenly,  I  believe  that,  for  some  unknown 

reason,  an  immortal  being,  angel,   god,  or 

VOL.  VI.— 18. 


devil,  appears  to  him  or  her  in  tangible  shape, 
and  the  frail  mortal  existence,  blasted  by  the 
awful  sight,  suddenly  perishes.  Does  it  not 
blind  our  eyes  to  gaze  at  the  sun  ?  Is  it  not 
written  that  he  must  die  who  hath  looked 
upon  a  God  ?  Mortal  eyes  stricken  by  such 
a  sight  must  retain  the  impression  of  it  after 
death ;  it  must  be  stamped  indelibly  upon 
the  retina.  This  instrument,  placed  before 
the  open  eyes  of  one  who  has  perished  sud- 
denly by  such  a  fearful  visitation,  will  take 
from  the  seared  retina  the  exact  figure  of 
the  immortal  visitant,  and  by  means  of  these 
intricate  arrangements  and  sensitive  fluids 
will  throw  it  with  at  least  a  slight  semblance 
of  its  supernatural  splendor  upon  that  thin 
disk  of  prepared  metal  which  you  see." 

Vallier  could  scarcely  credit  his  senses, 
and  almost  believed  himself  the  victim  of 
some  hideous  dream. 

"  I  am  too  impatient  now  to  explain  the 
mechanism  to  you,"  continued  the  Doctor, 
"but  I  will  do  so  soon.  I  will  light  these 
powerful  lamps.  Now  I  will  uncover — her 
face  ;  and  soon  on  yonder  disk  will  shine  the 
figure  of  that  angelic  being  whose  appearance 
has  released  her  from  this  weary  life." 

Godsmark  was  stepping  towards  the  still 
figure,  when  Vallier  clutched  his  arm. 

"  If  it — kills  them,"  he  whispered,  trem- 
bling, "  shall  we  not — also  die — at  the — at 
the— sight  of  it  ?  " 

"  It  is  not  likely — it  is  not  likely,"  said  the 
Doctor,  impatiently.  "  We  need  not  think 
of  that.  Behold  !"  He  stepped  forward, 
and  drew  the  sheet  from  the  white  face  of 
the  corpse.  Its  eyes  were  open,  staring  and 
expressionless. 

There  was  an  awful  hush.  The  very  walls 
seemed  to  watch.  The  two  men  heard  their 
hearts  beat.  There  were  other  noises  about 
the  house,  but  they  did  not  hear  them.  A 
minute  passed  by  like  an  age.  No  wondrous 
figure  flashed  out  upon  the  darkened  disk. 
Suddenly  the  features  of  the  corpse  seemed 
to  twitch — its  eyes  to  dilate  with  horror. 
There  was  a  movement !  It  rose  slowly  in 
its  white  garments  with  a  low  moan  as  of 
agony. 

"Irene,"  she  whispered,  gazing  straight  be- 


274 


The  Doctor  of  Leidesdorff  Street. 


[Sept. 


fore  her ;  "the  boat,  —  she  is  drowning — 
drowning — "  She  suddenly  sank  down- 
wards. Doctor  Godsmark  sprang  forward 
and  caught  her  as  she  fell,  and  both  went 
down  together. 

"  O  God ! "  groaned  Vallier,  springing  to 
the  door.  He  tore  it  open  and  rushed  out. 
Strong  hands  seized  him.  The  little  parlor 
was  full  of  armed  men,  and  the  weird  light 
from  the  study  was  reflected  from  bayonets 
and  musket  barrels.  They  were  soldiers  of 
the  provost  guard,  sent  to  search  Doctor 
Godsmark's  house  for  infernal  machines, 
which,  it  was  reported,  were  being  manu- 
factured there. 

Vallier  leaned  against  the  wall  half  faint- 
ing. He  scarcely  heard  the  officer's  stern 
questions,  and  could  only  point  feebly  to- 
wards the  study.  The  officer  entered.  Doc- 
tor Godsmark  lay  on  the  floor  with  his  wife 
in  his  arms.  He  was  quite  dead  ;  and  poor 
Madame  Godsmark,  too,  had  passed  from 
her  strange  trance  to  death  with  him. 


VI. 


IRENE  left  Vallier  on  the  wharf  with  feel- 
ings of  anger,  grief,  and  humiliation.  She 
rowed  with  fierce  energy  directly  out  into  the 
channel  towards  Alcatraz,  and  soon  her  ut- 
most efforts  were  necessary  to  propel  the 
light  craft  through  the  rough  chop  seas. 
After  a  severe  struggle,  which  almost  exhaust- 
ed her  strength,  Alcatraz  loomed  grimly 
through  the  fog.  She  approached  with 
great  caution  and  landed  on  a  shelving  bank, 
securing  the  boat's  painter  to  a  projecting 
point  of  rock.  This  steep  side  of  the  island 
sloped  directly  up  to  a  parapet  far  above,  but 
dimly  seen  in  the  fog  masses  that  whirled  in 
from  the  sea.  After  gazing  anxiously  about 
for  a  short  time,  she  threw  herself  on  the 
ground  to  recover  from  her  exhaustion  before 
beginning  the  ascent.  It  was  at  this  point 
that  Arthur  had  arranged  to  make  his  escape. 

At  length  she  began  to  ascend  the  steep 
slope.  Creeping  close  to  the  earth  on  her 
hands  and  knees,  she  moved  slowly  along, 
pausing  now  and  then  to  watch  and  listen. 
At  last  she  almost  shrank  into  the  ground  as 


the  dark  spectral  figure  of  a  sentinel  emerged 
from  the  fog  and  moved  along  the  parapet 
above  her.  He  disappeared  in  the  gloom, 
and  once  more  she  crept  a  little  farther  up. 
She  did  not  wish  to  risk  missing  Arthur  in 
the  fog.  Then  a  great  cannon  appeared  at 
her  left,  frowning  from  an  embrasure,  and 
she  stopped  and  waited.  It  seemed  a  long 
time  to  her,  but  it  was  not  very  long,  when 
a  dark,  moving  object  on  the  parapet  caught 
her  eye.  It  grew  larger,  and  soon  became 
the  figure  of  a  man,  crouching  low,  and 
about  to  descend.  It  was  Arthur  !  Her  heart 
leaped  with  joy.  She  involuntarily  started 
up  to  meet  him.  She  did  not  see  the  appar- 
ently gigantic  figure  arise  from  the  shadow  of 
the  cannon ;  she  did  not  hear  the  click  of  the 
musket-lock ;  but  the  hoarse  challenge  smote 
her  heart  like  death. 

"  Halt !     Who  goes  there  ?  " 

There  was  a  moment  of  frozen  silence, 
full  of  despair.  Then  Arthur's  voice  an- 
swered, coolly,  but  its  infirmity  increased 
with  excitement:  "A — friend.  Wi — with- 
out— the  countersign,  I  —  regret  — um — to 
say." 

Then  the  blood  left  Irene's  heart,  and 
rushed  hotly  to  her  face  again ;  for  she  had 
recognized  in  the  voice  of  the  sentinel  a  fa- 
miliar burr,  sounding  strangely  amid  those 
wild  surroundings.  She  ran  up  the  short 
intervening  slope  toward  him.  The  soldier 
half  turned,  with  his  drill-like  movement,  to 
confront  the  new  enemy.  She  threw  herself 
on  her  knees,  and  said  : 

"Edward,  it  is  Irene." 

"  Irene  !  "  muttered  Urquhart,  as  if  stupe- 
fied ;  and  he  grounded  his  musket. 

"  It  is  Arthur,"  said  Irene  eagerly.  "  For 
heaven's  sake  let  him  go.  I  know  you  hate 
me  now,  but  let  him  go  for  old  friendship's 
sake." 

"  I  do  not  hate  you,  Irene,"  said  Urqu- 
hart, in  a  sorrowful  voice,  "but  I  cannot  let 
him  go." 

"  Edward,  for  God's  sake  let  him  escape." 

"  I  cannot.  Do  you  not  know  that  I  am 
no  longer  a  free  citizen,  but  a  soldier,  bound 
by  a  stern  military  law  ?  Do  you  not  know 
that  what  you  ask  is  my  dishonor  ?  " 


1885.] 


The  Doctor  of  Leidesdorff  Street. 


275 


"  Oh,  no,  surely  not  dishonor,  but  only 
generous  mercy." 

"  I  have  lost  you,  Irene,  through  my  own 
blind  folly.  I  know  it  now.  I  have  nothing 
left  but  honor.  Can  you  ask  me  to  sacrifice 
that  ?  " 

"  Would  it — could  it — be  proved  against 
you  ?  "  asked  Irene  drearily. 

"  It  would  be  proved,  without  doubt ;  but, 
worse  than  that,  I  should  fall  in  my  own  re- 
spect, as  one  who  had  broken  his  oath  and 
betrayed  his  trust." 

Irene  suddenly  began  to  cry  and  sob  wild- 
ly. Urquhart  knelt  down  beside  her,  and 
took  her  hand  gently. 

"  Don't,  Irene,"  he  said  tremulously, 
"you'll  kill  me."  Then  he  was  silent,  and 
seemed  shaken  with  emotion.  Suddenly  he 
arose,  stepped  up  to  Arthur,  and  said  vehe- 
mently :  "  Arthur,  run  this  bayonet  through 
me,  and  you  can  go." 

"Th — thank  you,"  replied  Arthur  calmly, 
"  but  I  shall  do  nothing  of  the  sort." 

"  Irene,"  said  Urquhart,  kneeling  beside 
her  once  more.  "  I  may  never  see  you 
again.  Can  you  listen  to  me,  if  I  say  any- 
thing against  Vallier  ?" 

"  I  hate  him — I  hate  him,"  she  answered 
in  a  woful  voice. 

"  Thank  heaven,"  said  Urquhart  solemnly. 
"  I  wanted  to  warn  you.  He  is  dishonora- 
ble. He  deceived  us  contemptibly.  Do 
you  remember  when  we  quarreled,  I  said  he 
called  on  you  ?  " 

"  He  had  not  at  that  time." 
"  I  know  it.  He  concealed  himself  in  his 
carriage  at  your  door  to  make  me  believe  he 
had  entered.  One  of  my  comrades  was  in 
the  saloon  opposite  and  observed  the  ma- 
neuvre.  He  told  me  about  it  as  a  curious 
incident  this  very  night;  but  he  had  no  idea 
that  I  was  an  interested  party." 

"  I  am  glad  you  know  I  spoke  the 
truth." 

"  I  was  a  scoundrel  to  doubt  it.  Can  you 
ever  care  for  me  again,  Irene  ?  " 

"  I  have  always -loved  you,"  she  replied, 
in  tears. 

At  that  moment  a  light  appeared  at  a  dis- 
tance in  the  fort. 


Urquhart  started  up.  "Good  heavens, 
the  relief  is  coming,"  he  said. 

"Arthur !"  cried  Irene,  clasping  her  hands. 

"Take  him  and  go,"  said  Urquhart,  hur- 
riedly. "  Hurry — there  is  not  a  moment  to 
lose." 

He  tried  to  push  them  from  the  parapet; 
but  Irene  would  not  stir. 

"Arthur,"  she  said  slowly,  "you  cannot 
escape  tonight.  Go  back  to  your  cell." 

"  What  madness  is  this,"  ejaculated  Ur- 
quhart, in  his  old  fiery,  impulsive  way.  "  Go 
at  once  ;  go — go." 

"  He  cannot  go.    Think  of  your  disgrace." 

"I  will  suffer  everything.  Arthur,  for 
God's  sake,  take  her  and  go." 

"Just  as  'Rene  s — says,"  replied  Arthur, 
coolly. 

The  tramp  of  the  advancing  guard  was 
heard. 

"  Better  that  all  should  die  than  one 
be  dishonored.  Go  back,  Arthur,"  said 
Irene. 

Arthur  vanished  in  the  darkness.  Ur- 
quhart felt  Irene's  soft  arms  about  him  for 
an  instant,  and  felt  her  lips  touch  his  cheek; 
then  she  was  gone,  down  the  steep  slope  in- 
to the  black  fog  and  night. 

Yes,  the  fog  was  thick,  and  the  night  was 
dark,  and  the  waves  clamored  hoarsely,  and 
the  cold  wind  blew.  The  tide  was  ebbing, 
too,  and  sweeping  swiftly  out  through  the 
Golden  Gate.  It  was  a  wild  night  for  a  lit- 
tle skiff  to  venture  on  the  turbulent  waters. 
When  the  golden  spears  of  morning  drove 
darkness  over  the  distant  horizon,  a  vessel 
bound  in  picked  up,  outside  the  heads,  a 
small  boat  floating  bottom  up  in  the  waves. 

Vallier  did  not  return  to  his  butterfly  life. 
He  had  truthfully  disclaimed  being  a  devil ; 
he  was  only  a  man  after  all.  He  became 
melancholy  ;  and  it  was  true  that  he  gave  a 
large  sum  for  masses  for  the  repose  of  Irene's 
soul.  He  soon  embarked  for  Washington, 
where  he  spent  money  freely,  and  invoked 
every  influence  to  procure  the  pardon  and 
release  of  Arthur  Godsmark.  He  eventu- 
ally succeeded  in  this.  Having  completed 
his  self-imposed  task,  he  wandered  to  Eu- 
rope, and  presently  found  himself  amidst  the 


276 


Modern  Egypt. 


[Sept, 


seductive  enticements  of  Homburg,  in  its 
palmy  gambling  days.  He  became  so  de- 
voted an  attendant  at  the  green  tables  that 
his  great  fortune  took  to  itself  wings,  or  rath- 
er was  raked  in  by  imperturbable  croupiers. 
Then,  beginning  to  feel  the  cold  breath  of 
the  world,  no  longer  ameliorated  by  passing 
through  a  medium  of  wealth,  he  quaffed  a 
Lethean  draught,  and  luxuriously  slept  his 
life  away  on  a  velvet  couch  in  one  of  the 
magnificent  saloons  of  the  Kursaal. 

Arthur  emerged  from  prison  a  grave  and 
saddened    youth.     Remembering    tenderly 


poor  Irene's  ambition  for  him,  he  devoted 
himself  to  his  studies,  and  is  now  a  promi- 
nent judge  in  an  eastern  city. 

Urquhart  distinguished  himself  in  the 
army.  He  went  to  the  seat  of  war  in  the 
East,  and  became  a  captain  of  volunteers. 
Both  as  a  soldier  and  an  officer  he  was  re- 
nowned for  the  most  splendid  bravery,  and 
for  his  utter  contempt  of  danger  and  death. 
He  was  torn  to  pieces  by  the  explosion  of  a 
shell  in  almost  the  last  battle  of  the  war, 
and  every  one  who  knew  him  grieved  deeply 
for  him. 

C.  E.  B. 


MODERN  EGYPT. 


IF  there  is  anything  more  puzzling  to  the 
student  than  ancient  Egypt,  it  is  certainly 
modern  Egypt.  The  mysteries  which  cling 
about  ancient  Egypt  are,  it  is  true,  absent 
from  modern ;  yet  the  emotions  it  excites 
are  so  varied  and  contradictory,  the  change 
from  its  busy  cities  to  the  silence  of  its  des- 
erts so  sudden  and  appalling,  that  it  seems 
as  difficult  to  give  a  consistent  account  of 
the  Egypt  of  today,  as  to  reconcile  all  the 
conflicting  theories  concerning  the  worship 
of  Osiris,  or  the  government  of  the  Pharaohs. 
Indeed,  south  of  Cairo  there  is  no  such  thing 
as  modern  Egypt,  for  there  the  past  creeps 
out  from  between  ruined  portals,  and  engulfs 
all  the  little  present  in  its  colossal  shadow. 
It  is  in  Cairo  and  Alexandria  that  the  life  of 
today  must  be  studied — a  life  so  prodigal  of 
riches  and  of  squalor,  of  picturesqueness  and 
of  filth,  a  character  so  composed  of  sullen 
patience  and  childish  light-heartedness,  that 
it  is  impossible  to  write  of  either  without 
seeming  contradiction. 

The  written  history  of  Egypt  begins  when 
her  freedom  as  a  nation  was  first  irrevocably 
'  crushed  under  a  conquering  foot.  The  an- 
nals of  the  world  contain  no  sadder  story 
than  this,  of  the  downfall  of  the  earliest 
among  civilized  nations.  Persians,  Assyr- 
ians, Greeks,  and  Romans,  succeeded  each 
other  in  the  work  of  destruction ;  but  the 


land  retained  something  of  its  Pharaonic 
splendor,  until  the  Saracens  set  foot  upon  its 
soil.  While  the  Byzantine  Emperors  were 
striving  to  forcibly  Christianize  Egypt ;  while 
the  last  followers  of  the  old  faith  were  seek- 
ing shelter  in  the  sacred  groves  of  Philae ; 
when  the  glory  of  Alexandria  was  begin- 
ning to  wane,  and  the  ruins  of  the  Serape- 
um  were  already  moss-grown — there  was 
born  at  Mecca  a  child  whose  future  was  to 
change  the  fate  of  half  the  known  world. 
He  was  the  descendant  of  a  rich  and  pow- 
erful family,  to  whom  belonged  the  honor- 
able office  of  Keepers  of  the  Caaba.  His 
father,  Abdallah,  was  so  remarkably  hand- 
some, that  it  is  said  that  at  his  marriage  two 
hundred  maidens  died  of  broken  hearts. 
Many  miracles  are  related  concerning  the 
birth  of  his  son  Mahomet ;  but  it  was  not 
until  he  reached  the  age  of  forty,  that  he  pro- 
claimed his  mission  as  a  prophet.  There  is 
no  life  or  character  in  history  stranger  than 
that  of  Mahomet.  Shrewd,  yet  passionate  ; 
brave  and  determined,  yet  subject  to  terrible 
mental  depression ;  a  bitter  enemy  of  idols, 
yet  born  an  idolater;  superstitious,  sensuous, 
proud  and  cruel,  this  man  gathered  about 
him,  first  a  little  band  of  half-doubting  be- 
lievers, then  an  army  which  by  the  .sword 
was  to  force  the  Prophet's  creed  upon  half 
the  world.  Yet  this  cruel  man,  who  could 


1885.] 


Modern  Egypt. 


277 


neither  read  nor  write,  has  left  recorded  in 
his  Koran  precepts  of  such  justice  and  beau- 
ty as  to  astonish  the  Christian  reader.  So 
firmly  did  Mahomet  establish  his  faith,  that 
it  did  not  die  with  him,  but  under  his  suc- 
cessors spread  far  and  wide.  He  had  but 
lately  ceased  to  live,  when  his  followers  un- 
der Amron  conquered  Persia,  Syria,  and 
Egypt.  To  the  greatest  stronghold  of  idola- 
try came  these  destroyers  of  idols,  and  found 
that  Christian  hands  had  already  laid  waste 
the  shrines  of  Isis  and  Osiris.  Once  more 
the  religion  of  the  land  was  changed  by  force, 
and  its  seed  watered  with  blood. 

Here  it  may  be  said  that  the  history  of 
modern  Egypt  begins.  When  the  Saracen 
army  under  Amron  entered  Alexandria,  on 
Dec.  22d,  640,  the  captor  wrote  to  the  Ca- 
liph : 

"  I  have  taken  the  great  city  of  the  West.  It  is 
impossible  for  me  to  enumerate  the  variety  of  its 
riches  and  beauty,  and  I  shall  content  myself  with 
observing  that  it  contains  four  thousand  palaces,  four 
thousand  baths,  four  hundred  theaters,  or  places  of 
amusement,  twelve  thousand  shops  for  the  sale  of 
vegetable  food,  and  forty  thousand  tributary  Jews." 

Later,  the  conqueror  sent  the  Caliph  the 
following  graphic  account  of  the  land  he  had 
been  at  such  pains  to  gain  possession  of: 

"  Egypt  is  a  compound  of  black  earth  and  green 
plants,  between  a  pulverized  mountain  and  a  red 
sand.  The  distance  from  Tyene  to  the  sea  is  a 
month's  journey  for  a  horseman.  Along  the  valley 
descends  a  river,  upon  which  the  blessing  of  the 
Most  High  reposes  both  morning  and  evening,  and 
which  rises  and  falls  with  the  revolutions  of  the  sun 
and  moon.  When  the  annual  dispensation  of  Provi- 
dence unlocks  the  springs  and  fountains  that  nourish 
the  earth,  the  Nile  rolls  his  swelling  and  sounding 
waters  through  the  realm  of  Egypt ;  the  fields  are 
overspread  by  the  salutary  flood,  and  the  villages 
communicate  with  each  other  in  their  painted  barks. 
.  .  .  According  to  the  changes  of  the  season,  the 
face  of  the  country  is  adorned  with  a  silver  wave,  a 
verdant  emerald,  and  the  deep  yellow  of  a  golden 
harvest." 

This  apt  and  concise  description  is  as  ap- 
plicable to  Egypt  today  as  when  the  trium- 
phant Amron  penned  it. 

Not  content  to  occupy  the  glories  of 
Alexandria,  he  moved  his  army  above 
the  Delta,  and  founded  the  new  capital 


of  El  Cahireh,  "the  victorious."  The 
Saracens  had  no  respect  for  the  civiliza- 
tions which  preceded  them.  Iconoclasts 
by  religion,  they  considered  the  art  of  sculp- 
ture a  crime ;  intolerant  of  all  beliefs  but 
their  own,  they  found  heathen  temples  an 
abomination  in  their  sight;  profoundly  ig- 
norant of  literature,  they  held  books  in  no 
regard.  When  Amron  appealed  to  the  Ca- 
liph Omar,  to  know  what  should  be  done 
with  the  magnificent  library  in  Alexandria, 
he  received,  according  to  the  well-known 
story,  the  following  reply  :  "The  books  you 
mention  are  either  in  conformity  with  the 
Book  of  God,  or  they  are  not.  If  they  are, 
the  Koran  is  sufficient  without  them  ;  if  they 
are  not,  they  ought  to  be  destroyed."  It  is 
said  that  the  zealous  Amron  distributed  them 
to  the  keepers  of  the  baths,  to  whom  they 
served  as  fuel  for  six  months. 

Nowhere  can  the  fable  of  the  phcenix  be 
more  aptly  applied  than  to  Cairo,  for  it  lit- 
erally rose  out  of  the  ashes  of  the  ancient 
kingdom.  The  palaces  of  Alexandria  were 
robbed  of  all  their  treasures  to  deck  its  walls; 
the  temples  were  torn  stone  from  stone  to 
pave  its  streets  and  build  its  flat-roofed  hous- 
es. Four  hundred  Greek  columns  adorn  a 
single  mosque;  another  has  a  slab,  carved 
over  with  the  praises  of  Tutmes,  sawn  in  two 
to  form  a  door-step.  The  remains  of  Mem- 
phis were  so  entirely  absorbed  into  the  new 
city,  that  a  single  colossal  statue  is  alone 
left  to  mark  the  ancient  city's  site.  Scarce- 
ly a  house,  or  wall,  or  street,  in  the  older 
Cairo,  but  bears  witness  to  the  ruthless  dep- 
redations of  the  Saracen  invaders.  The  arch- 
itecture which  rose  from  these  fragments  was, 
like  the  people  whose  will  called  it  to  life,  a 
sort  of  adaptation  of  the  material  at  hand. 
The  Saracens,  as  a  nation,  seem  a  strange  ac- 
cident of  history.  Rising  as  suddenly  and 
mysteriously  as  a  summer  flood,  they  swept 
over  nation  after  nation,  taking  to  themselves 
the  customs  of  one,  the  industries  of  anoth- 
er, the  arts  of  a  third,  modifying  and  adapt- 
ing them  to  their  needs,  only  stamping  upon 
each  their  own  characteristic.  They  went 
forth  with  nothing  their  own  except  a  creed. 
By  conquest  and  absorption  they  became 


278 


Modern  Egypt. 


[Sept. 


the  ruling  nation  of  the  world.  They  may  be 
said  to  have  had  no  art  except  architecture ; 
for  .Mohammed  in  the  Koran  forbade  the 
making  of  pictures  and  statues,  declaring 
that  whoso  in  this  world  makes  anything  in 
human  form,  shall  in  the  next  be  condemned 
to  find  a  soul  to  fit  it.  An  early  Arab  histo- 
rian attributes  the  origin  of  their  architec- 
ture to  the  Persians.  That  the  Byzantine 
style  had  also  its  influence  is  evident.  It  is 
a  significant  fact  that  a  Copt  (native  Egyp- 
tian) was  employed  to  roof  the  Caaba,  when 
it  was  rebuilt  during  the  prophet's  boyhood. 
When  the  Saracens  entered  Egypt  they  found 
numbers  of  Christian  churches  which  could 
be  converted  into  mosques,  and  which  doubt- 
less had  an  influence  in  forming  their  archi- 
tecture. The  Coptic  artificers  and  workmen 
were  called  in  to  build  new  mosques,  for  the 
Arabs  were  skillful  in  no  branch  of  mechan- 
ics. The  two  hundred  and  fifty  years  which 
followed  the  conquest  of  Egypt  left  no  mon- 
uments by  which  can  be  traced  the  gradual 
development  of  art. 

The  mosque  of  Ibn-Tooloon  is  the  most 
ancient  Muslim  edifice  of  known  date.  It  is 
also  remarkable  as  being  the  earliest  instance 
of  the  pointed  arch  being  used  throughout  a 
building.  Indeed,  Arab  architecture  seems 
in  many  particulars  the  precursor  of  the 
Gothic.  In  the  mosque  of  Tooloon  the  geo- 
metrical and  scroll  ornament  is  first  found — 
the  most  fascinating  characteristic  of  Arabian 
art.  The  infinite  variety  and  labyrinthine 
elaborateness  of  this  work  is  a  constant  won- 
der to  the  visitor  to  Cairo.  To  follow  its  in- 
tricacies is  bewildering  to  the  brain.  The 
mosques  abound  with  these  arabesques,  which 
are  as  gracefully  fantastic  as  the  patterns  the 
frost  traces  upon  a  window  pane.  Though 
dust-laden  and  falling  to  decay,  they  are  still 
a  complete  exponent  of  grace  of  outline. 

One  of-the  noblest  mosques  in  Cairo  is 
that  of  Sultan  Hassan.  Its  entrance  way  is 
roofed  with  stalactites  of  plaster,  which  give 
it  the  appearance  of  a  vast  cave.  The  change 
from  the  noisy  streets  without  to  its  cool  twi- 
light is  delightful.  The  center  of  the  mosque 
is  occupied  by  an  immense  court,  on  the 
four  sides  of  which  are  semi-circular  domed 


spaces,  left  entirely  open  towards  him  who 
enters.  In  the  middle  of  the  court  is  a  foun- 
tain, at  which  the  faithful  bathe  before  going 
to  prayers.  In  the  eastern  wall  a  niche 
marks  the  direction  of  Mecca.  To  one  side 
of  this  a  flight  of  steps  leads  to  a  sort  of  pul- 
pit, from  which  the  Koran  is  read.  The 
quadrangle  is  over  one  hundred  feet  square ; 
the  walls  are  one  hundred  feet  high,  and  cov- 
ered with  arabesque  and  mosaic  inscriptions. 
Slender  columns  uphold  the  domes;  the  sun- 
shine lies  warm  and  yellow  in  the  court;  the 
sparrows  twitter  in  nooks  in  the  crumbling 
walls;  above,  the  azure  sky  is  seen,  pierced 
by  the  needle-like  minarets,  from  whose  sum- 
mit an  echoing  voice  comes  floating  down, 
"  Prayer  is  better  than  sleep  ;  come  to  pray- 
er"; and  at  the  sound,  the  people  drop 
upon  their  knees,  and  bow  their  turbaned 
heads  to  the  ground. 

There  is  something  very  beautiful  in  this 
semi-pagan  custom  of  leaving  a  place  of  wor- 
ship in  part  unroofed.  The  ancient  Romans 
realized  it,  when  they  left  the  eye  of  the  Pan- 
theon open  toward  heaven.  In  Mohamme- 
dan mosques  the  rain  and  sunshine  have  free 
entrance,  and  the  little  birds  build  their  nests 
among  the  carvings  and  come  and  go  at  will, 
tuning  the  prayers  of  those  below  to  the  un- 
ceasing twitter  of  their  voices. 

A  mosque  is  to  a  Muslim  not  merely  a 
place  of  prayer ;  it  is  a  home  to  the  homeless, 
a  retreat  for  the  idle,  and  a  center  of  trade 
for  the  industrious.  In  the  porticoes  bar- 
bers ply  their  razors.  Under  the  arches  beg- 
gars sleep  and  eat ;  yet  the  inner  place  of 
prayer  is  always  cool  and  still.  The  Mosque 
of  El  Azhar  is  the  great  university  of  Cairo, 
with  11,000  students  registered  yearly  on  Its 
roll.  Its  interior  presents  a  scene  which 
would  drive  to  insanity  the  entire  faculty  of 
an  American  college.  Cross-legged  upon 
the  floor  of  its  immense  court  are  seated  the 
students — gray-bearded  men,  gaily-dressed 
youths,  ragged  boys.  All  who  are  studying 
at  all  do  so  out  loud,  rocking  rapidly  back 
and  forth  ;  a  few  lie  full  length  on  their  faces 
and  write.  Some  have  not  yet  awakened, 
and  lie  rolled  in  their  mantles ;  others  are 
breakfasting.  The  water-seller  walks  about, 


1885.] 


Modern  Egypt. 


279 


jingling  his  brass  cups,  and  crying,  "  Moyd, 
moyd"  in  shrill  tones  ;  fruit  venders  find  ea- 
ger customers;  some  sly  truants  play  "tag" 
among  the  further  columns.  Law,  jurispru- 
dence, theology,  and  medicine  are  being  ac- 
quired by  these  turbulent  students,  yet  the 
single  text  book  is  the  Koran. 

Much  of  the  exterior  beauty  of  a  Saracen 
building  is  due  to  the  extreme  contrast  of 
curved  and  perpendicular  lines.  The  broad 
swell  of  the  shallow  domes,  out  of  whose 
midst  rise  the  slender  minarets,  with  their 
curved  balustrades  and  lance-like  tops  all 
outlined  sharply  against  the  glowing  sky, 
is  graceful  beyond  comparison.  Byzantine 
architecture  has  this  charm,  but  scarcely  in 
the  perfection  to  be  found  in  Cairo.  The 
Mosque  of  the  Citadel,  although  marred  by 
some  elements  strangely  foreign  to  the  archi- 
tecture, is  a  fine  example  of  this.  Dome 
rises  upon  dome,  a  pyramid  of  swelling  curves. 
The  walls  are  of  deeply- veined  Oriental  ala- 
baster; the  light  within  is  lustrous  with  the 
glow  of  painted  glass,  losing  itself  in  the 
somber  richness  of  Turkish  carpets.  Beau- 
tiful as  is,  it  reminds  one  too  forcibly  of  the 
luxurious  sensuality  of  later  Mohammedan- 
ism, to  be  altogether  pleasing.  The  view 
from  this  mosque  is  one  of  the  loveliest  sights 
in  Cairo.  The  city  lies  below,  the  towers  of 
its  three  hundred  and  fifty  mosques  piercing 
the  misty  air  like  a  fairy  forest ;  on  one  side, 
green  grain  fields  cleft  by  the  sinuous  course 
of  the  muddy  Nile,  and  beyond,  the  golden 
waste  of  desert,  broken  only  by  the  gigantic 
triangles  of  the  Pyramids.  To  see  the  sun- 
set from  this  spot  is  to  see  the  gates  of  Para- 
dise flung  wide  for  one  delicious  minute. 

There  is  one  monument  in  Cairo  which 
antedates  by  sixteen  years  the  Mosque  of 
Tooloon.  It  is  a  Nilometer,  an  instrument 
for  measuring  the  rise  and  fall  of  the  river. 
It  is  a  well  eighteen  feet  square,  having  in 
its  center  a  pillar  marked  off  into  cubits.  On 
each  side  are  arched  recesses  surmounted  by 
an  inscription  relating  to  the  "  water  sent  by 
God  from  Heaven."  It  stands  in  the  garden 
of  a  deserted  palace,  whose  marble  courts 
and  crumbling  frescoes  seem  worthy  to  have 
been  the  dwelling-place  of  the  Sleeping  Prin- 


cess. The  garden  is  overrun  with  rosesr 
geraniums,  and  sweet-peas.  Arbors  covered 
with  grape  vines  protect  marble-paved  walks 
from  the  sun,  and  carved  balustrades  over- 
hang the  slow-flowing  river.  The  place  is 
so  mysteriously  silent,  so  odorously  sweet, 
that  it  at  once  recalls  fables  of  wicked  genii 
and  enchanted  beauties.  A  white-robed,  iris- 
winged  fairy  might  rise  out  of  the  stillness, 
and  seem  quite  in  place ;  or  the  handsome 
prince,  all  bedight  in  satins  and  feathers, 
might  walk  up  the  shady  avenue  on  his  way 
to  waken  with  a  caress  the  princess  in  the 
palace  beyond,  and  surprise  no  one  but  the 
echoes  which  sleep  lightly  among  the  decay- 
ing marbles. 

The  best  specimen  of  domestic  architec- 
ture to  which  a  visitor  to  Cairo  has  access,  is 
the  Ghezireh  Palace.  It  is  entered  by  a 
marble-paved  court,  whose  paneled  ceiling 
is  upheld  by  airy  columns,  whose  arches  re- 
sound to  the  cool  splash  of  a  sparkling  foun- 
tain. Within  the  palace  the  walls  are  hung 
with  satin  of  varying  tints,  and  Persian  car- 
pets deaden  the  fall  of  footsteps.  The  bath 
room  is  fit  for  Haroun  al  Raschid  himself, 
with  its  marble  floor  sloping  slowly  down  to  a 
vast  basin,  in  which  the  water  plays  with  a 
musical  trickle.  Slender  columns  uphold  a 
white-domed  ceiling,  into  which  panels  of 
painted  glass  are  sunk,  shedding  a  glowing 
radiance  over  the  cool  whiteness  of  the  place. 
In  the  palace  garden  is  a  lake,  surrounded 
with  a  Moorish  portico,  which,  if  illuminated 
by  colored  lanterns,  would  seem  a  fitting 
illustration  for  Moore's  "  Feast  of  the 
Roses." 

One  of  the  most  marked  characteristics  of 
Cairene  architecture  is  the  bazar.  Each 
trade  has  one  devoted  to  itself— as,  for  in- 
stance, the  jewelers'  bazar,  the  shoemakers' 
bazar,  the  dry  goods  bazar.  They  are  entered 
by  equestrians  and  pedestrians  alike  —  in- 
deed, the  favorite  mode  of  shopping  in  Cairo 
is  on  donkey-back,  for  this  seat  brings  the 
purchaser  on  a  level  with  the  merchant,  sit- 
ing cross-legged  on  the  floor  of  his  stall. 
Passageways  or  streets  three  or  four  feet 
wide  intersect  each  other  at  right  angles. 
The  light  is  admitted  through  the  roof,  which 


280 


Modern  Egypt. 


[Sept. 


covers  the  whole.  The  place  is  dingy,  noisy, 
and  contains  smells  unutterable. 

One  of  the  most  interesting  portions  of 
old  Cairo  is  what  is  known  as  the  Coptic 
quarter.  Passing  through  a  low  postern  in 
an  old  Roman  wall,  we  enter  streets  so  nar- 
row that  two  cannot  ride  abreast — eccentric 
streets,  which  jump  ditches,  dodge  through 
gateways,  and  walk  up  steps,  disappearing  at 
last  around  a  corner  or  through  a  door. 
Hanging  windows  meet  over  the  street,  and 
are  filled  with  carved  lattices  so  delicate  and 
beautiful  as  to  shame  their  dingy  surround- 
ings, and  occasionally  there  is  an  arched 
doorway  fit  to  be  the  entrance  to  a  prince's 
palace.  It  is  a  place  of  immense  possibil- 
ities in  the  line  of  dirt  and  romance  ;  a  suit- 
able mise  en  scene  for  the  tales  poor  Scheher- 
ezade  wove  at  the  price  of  her  life.  Watch 
long  enough  at  that  house  with  the  carved 
door  and  finely  wrought  lattices,  and  you 
will  surely  see  enter  the  three  one-eyed 
mendicants,  and  catch  echoes  of  merriment 
within.  From  yonder  window  the  fair,  false 
lady  must  have  bewitched  the  tailor;  and 
that  is  certainly  the  door  at  which  the  jewel- 
er's wife  laid  poor  dead  Hunchback. 

But  all  these  pleasant  fancies  fade  when  we 
turn  a  sudden  corner,  and  find  ourselves  in 
front  of  the  little  Coptic  church.  Services 
are  in  progress  as  we  enter,  but  one  of  the 
choir  boys  promptly  lights  a  taper,  and,  still 
chanting  his  part,  shows  us  quaint  and  rich 
inlayings  in  wood  and  ivory,  some  awkward 
old  Byzantine  paintings,  and  finally  three  lit- 
tle niches  in  which,  it  is  claimed,  sat  Mary 
and  Joseph  and  Jesus  during  the  flight  into 
Egypt.  As  we  turn  to  leave  the  church  the 
priest  and  the  rest  of  the  choir  desert  the 
altar  and  gather  around  us,  begging  alms. 

And  these  are  the  people  who  claim  a 
lineal  descent  from  the  men  who  built  Kar- 
nak,  and  whose  language  gave  the  key  to  the 
translation  of  the  Rosetta  Stone.  How,  in- 
deed, are  the  mighty  fallen  !  How  poor  a 
successor  is  this  dingy  little  church,  with  its 
niches  and  relics,  to  the  solemn  halls  in  which 
old  Egypt  worshiped  its  gods  !  Egypt  pre- 
sents today  the  phenomenon  of  a  land  whose 
inhabitants,  religion,  government,  and  arts 


are  all  foreign.  And  even  that  imported  art 
is  a  thing  of  the  past ;  for  it  is  said  that  the 
only  people  in  Cairo  who  can  now  trace  a 
genuine  scroll  or  arabesque  are  the  Greek 
tailors,  who  embroider  them  on  the  dainty 
jackets  of  Turkish  grandees  or  Circassian 
sultanas.  The  land  has  absolutely  nothing 
of  its  own  save  its  ruins  and  its  river;  yet  is 
not  that  as  much  as  any  other  land  can  boast  ? 

The  nearer  one  approaches  the  majesty  of 
the  past  in  Egypt,  the  more  the  present  seems 
to  shrivel  into  worthlessness.  The  villages 
south  of  Cairo  are  mere  collections  of  mud 
huts,  roofed  in  with  palm  branches.  Some- 
times a  whole  town  will  be  built  upon  the 
roof  of  an  ancient  temple,  and  cumber  it  as 
little  as  a  group  of  wasps'  nests.  At  Min- 
yea,  the  Khedive  has  several  fine  palaces, 
and  an  occasional  sugar  mill  crouches  by 
the  Nile  like  an  emblematic  monster  of  the 
nineteenth  century ;  but  these  detract  noth- 
ing from  the  universal  squalor  and  degrada- 
tion. The  Khedive  owns  everything  worth 
owning  in  the  land,  and  the  people  hope 
only  for  a  meager  subsistence.  The  men 
are  scrawny  and  high  shouldered,  reminding 
one  not  infrequently  of  the  square  figures 
upon  the  temple  walls.  The  old  women 
seem  a  company  of  resuscitated  mummies 
from  the  caves  of  the  Lybyan  hills.  But  to 
see  the  young  women  at  sunset  filing  down 
the  river  bank,  with  their  water  jars  poised 
lightly  upon  their  heads,  is  to  see  how  Re- 
becca looked  when  she  watered  her  flocks, 
or  how  Pharaoh's  daughter  bent  over  the 
wave-cradled  Moses.  The  grace  and  beauty 
of  these  women  do  not  bear  close  inspection, 
but  they  add  to  the  picturesqueness  of  many 
a  scene. 

The  most  active  western  mind  is  led  to 
generalize  and  dream  in  Egypt.  The  "why 
and  wherefore,"  which  haunt  perpetually  our 
busy  life,  die  of  inertia  there.  Who  cares 
to  listen  to  statistics  of  pauperism  and  deg- 
radation, while  the  people  are  only  graceful 
groups  in  a  glowing  landscape  ?  Who  asks 
how  many  cubits  the  river  rises,  while  its 
muddy  waters  have  strength  to  float  the  de- 
lighted traveler  through  scenes  so  enchant- 
ing? Indeed,  poverty  is  scarcely  painful  in 


1885.] 


Musical  Taste. 


281 


a  country  where  a  single  garment  and  un- 
limited leisure  for  sleep  are  enough  to  con- 
stitute happiness.  The  crystalline  clearness 
of  the  sky,  the  intense  yellow  of  desert  and 
sunlight,  make  Egyptian  days  a  perpetual 
idyl,  painted  in  sapphire  and  gold.  The 
traveler's  luxurious  pleasure  boat  floats  upon 
a  mystic  river,  whose  lapping  waters  are  a 
spell  to  tempt  him  into  dreamland.  The 
past  and  future  are  dead  to  him  ;  he  lives 
but  in  the  delicious,  unreal  present.  The  air 
is  molten  sunshine;  he  can  feel  it  glow  in 
his  lungs  and  intoxicate  every  sense,  as  he 
lies  on  his  satin  divan  and  drinks  in  the 
beauty  of  this  dream.  The  idle  days  are 
singularly  alike,  yet  never  monotonous. 
Hazy  sunrises,  when  the  light  creeps  coyly 
over  the  awakening  earth,  and  the  cool  breath 
of  the  night  still  fans  the  hills ;  hot  noon 
days,  when  the  stare  of  the  sun  has  hushed 
all  the  land  to  glowing  silence  and  the  desert 
burns  in  a  yellow  blaze;  sunsets,  whose  crim- 
son and  purple  mock  the  pen  which  would 
picture  them,  and  nights  whose  shadows  are 
but  the  antitype  of  day  and  know  only  a 
silver  gloaming  which  is  but  a  step-child  to 
darkness. 

Sometimes  the  placid  slopes  which  fon- 
dle the  river  rise  into  wild  lime  cliffs, 
mummy-pitted  and  wind-haunted.  Some- 
times the  green  fields  sweep  away  to  meet 
the  mountains,  which  snatch  the  red  and 
gold  from  the  palpitating  air,  and  weave  for 
themselves  a  thousand  varying  mantles  with 
which  to  clothe  their  nakedness.  Some- 
times the  horizontal  lines,  which  go  ever 


varying  through  this  landscape,  are  broken 
by  the  sharp  uprising  of  carved  columns  and 
massive  walls.  This  is  the  climax  of.  this 
living  dream  ;  a  phantom  which  comes  and 
goes  upon  the  bosom  of  this  waking  sleep. 
Old  Egypt  is  never  dead  by  moonlight. 
Then  her  ruins  are  silvered  into  life  and  re- 
peopled  with  the  subjects  of  her  Pharaohs. 
It  needs  then  but  a  slow  imagination  to  see 
the  white-robed  procession  of  priests  wind 
up  the  sphinx-lined  avenue  of  Karnak.  A 
solemn  music  floats  upon  the  air ;  the  weird 
figures,  so  long  petrified  upon  the  walls,  step 
slowly  down  and  join  the  kindred  throng. 
Pennons  float  before  the  gateways,  the  moon- 
light kisses  softly  the  red  and  blue  of  the 
columns,  and  toys  with  the  gleaming  white- 
ness of  lotus  blossoms.  The  star-full  vast- 
ness  of  the  sky  bends  low  above  the  echoing 
courts,  where  Osiris  lends  a  listening  ear  to 
his  stately  worshipers. 

The  sharp  yelp  of  a  jackal  shivers  the  si- 
lence, and  the  gorgeous  vision  fades.  The 
traveler  raises  his  dazed  eyes,  and  sees 
grouped  about  him  in  patient  dumbness  a 
range  of  Osiride  columns.  Their  hands  are 
crossed  upon  their  breasts,  their  faces  have 
a  waiting  look  which  is  a  foretaste  of  despair  ; 
the  walls  about  are  crumbling;  beyond,  a 
single  upright  column  pierces  the  sky,  and 
wears  a  coronal  of  stars  about  its  head. 
Dead,  but  unsepulchred,  Egypt  faces  the 
day,  while  her  untombed  kings  lie  sceptreless 
in  every  museum  of  the  earth.  Better,  in- 
deed, were  annihilation  than  this  undying 
death. 

Franklina  Gray  Bartlett. 


MUSICAL   TASTE. 


THAT  we  are  a  musical  people  is  a  claim 
our  national  egotism  has  not  yet  set  up ;  but 
were  such  a  claim  made,  there  would  be  no 
want  of  argument  in  support  of  it.  It  could 
be  urged  that  among  us,  musicians'  (espec- 
ially vocalists')  notes  are  cashed  with  a  read- 
iness truly  astonishing  ;  that  a  piano  is  an 
indispensable  article  of  household  furniture, 


and  that  few  families  are  without  some  one 
to  play  it ;  that  even  in  those  remote  and 
less  wealthy  districts  spoken  of  as  the  "  Back- 
woods," the  abundance  of  musical  instru- 
ments shows  that  musical  interest  is  not  a 
mere  outgrowth  of  the  culture  of  large  cities; 
that  the  manufacture  of  pianos,  etc.,  is  an 
important  branch  of  industry,  giving  employ- 


282 


Musical  Taste. 


[Sept. 


ment  to  thousands  of  people,  and  reaching 
an  excellence  recognized  all  over  the  world. 
And  further,  that  our  amateurs  include  many 
excellent  performers,  and  though  they  some- 
times afflict  us  with  the  worst  composers, 
yet  are  they  not  without  acquaintance  with, 
and  even  love  for,  the  best,  and  now  and 
then,  like  August  Mignon,  blossom  out  into 
composers  of  real  ability  themselves ;  that 
our  professionals  are  a  numerous  and  pros- 
perous body,  with  a  good  average  of  enlight- 
enment, frequently  with  high  executive  ca- 
pacity, not  unfrequently  with  great  technical 
learning,  and  occasionally  manifesting  a  cre- 
ative talent  so  pronounced  that  only  the  want 
of  opportunity  prevents  the  recognition  of 
its  possessors  among  the  world's  great. 

And  yet,  though  all  this  and  much  more 
is  undeniable,  the  stubborn  fact  remains  with 
which  we  started,  that  we  are  not  a  musical 
people,  in  the  sense  in  which  the  Germans 
and  probably  some  other  nationalities  are; 
and  considering  the  important  place  music 
holds,  both  in  our  social  and  educational 
systems,  the  question  what  it  is  that  a  musi- 
cal people  possess  and  we  lack,  can  not  be 
dismissed  as  wanting  either  in  interest  or 
importance. 

We  will  hardly  claim  that  this  question 
can  be  answered  in  a  single  word,  and  yet 
it  is  scarcely  too  much  to  say  that  were  our 
three  most  conspicuous  faults  corrected,  the 
others  would  correct  themselves.  These 
faults  are  :  want  of  musical  taste,  a  degraded 
view  of  music,  and  an  unworthy  motive  for 
its  study. 

Concerning  the  first  of  these,  musical 
taste  is  the  faculty  which  chooses  the  best 
and  most  suitable,  and  rejects  alike  the  bad 
and  the  inappropriate ;  and  no  estimate  of 
artistic  values  which  disregards  either  of 
these  considerations  is  worthy  to  be  digni- 
fied by  the  name  of  taste.  To  illustrate  : 
much,  perhaps  most,  of  the  music  heard  in 
churches  is  bad,  because  its'  composers  had 
not  the  ability  to  write  anything  better;  and 
of  the  remainder  most  is  bad,  because  suita- 
bility is  disregarded  both  by  those  who  select 
and  those  who  hear  it. 

But  we  will  use  the  word  taste  in  its  more 


limited  sense,  as  the  faculty  which  chooses 
the  good.  It  must  be  obvious  that  the  trite 
and  commonplace  occupy  no  higher  place 
in  music  than  in  any  other  art,  and  yet  these 
are  the  very  qualities  which  commend  much 
music  to  many  hearers,  and  the  want  of 
which,  in  the  opinion  of  many,  constitutes  a 
fault  which  they  call  ugly.  Indeed,  there  are 
many  who  believe  themselves  specially  ap- 
preciative, simply  on  account  of  the  delight 
afforded  them  by  trivial  progressions  of  thirds 
and  sixths,  for  instance,  and  these  they  call 
"  pretty" — and  here  we  may  offer  a  very  prac- 
tical suggestion :  When  all  the  impressions 
derived  from  a  musical  composition  are  nat- 
urally and  completely  expressed  by  the  word 
"  pretty,"  we  may  generally  suspect  either 
ourselves  of  want  of  discernment,  or  the 
music  of  want  of  merit.  Children  often 
manifest  great  pleasure  in  rhyme  and  meter 
before  they  comprehend  the  sense  of  the 
words  so  arranged,  and  much  of  the  delight 
in  music  which  finds  expression  in  the  word 
"  pretty "  is  of  precisely  the  same  order. 
But  the  child  soon  learns  to  seek  for  more 
in  poetry  than  a  mere  jingle,  owing  to  the 
example  of  friends  and  companions,  and 
the  direct  influence  of  teachers.  But  in  mu- 
sic these  causes  operate  less  beneficently : 
friends  and  companions  generally  have  done 
nothing  to  correct  their  own  taste,  and  the 
efforts  of  teachers  are  for  the  most  part  di- 
rected, not  to  the  education  of  taste,  but  the 
development  of  executive  skill. 

That  the  teachers'  endeavor  should  stop 
here  is,  of  course,  unfortunate;  and  we  would 
suggest  to  them  that  in  this  direction  their 
work  admits  of,  and  even  calls  for,  great  im- 
provement. And  we  would  remind  students, 
that  although  taste  and  knowledge  are  not 
so  wedded  as  never  to  be  found  apart,  yet 
that  they  have  a  natural  affinity  for  each 
other,  and  that  to  add  to  musical  skill  mu- 
sical knowledge,  is  a  means,  and  one  of  the 
best  means,  of  acquiring  musical  taste.  In 
this  connection  the  study  of  harmony,  and 
practice  in  at  least  the  simpler  kinds  of  mu- 
sical composition,  cannot  be  too  strongly  rec- 
ommended. Schumann's  "  Advice  to  Young 
Musicians "  should  be  in  the  hands,  heads 


1885.] 


Musical  Taste. 


283 


and  hearts  of  all  who  play  or  sing,  instead  of 
as  now  being  unknown  to  most  of  them. 

Teachers  would  do  well  to  take  their  pu- 
pils in  classes  through  such  a  book  as  W.  S. 
C.  Matthews's  "The  Content  of  Music." 
In  former  days,  the  mode  of  transmitting 
music  to  paper  rendered  the  acquisition  of 
knowledge  compulsory  to  an  extent  of  which 
we  can  now  form  no  idea.  When,  for  in- 
stance, accompaniments  consisted  only  of  a 
bass  with  figures,  the  study  of  thorough-bass 
was  indispensable  to  their  performance;  and 
in  later  days,  when  a  piano-forte  piece  was 
written  with  no  indications  as  to  phrasing 
(the  punctuation  of  musical  thought),  a  thor- 
ough comprehension  of  a  composer's  inten- 
tion was  demanded  of  any  who  would  play 
his  music ;  and  this  comprehension  was  ac- 
quired in  many  cases  only  by  laborious 
thought;  and  they  played  best  whose  insight 
was  most  keen.  Are  we  not,  then,  grossly 
misusing  the  facilities  of  the  present  day, 
when,  by  their  aid,  we  make  shift  to  interpret 
a  composer's  work  with  no  knowledge  either 
of  the  grammar  that  governed,  or  the  design 
that  inspired  him  ? 

But  besides  the  bad  taste  of  ignorance, 
there  is  the  bad  taste  of  partial  information. 
"  A  little  knowledge  is  a  dangerous  thing," 
but  only  when  we  imagine  it  greater  than  it 
is,  or  overestimate  that  part  of  a  truth  which 
we  happen  to  have  apprehended.  In  the 
first  case,  we  exaggerate  the  extent  of  our 
knowledge,  and  in  the  second  case,  its  im- 
portance. This  last  is  the  condition  which 
creates  what  we  have  called  the  bad  taste 
of  incomplete  information.  A  musician,  for 
instance,  who  has  made  one  composer  a 
special  study,  will  sometimes  be  so  dazzled 
by  his  favorite  luminary,  that  he  makes  his 
merits,  or  even  his  mannerisms,  the  touch- 
stone by  which  he  tries  all  music;  while 
others  who  escape  this  fault  fall  into  another 
very  like  it,  namely,  that  of  making  suitabil- 
ity to  their  special  instrument  their  standard 
of  musical  beauty.  And  again,  those — and 
the  class  is  a  very  large  one — whose  studies 
have  been  confined  to  modern  music,  are  of- 
ten rendered  incapable  of  appreciating  many 
of  the  beautiful  productions  of  the  last  cen- 


tury. The  fact  is,  that  musical  taste  should 
recognize  different  kinds,  as  well  as  different 
degrees,  of  musical  excellence ;  and  though 
but  to  few,  indeed,  is  it  given  to  be  equally 
susceptible  to  the  charm  of  all  kinds  of 
music,  yet  no  one  should  quarrel  with  Milton 
because  he  fails  to  find  in  him  the  humor  of 
Lamb,  the  tenderness  of  Wordsworth,  or  the 
chivalry  of  Scott,  nor  with  either  of  these, 
because  they  lack  the  stately  grandeur  of 
"  Paradise  Lost." 

Our  next  great  fault  is  the  degraded  view 
we  entertain  of  music  and  its  mission  in  the 
world.  According  to  popular  misjudgment, 
it  belongs  neither  to  poetry  nor  science,  and 
is  only  recognized  as  an  art  on  account  of 
the  difficulty  in  acquiring  the  skill  of  a  per- 
former. It  is  regarded  merely  as  an  amuse- 
ment, and  its  mission,  it  is  believed,  is  to 
furnish  only  a  sensuous  gratification.  This 
view  of  the  case  is  unfortunate,  in  that  a  stu- 
dent holding  it  can  never  obtain  results  com- 
mensurate to  the  time  expended  in  study, 
while  the  simple  listener  loses  more  than 
half  the  pleasure  within  his  reach. 

The  fact  is,  that  music  is  the  most  com- 
plete of  all  the  means  of  expressing  mental 
impressions  that  Babel  left  unconfounded. 
True,  its  language  is  not  always  translatable 
— not  because  of  its  poverty,  but  of  its  ex- 
ceeding richness,  there  being  in  spoken 
tongues  no  words  strong  enough  or  broad 
enough  to  express  the  intensity  of  its  utter- 
ances. True,  again,  that  many  of  its  mean- 
ings are  lost  on  many  hearers;  but  the  same 
is  true  of  English,  or  any  other  spoken  tongue, 
and  they  are  languages  notwithstanding,  un- 
derstood best  by  those  who  have  studied 
them  most.  And  now,  O  skeptical  reader, 
having  followed  your  arguments  thus  far,  be 
kind  enough  to  follow  ours  a  step  farther. 
Go  where  some  vast  cathedral  stands  point- 
ing heavenward  with  a  finger  of  solid  mason- 
ry, and  where  within  the  garish  light  of  day 
is  softened  and  mellowed  through  stained 
glass,  and  with  heart  softened  and  mellowed 
from  its  worldliness  sit  beneath  those  grand 
old  arches,  and  listen  to  a  real  organist  dis- 
course such  music  as  he  associates  with  the 
place,  and  there  will  come  into  your  soul  an 


284 


Musical  Taste. 


[Sept. 


impression  more  distinctively  religious  than 
has  been  there  at  the  conclusion  of  many  a 
pulpit  oration. 

Fiction  in  an  age  now  happily  past  had  no 
higher  object  in  view-  than  to  amuse  its  read- 
ers, and  the  only  duty  besides  recognized  by 
its  authors  was  that  of  portraying  faithfully 
the  manners  (and  very  bad  manners  they 
were)  of  the  age  of  which  they  wrote ;  and 
their  books  are  fast  passing  into  well-merited 
oblivion.  But  under  the  influence  of  such 
men  as  Dickens  and  Kingsley,  fiction  has 
wakened  to  a  far  higher  mission  than  that  of 
an  entertainer,  and  has  produced  works  ap- 
parently immortal.  And  so  with  music ;  the 
more  we  make  it  an  intellectual  study,  as 
distinct  from  a  sensuous  amusement,  the 
higher  in  kind  and  greater  in  amount  will  be 
the  pleasure  it  will  afford  us. 

The  last  of  our  great  faults  which  we  shall 
discuss,  is  the  unworthiness  of  the  motives 
which  prompt  so  much  of  our  musical  study. 
These  are,  first,  obedience  to  a  demand  of 
fashion ;  and,  secondly,  a  vulgar  desire  for 
personal  distinction.  Those  whose  studies 
are  inspired  by  the  first  of  these  motives  will 
do  just  as  little  as  will  satisfy  the  idol  they 
serve,  and  would  deem  it  a  great  misfortune 
should  their  studies  (as  they  never  do)  raise 
their  taste  any  higher  than  the  fashionable 
standard.  The  second  of  these  motives  no 
one  will  defend,  and  yet  the  thirst  for  per- 
sonal glory  and  a  certain  backwardness  in 
recognizing  the  merits  of  others  are  all  but 
universal. 

To  mitigate  these  faults  where  we  cannot 
entirely  overcome  them,  is  a  task  worthy  our 
best  endeavors ;  as  success  will  not  only  de- 
velop our  moral  nature,  but  will  make  more 
acceptable  whatever  of  artistic  merit  we  may 
happen  to  possess;  and  if  we  must  use  a  mic- 
roscope in  viewing  our  own  attainments, 
let  us  at  least  be  equally  ready  to  apply  the 
same  instrument  to  those  of  others.  But  let 
those  in  whom  this  fault  is  unrestrained 
take  warning,  for  by  whatever  name  they 


may  choose  to  beautify  it,  it  will  be,  in  all 
eyes  but  their  own,  nothing  better  than  a 
phase  of  human  selfishness  belittling  the 
great,  and  making  all  others  truly  contempt- 
ible. 

Music  is  a  bounteous  goddess,  but  just 
withal,  and  her  gifts  vary  according  to  the 
spirit  in  which  they  are  sought.  Those  who 
enter  her  temple  in  search  of  amusement  will 
find  the  amusement  they  seek  in  the  outer 
court,  and  going  no  farther,  will  never  see 
her  face.  Those  whose  impious  feet  tread 
her  courts  with  no  more  hallowed  motive 
than  a  mere  vulgar  desire  for  display,  see  but 
her  veiled  countenance ;  and  veiled  though  it 
be,  all  but  themselves  can  mark  the  frown 
of  supreme  scorn  with  which  she  regards 
them.  Their  punishment,  though  not  always 
swift,  is  certain,  and  the  most  terrible  they 
can  conceive;  namely,  that  they  be  them- 
selves outshone. 

But  to  those  who,  with  earnest  and  teach- 
able hearts,  enter  her  temple  to  worship,  she 
shows  her  face  wearing  a  smile  of  ineffable 
sweetness ;  to  them  is  held  out  the  golden 
scepter,  theirs  are  the  places  near  the  throne; 
she  soothes  their  sorrows  and  enhances  their 
joys,  gilding  their  lives  with  everlasting  sun- 
shine, bright  enough  to  warm  even  the  chill 
airs  of  privation  and  poverty;  and  to  them 
is  given  to  appreciate  what  the  poet  meant 
when  he  said : 

"  There  are  a  few  of  us  whom  God 
Whispers  in  the  ear, 
The  rest  may  reason  and  welcome, 
We  musicians  know." 

And  to  the  priests  and  priestesses  of  the 
temple,  who,  having  devoted  your  lives  to 
the  service  of  the  goddess,  expect  therefrom 
the  supply  of  life's  necessities,  to  you  one 
word.  Remember  that  if  no  one  else,  the 
belted  knight  should  possess  the  soul  of 
chivalry;  and  the  only  right  you  can  have  to 
live  of  this  gospel  is  derived  from  your  faith- 
fully, fearlessly,  and  unreservedly  preaching 
it. 

Richard  /!   Wilmot. 


1885.] 


Byways  and  Bygones. 


285 


BYWAYS   AND    BYGONES. 


SUMMERING  in  Wisconsin,  and  driving 
along  one  of  its  many  romantic  byways,  1 
found  my  eye  caught  by  an  old,  time-and- 
weather-worn  house,  hung  above  a  deep  ra- 
vine, and  half  hidden  amidst  trees,  and  heavy, 
tangled  vines.  To  return  ere  long  and  add  a 
sketch  of  its  picturesque,  spook-like  aspect  to 
themany  like  souvenirs  of  my  summer  idlings, 
was  a  resolve  of  the  moment.  But  time  slip- 
ped fast  away,  one  day  proving  too  wet  for  my 
purpose,  another  too  warm,  one  too  dusty, 
another  too  fitful  in  sunlight  and  cloud,  to 
say  nothing  of  a  multitude  of  intervening 
pleasures  which  well-nigh  effaced  my  pur- 
pose from  memory,  until  another  drive 
brought  me,  unexpectedly,  once  more  to  this 
same  haunted,  deserted-looking  spot,  and 
awoke  anew  my  determination  to  secure  a 
sketch  of  it.  As  my  new  resolve  also  in- 
cluded no  further  dallying  with  time  and 
weather,  on  the  following  morning  I  arose 
betimes,  donned  my  walking  boots  and  suit, 
strapped  shawl  and  sketching  materials  to- 
gether, breakfasted  alone,  and,  while  the  rest 
of  the  family  still  slept,  betook  myself  over 
the  hills,  and  turned  tramp  for  one  mid- 
summer day. 

The  morning  was  breezy,  and,  for  mid- 
August,  decidedly  cool,  and  the  .air  moist 
and  clear,  making  more  palpable  every  latent 
atom  of  perfume  in  Nature's  great  labora- 
tory. Up  to  my  knees  reached  tall  grasses  of 
every  tint  of  green  and  silver,  every  shade  of 
brown,  caressing  my  down-reaching  fingers 
with  their  feathery  bloom  or  russet  spires. 

Each  corner  of  rail  fence,  shutting  off. 
fields  and  woods  beyond,  held  a  new  delight 
to  the  eye ;  miniature  forests  of  golden-rod, 
of  radiant  coreopsis,  of  helianthus,  crowds 
of  saponaria  or  bouncing-bets,  ragged  but  fra- 
grant and  lovely  in  their  gowns  of  delicate 
pink  ;  while  peeping  through  the  rails  and 
over  them  in  stately  decorum  of  attitude 
and  purple  array,  at  these  their  rollicking  vis- 
a-vis, stood  the  prim  vervains,  exclusive  and 


apart.  But  not  so  the  mauve  tassels  of  balm, 
which  nodded  coquettishly  and  caressed 
each  other,  impelled  thereto  by  every  pass- 
ing zephyr ;  nor  yet  the  sturdy  wild  thyme, 
nor  the  linarias,  so  lovely  in  their  gypsy  hats 
of  pale  straw,  orange-bedecked,  and  their 
pale  green,  silver-shaded  robes.  All  of  which 
latter  bloomed  and  rioted  in  mob-like  con- 
fusion, in  the  grassy  ditch  beside  the  road 
— the  road  which  Thoreau  proclaimed,  "be- 
longs to  horses  and  men  of  business";  where- 
fore, being  only  a  tramp  pro  tern.,  as  well  as 
an  admirer  of  the  sayings  of  the  Concord 
naturalist,  I  hugged  the  hedges  and  fences, 
or,  occasionally,  as  boundary  lines  changed 
ownership,  an  irregular  stone  wall,  across 
the  breast  of  which  the  wild  grape  or  black- 
berry had  flung  itself  with  graceful  abandon, 
its  trailing  festoons  sweeping  even  across  my 
pathway. 

And  wherever  the  careless  husbandman 
had  allowed  a  gap  to  intervene  in  these  his 
landmarks,  I  was  pleased  to  note  that  thrifty 
nature  had  supplied  a  thicket  of  sumach, 
already  decked  out  with  patches  of  the  bril- 
liant scarlet  tint  of  its  autumnal  robe,  which 
fluttered  amidst  its  deep  green  like  the  gay 
ribbons  of  some  rustic  coquette. 

Presently,  weary  with  climbing,  for  I  found 
that  my  walk  had  thus  far  been,  for  the 
most  part,  up  hill,  I  seated  myself  upon  a 
low  wall,  both  to  rest  awhile  and  to  take  a 
leisurely  look  at  the  old  farm-house  beyond 
it,  standing  amidst  a  far-reaching  orchard, 
knee-deep  with  red  clover. 

The  building  was  old,  and  unacquainted 
with  blinds,  porches,  paint,  or  ornaments  of 
any  kind,  and  the  doorways  and  paths  lead- 
ing thereto  were  unkempt.  Tall  bunches 
of  regal  tiger-lilies,  and  monotonous  domes 
of  red  and  white  phlox,  struggled  hopelessly 
against  the  lusty  weeds,  the  burdock  and 
,  rank  grass,  to  maintain  the  pathway  once 
entrusted  to  their  demarcation,  leading  from 
the  front  doorway  down  to  the  unhinged, 


286 


Byways  and  Bygones. 


[Sept. 


wide  open  gate.  Ranged  along  benches 
placed  against  the  east  side  of  the  house, 
glittering  and  reflecting  the  sunlight,  were 
stacks  of  bright  pans  and  pails,  while  through 
the  trees  I  caught  glimpses  of  the  kine  which 
that  shining  array  indicated  were  to  be  found 
thereabouts.  Pompous  gobblers  strutted 
amidst  the  orchard  grass,  and  troops  of 
hens  on  the  outskirts  thereof  clucked  to  each 
other  their  discontent  at  the  scarcity  of  in- 
sects and  bugs  in  general,  but  specially  at 
the  phenomenal  dearth  of  flies  on  Shadow 
Farm  that  current  August;  or,  headed  by  the 
clumsiest  of  Shanghai  cocks,  rushed  with 
greedy  haste  pell-mell  towards  some  point 
of  common  interest.  Probably  some  luck- 
less worm,  ignorant  of  the  universal  fact  that 
the  weaker,  is  ever  the  prey  of  the  rapacious 
strong,  had  wriggled  itself  into  sight ;  but 
whatever  the  tid-bit,  the  lord  of  the  roost 
ungallantly  gobbled  it  up  himself,  and  strut- 
ted off  with  a  chuckle  which  my  ear  trans- 
lated :  "  Uncommonly  fine,  fat  worm,  my 
dears !  Sorry  there  wasn't  enough  for  a  bite 
all  around.  Ate  it  all  myself,  to  save  trouble 
in  the  family,  don't  you  know  ! " 

But,  while  thus  taking  an  outward  survey 
of  this  wayside  home,  I  discovered  that  I  was 
being  quite  as  curiously  scanned  myself  from 
an  upper  window  of  the  house  ;  whereupon, 
still  retaining  my  position  upon  the  wall, 
where  a  most  comfortable  seat  had  been 
made  by  the  displacement  of  a  few  of  the 
stones,  I  turned  my  face  toward  the  road, 
and  found  myself  confronting,  through  a  gap 
in  the  heavy  shade  of  the  trees  across  the 
way,  a  view  which  alone  would  have  repaid 
me  for  all  my  wearisome  climbing.  A  stretch 
of  level  fields  in  the  immediate  foreground 
rolled  backward  and  gradually  sky  ward,  form- 
ing in  the  distance  a  line  of  low  foot-hills, 
crowned  by  dark  green  forests,  which  took 
on  hazy  blue  and  purple  tints  as  they 
stretched  afar  on  either  hand.  On  the  brow 
of  the  hill  directly  fronting  me  the  forest 
line  was  broken,  and  through  this  opening, 
as  through  a  celestial  gateway,  one  looked 
afar  into  the  blue  depths  of  infinitude.  And 
there,  heavenward  lifted,  lay  the  sacred  spot 
we  call  "God's  Acre."  Groups  of  dark  pines 


defined  themselves  against  the  blue  beyond 
like  tall  cathedral  spires,  and  gave  to  the  spot 
a  suggestion  of  consecrated  ground,  affirmed 
by  the  emblems  of  polished  marble  that 
gleamed  against  their  somber .  hue.  But 
most  beautiful  and  emblematic  was  the  har- 
vested field,  which,  like  a  carpet  of  ruddy 
gold,  unrolled  itself  from  this  human  garner, 
downward,  in  one  unbroken  sweep,  to  the 
very  roadside,  bearing  on  its  surface,  in  seri- 
ate ranks,  its  ripened  sheaves,  bound  and 
awaiting  their  ingathering.  On  the  right  a 
wind-swept  sea  of  vigorous  corn ;  on  the 
left  a  luxuriant  growth  of  clover,  rich  in 
bloom  and  far-reaching  fragrance,  stretched 
away  up  the  hill  to  the  edge  of  the  dark 
woods  beyond,  embracing  on  either  side  the 
golden  field  of  sheaves,  and  its  terminus,  the 
field  of  garnered  human  life.  All  this  with- 
out line  of  demarcation,  save  that  of  color, 
harmoniously  contrasted  and  blended. 

But  the  morning  hours  were  fast  passing ; 
so,  reluctantly,  I  dropped  down  from  my 
niche  in  the  wall,  after  making  a  few  hurried 
outlines  in  my  sketch  book,  and  trudged  on- 
ward; first,  creeping  through  a  gap  in  the 
wall  into  an  adjoining  field  of  blossomed 
buckwheat,  the  honey-sweet  perfume  of  which 
I  had  all  this  time  been  inhaling  with  each 
breath.  There  I  gathered  a  large  mass  of  the 
delicate  pink  and  white  bloom,  that  I  might, 
from  time  to  time,  as  I  continued  my  wayfar- 
ing, bury  my  face  in  it,  and  thus  carry  with  me 
to  the  end  of  my  pilgrimage  its  delicious, 
sense-intoxicating  odor. 

A  little  farther  on  occurred  a  sudden  dip 
in  the  ground,  and,  over  a  foot  plank,  I 
crossed  a  skurrying  little  brook,  with  a  sigh 
for  the  days  when,  with  shoes  and  stockings 
in  hand,  I  should  have  made  a  far  less  deco- 
rous crossing.  Was  there  no  temptation 
to  repeat  past  experiences?  Frankly,  yes; 
but  just  before  me,  a  boy,  trundling  a  wheel- 
barrow load  of  newly  cut  hay,  had  come  to 
a  sudden  and  unaccountable  halt,  faced 
about,  and  seated  himself  on  his  barrow,  and 
with  elbows  planted  on  his  knees  and  chin 
on  his  hands,  was  fixedly  watching  me.  Did 
the  saucy  little  yeoman  suspect  my  gypsy- 
like  impulse — born  within  me,  perchance,  of 


1885.] 


Byways  and  Bygones. 


287 


a  sight  of  his  own  bare,  brown  ankles  and 
feet,  glistening  with  wet  from  his  recent 
splashing  ford  ?  However  this  may  be,  if 
ever  a  boy's  face  and  attitude  seemed  to  say  : 
"  I  dare  you  !  Come,  now,  will  you  take  a 
dare  ?  "  such  was  the  interpretation  of  that 
urchin's. 

Meanwhile,  I  was  beginning  to  have  some 
misgivings  as  to  whether  I  had  not  gone 
astray,  so  much  farther  had  I  come  than 
seemed  to  me  reasonable,  before  reaching 
my  destination.  By  way  of  solving  my 
doubts,  as  I  reached  the  little  knight  of  the 
barrow  before  me,  I  addressed  a  few  inqui- 
ries to  him. 

"  Dunno,"  he  replied,  "  'thout  it's  the  old 
Slawson  rookery  you're  looking  for.  That 
ain't  fur  from  here  ;  you'll  see  it  when  you 
get  to  the  top  of  that  rise  of  ground  just 
ahead.  I'm  going  most  thar  myself";  where- 
upon the  little  knight  again  trundled  his  load 
on  before  until  the  ascent  was  made,  when, 
nodding  towards  the  right,  he  said  :  "  In  the 
hollow  just  over  yonder,  this  road  joins  an- 
other one,  and  there,  at  the  fork,  you'll  come 
across  the  old  place  I  reckon  you're  hunting 
for."  Then,  with  a  sudden,  dextrous  turn, 
he  trundled  his  barrow  through  an  opening 
by  the  way  into  an  adjoining  field,  where  he 
left  his  burden,  arid  made  his  way  towards  a 
little  cottage  at  the  far  side,  whistling  and 
disporting  himself  as  merrily  as  a  grig. 

As  I  arrived  at  the  fork  in  the  hollow,  my 
eye  was  instantly  caught  by  an  old  well  be- 
side the  way,  with  a  bright  tin  dipper  hang- 
ing from  a  projecting  corner  of  its  curb. 
Though  not  conscious  of  thirst  before,  I  im- 
mediately felt  an  imperative  call  to  drink  of 
the  waters  of  that  wayside  spring  ;  and  drop- 
ping my  "traps  "  upon  the  grass,  began  forth- 
with to  lower  "the  iron-bound  bucket,  the 
moss-covered  bucket,"  hoping  fervently  it 
might  likewise  prove  to  be  a  leaky  bucket — 
which  was,  indeed,  soon  revealed  to  be  the 
case  bythe  dripping  and  trickling  that  greeted 
my  ear  as  it  swung  against  the  stony  walls 
within,  and  at  last  came  to  the  surface,  wet, 
glistening,  and  filled  with  clear,  cold  water. 

And  just  this  point  I  found,  after  a  slight 
survey,  to  be  my  best  view  of  the  old  house 


and  its  surroundings.  Accordingly,  I  spread 
my  shawl  upon  the  shaded  side  of  the  little 
grassy  knoll  surrounding  the  well,  and  seat- 
ing myself  thereon,  leaned  back  against  the 
old  curb  for  a  quiet  rest  and  outlook,  quite 
sheltered  from  the  roadway  and  the  sun. 

The  face  of  the  spot  had  somewhat  changed 
since  my  first  glimpse  of  it  two  months  be- 
fore. The  great  trees  had  multiplied  their 
foliage  and  deepened  their  tints,  casting 
broader  and  heavier  shadows  around  and 
over  the  old  gray  house,  encircling  it  closer 
with  their  great  waving  arms,  now  tossed  up- 
ward by  a  swift  breeze,  letting  a  flood  of  sun- 
shine in  upon  its  fast  decaying  frame ;  again, 
drooping  low,  and  softly  sweeping  its  old  ga- 
bles and  front,  hiding  it  almost  from  view  in 
the  all-embracing  shadow  and  leafy  luxuri- 
ance of  their  vigorous  life.  The  southern 
steep  of  the  hollow  at  the  head  of  which  was 
perched  the  house,  with  wings  stretching 
away  at  either  side,  likening  it  to  a  great, 
gray  bird  poised  above  its  nest,  was  a  mass 
of  golden  and  purple  bloom  and  trailing 
vines.  At  its  base  a  little  rill  stole  noise- 
lessly along,  hidden  by  overlapping  grasses, 
save  here  and  there  a  gleam,  like  a  bit  of  en- 
tangled silver  ribbon. 

Scarcely  was  I  settled  at  my  work,  when  I 
became  conscious  that  two  pairs  of  very 
bright  eyes  were  regarding  me  from  betwixt 
the  rails  of  a  fence  near  by  :  and  soon  two 
barefooted  children,  a  girl  and  a  boy,  crept 
through  the  bars,  and  shyly  and  cautiously 
stole  along  under  cover  of  the  fence  to  a 
point  where  their  curiosity  as  to  my  proceed- 
ings might  be  gratified.  There  they  crouched 
down,  silent  as  two  hares,  turning  curious 
looks  upon  me,  followed  by  looks  at  each 
other  equally  full  of  wonderment.  I  dared 
not  speak  to  them  lest  they  should  take 
flight ;  which,  indeed,  they  shortly  did,  after 
taking  a  drink  from  the  rapidly  diminishing 
contents  of  the  bucket  in  the  well,  the  water 
from  which  still  kept  up  a  musical  drip,  drip, 
as  it  escaped  from  every  possible  crevice 
back  to  its  home  below. 

Later  on,  when  I  had  made  considerable 
progress  with  my  sketch,  and  become  quite 
absorbed  therewith,  the  sound  of  a  human 


288 


Byways  and  Bygones. 


[Sept. 


voice  close  at  my  ear,  from  an  unknown,  un- 
seen source,  sent  my  pencil  in  a  ruinous,  zig- 
zag course  across  the  entire  face  of  it,  as, 
with  a  nervous  start,  I  turned  about  and  en- 
countered a  woman's  face  peering,  not  only 
around  the  corner  of  the  well,  but  over  my 
shoulder,  and  even  under  the  wide  brim  of 
my  hat,  which  I  had  drawn  low  over  my 
eyes  to  shade  both  them  and  the  page  over 
which  I  was  bending. 

"Oh,  sketching,  be  ye?  Well,  now,  ma 
and  I  didn't  think  of  that.  We  allowed  ye 
must  hev  turned  your  ankle  on  that  ther 
hill,  it's  so  'mazing  rough,  and  that  ye  couldn't 
go  no  furder.  You  kept  so  quiet  and  sat  so 
long  that  ma  said  she  reckoned  I'd  better 
fetch  the  pail  along  to  the  well  and  find  out 
about  ye.  Of  late  years  so  many  transients 
come  up  here  to  the  lake,  and  go  straggling 
about  the  country  all  summer,  thet  we  don't, 
as  a  rule,  pay  much  attention  to  their  doin's. 
I  s'pose  you're  one  of  'em — one  of  the  re- . 
sorters — ain't  ye  ?  " 

The  face  was  so  irresistibly  fresh  and 
pretty,  the  lips  so  full  and  red,  the  smile  so 
frank  and  sweet,  which  showed  the  beautiful 
white  teeth,  that  I  instantly  forgot  my  first 
sense  of  annoyance,  and  smiling  in  return, 
handed  up  my  sketch-book  for  inspection. 

"Law!  how  natural  them  old  trees  do 
look!  I  wouldn't  hev  thought  they'd  make 
such  a  pretty  picter.  Reckon  you  must  love 
trees — I  do,  myself."  Then,  handing  back 
the  book,  with  an  apology  for  the  defacement 
she  had  caused  by  her  unconventional  intro- 
duction of  herself,  she  proceeded  to  draw 
her  pail  of  water,  I,  meantime,  remarking: 

"  Folks  around  here  seem  to  have  a  fash- 
ion of  springing  into  view,  like  rabbits,  from 
all  manner  of  unexpected  places;  the  fence- 
corners,  the  bushes,  and  even  the  well-curbs, 
all  seem  peopled —  and  see !  there  comes 
some  one  now,  from  around  the  corner  of 
the  old  house,  yonder !  the  spirit  of  the 
place,  I  should  judge  from  his  gray  locks, 
his  withered  little  figure,  and  the  scythe  he 
carries." 

"Oh,  that's  only  old  farmer  Slawson— cu- 
r'us,  I  s'pose,  like  the  rest  of  us,  'bout  you— 
but  that  scythe  is  only  just  an  excuse." 


"  Like  your  water-pail,"  I  suggested. 

"Just  so,"  she  returned  with  a  pleasant 
laugh.  "  But  I  never  know'd  farmer  Slaw- 
son  to  mow  down  the  weeds  on  that  ledge 
and  side-hill  afore  in  my  time." 

However  true  this  assertion  may  have 
been — and  certainly  the  general  appearance 
of  things  attested  its  truth — the  farmer  in- 
dustriously plied  his  scythe,  the  maiden  de- 
parted, and  I  resumed  my  work.  And  thus 
another  half  hour  sped  away,  during  which 
the  farmer  gradually  worked  his  way  along 
the  opposite  ledge  of  the  ravine  to  a  point 
within  speaking  range;  then  abruptly,  and 
without  even  the  premonitory  "  ahem !  "  came 
across  the  challenge: 

"  What  are  ye  doin'  of  thar,  I'd  like  to 
know?  Blest  if  I  can  make  it  eout  fer  my- 
self." 

"  Getting  a  picture  of  that  old  deserted 
house  and  its  surroundings,"  I  replied. 

"  A  picter  of  my  old  haouse !  "  he  exclaim- 
ed, as  with  a  face  and  mien  full  of  wonder- 
ment and  incredulity,  he  turned  upon  it 
a  prolonged,  speculative  look,  followed  by 
an  amused  chuckle,  and  the  exclamation: 
"Heavens  and  Betsey!  yeou  must  be  pos- 
sessed to  think  of  picterin'  that  old  thing ! 
But  'taint  deserted  by  no  means ;  as  I  said 
afore,  it's  my  haouse,  an'  I  live  thar  myself." 
Then  half  apologetically:  "I  hain't  never 
fixed  it  up  none  sence  I  fust  built  it,  nigh  onto 
forty  year  ago.  'Tain't  never  had  so  much  as 
a  coat  of  paint  on't,  and,  fer  the  life  of  me,  I 
can't  see  whar  ye  find  any  beauty  'bout  it 
wuth  makin'  a  picter  on't."  And  again  he 
turned  an  inquisitive  look  toward  the  old 
rook. 

"  People,  gen'lly,  round  here,  take  me  to 
task  for  lettin'  the  old  place  go  to  ruin  in 
this  'ere  way,"  he  continued,  "  but  I  reckon 
haouses  mostly  does,  whar  thar  ain't  no  wim- 
men  folks  'round  that  takes  an  interest  in 
'em.  I  hain't  never  had  no  wife  an'  children 
'bout  here  to  care  how  things  went,  nor  to 
help  keep  'em  in  shape ;  not  but  what  I 
'lotted  on  having  both  when  I  built  my 
haouse  thar — the  best  haouse  in  the  country 
them  times.  But  wimmen  are  resky  cattle, 
and — and — well,  I  don't  mind  tellin'  on't 


1885.] 


Byways  and  Bygones. 


289 


now,  though  at  fust  I  was  mighty  sore  over 
it — the  gal  I  had  sot  my  heart  on  run  off 
with  a  durned  Yankee  tin-peddler,  who 
hadn't  nary  recommend  but  a  red  cart,  a 
span  of  break-neck  horses,  and  a  palaverin' 
tongue.  Gals  was  scurce  in  these  parts  them 
days  ;  the  market  was  as  lively  for  homely 
faces  as  pretty  ones;  but  hard  work  was 
plenty,  and  I  had  as  pretty  a  lay  of  land 
waitin'  for  the  plow  and  harrow  as  any  man 
ever  saw,  and  at  it  I  went,  and  by  degrees 
sorter  worked  off  my  disappointment.  And 
now,  perhaps,  you  kin  understand  why  'tis  I 
hain't  never  tuk  no  pride  in  that  thar  haouse, 
and  can't  see  no  beauty  in  it,  and  never 
wanted  to  fix  it  up  none,  but  just  to  let  it 
last  eout  my  time." 

"  But  this  fixing  up  of  which  you  speak,"  I 
remarked,  interrupting  his  garrulity,  "  would 
have  made  quite  an  uninteresting  object  of 
it ;  and  the  bare  thought  of  the  pruning 
knife  at  work  upon  those  magnificent  trees 
'  or  those  gnarled  old  oaks,  makes  me  shiver. 
They  owe  their  glory  to  your  neglect,  as 
does  the  house  its  picturesqueness." 

"Well,  mebbe  you're  right;  but,  as  I  told 
you,  'twan't  beauty  nor  interestingness  that 
I  had  in  view  in  neglecting  'em.  I  s'pose 
some  folks  would  call  it  spite;  but  I  don't 
believe  you  would  ?  No,  I  thought  you 
wouldn't.  But  I  don't  go  in  for  beauty  nor 
fashion,  nohow;  healthiness  is  myprime  idee. 
Healthy  hereabouts,  did  you  ask?  Land 
sakes,  yes  :  'tain't  the  doctors  that 's  gettin' 
rich  'round  here.  'Twan't  allus  so,  though. 
Years  ago,  when  the  country  was  new,  'twas 
fever  and  ager  the  year  'round.  Thar  was 
sech  a  slew  of  water  and  grass  everywhars, 
you  couldn't  skip  the  shakes,  nohow.  And 
when  folks  fust  begun  to  settle  pretty  numer- 
ous 'round  here,  the  typhoid  fever  came,  and 
made  mighty  nigh  a  clean  sweep  of  'em  all. 
Some  said  'twas  long  of  turning  up  so  much 
new  soil  that  pizened  the  air — but  ag'in,  I've 
heard  them  that  said  the  smell  of  fresh  airth 
was  healthy." 

I  suggested  the  difference  between  freshly 
turned  soil  that  has  been  long   tilled,  and 
virgin  soil,  which  is  always  more  or  less  full 
of  noxious  vegetable  effluvia. 
VOL.  VI.— 19- 


"  Mebbe  so ;  I  never  thought  on't  afore, 
but  I  reckon  you're  right,  for  I  don't  believe 
you  can  find  any  healthfuller  spot  of  country 
anywhars  than  right  here  in  Rock  County,  as 
it  is  today." 

"  It  certainly  is  the  most  romantic  and 
picturesque  farming  country  I  ever  beheld," 
I  returned,  "and  apparently  the  most  pros- 
perous. Years  ago,  I  am  told,  when  it  was 
in  a  wild  state,  its  face  was  covered  with 
beautiful  oak-openings,  rich  with  pasturage, 
over  the  roadless  surface  of  which  one  might 
drive  miles  upon  miles  at  will,  all  unimpeded 
by  undergrowth,  while  these  same  forests 
crowned  the  hills,  even  as  at  present." 

"All  true  as  preachin'.  What!  ye  hain't 
packin'  up  your  traps  to  go,  be  ye  ?  Now  I 
am  sorry.  P'raps  you'll  be  comin'  agin?" 

"  Quite  likely;  that  view  from  the  road,  and 
that  fence  of  gnarled  limbs  and  roots  and 
wild  grape  draperies,  are  irresistible.  But, 
now,  if  you  will  tell  me  whether  this  road  to 
the  left  leads  back  to  the  village,  and  if  it 
be  as  shady  and  quiet  as  the  other  one,  by 
which  I  came,  I  shall  be  obliged  to  you." 

"  Well,  if  you  must  go,  I  reckon  you'll  find 
the  left  hand  road  quite  as  shady  as  the  other 
one,  and  mebbe  a  leetle  leveler  walkin' — they 
both  lead  to  town." 

"  Thanks  !     Good  morning  ! " 

"  Good  morning,  ma'am,  and  may  all  your 
roads  be  to  your  liking  ! " 

Which  ejaculation,  coming  from  so  pro- 
saic a  personage,  caused  me  to  turn  about 
for  another  look  at  the  speaker,  who  had 
swung  his  scythe  over  his  shoulder,  and 
turned  his  steps  in  the  direction  whence  he 
had  corne  into  view,  leaving  his  swath  unfin- 
ished ;  and  thus  it  still  remained,  when,  later 
in  the  season,  I  again  passed  the  place. 

But  space  fails  me  wherein  to  detail  the 
many  pleasures  that  awaited  me  on  that 
homeward  walk;  the  bosky  places  into  which 
I  penetrated  to  examine  and  gather  the  flora ; 
and  amidst  the  secluded,  shaded  depths  of 
which  I  found  a  moss-bedecked,  rocky  tab- 
let, whereon  I  set  forth  the  luncheon  which 
Nora  had  deftly  packed  and  insisted  on  my 
bringing  with  me ;  or  the*  enchanted  slum- 
ber which  afterwards  stole  over  me,  as,  with 


290 


The   Thirty- Fifth  and   Thirty-Sixth   Congresses. 


[Sept. 


the  help  of  my  soft  shawl,  I  turned  my  stony 
table  into  a  most  comfortable  pillow,  and 
lay  listening  to  the  wild  bird  music  of  happy 
song  and  busy  twitter  and  call,  and  to  the 
myriad  of  lesser  sounds  with  which  nature 
seemed  to  be  unusually  rife  on  that  day. 

Nor  can  I  now  more  than  hint  at  the  half- 
mile  stretch  of  old  maples,  through  the  dense 
foliage  of  which  not  a  sunbeam  reached  me, 
as  I  walked  beneath,  over  turf  as  soft  to  the 
footfall  as  Royal  Wilton  itself;  or  leaned 
against  the  old  rail-fence,  and  listened  to  the 
sea-like  murmurings  of  the  wind-swept  field 
of  corn  beyond  ;  also  to  the  serio-comic  nar- 
rative of  an  antiquated  negro  at  work  therein 
— a  recital  of  his  escape  from  bondage,  to- 
gether with  his  wife,  during  the  early  days  of 
.the  war,  and  of  the  many  shifts  by  which 


they  at  last  reached  so  fair  and  safe  a  haven 
where,  by  kind  and  sympathetic  hearts,  they 
were  cared  for,  and  helped  to  become  self- 
supporting,  until,  at  last,  they  had  come  to 
own  a  few  acres  of  land ;  not  of  the  best, 
else  could  they  not  have  become  possessed 
of  it,  but  such  as  sufficed  to  grow  a  fair, 
though  small  crop  of  tobacco,  likewise  of 
corn,  on  the  proceeds  of  which  they  lived 
comfortably,  self-respecting,  and  respected 
by  others,  self  helpful,  happy,  and  contented. 
Suffice  it  to  say,  that  at  the  close  of  the 
day,  though  I  drew  the  latch-string  wearily, 
it  was  also  with  a  sigh  that  despite  the  day's 
many  golden  hours  there  remained  not  yet 
another  wherein  I  might  conquer  yet  one 
more  hill,  explore  yet  one  more  fragrant 
hedge-row. 

Sara  D.  Hahted. 


THE  THIRTY-FIFTH  AND  THIRTY-SIXTH  CONGRESSES.i 


NOTWITHSTANDING  a  quarter  of  a  century 
has  passed  since  the  writer  first  entered  the 
Capitol  to  take  a  part  in  the  making  of  laws, 
the  fascination  and  exaltation  in  sympathy 
with  the  young  member  never  fails  to  be 
aroused  again,  when  he  looks  down  from  the 
gallery  upon  the  representatives  of  so  many 
diverse  interests  and  so  many  millions  of  peo- 
ple. It  was  his  fortune  to  be  a  member 
when  the  lower  House  of  Congress  sat  in 
the  old  hall.  The  associations  of  a  thous- 
and debates  gave  voice  to  its  arches  and 
pillars.  Every  stone  and  tablet  echoed  the 
elder,  and,  as  it  was  said,  the  better  day  of 
oratory  and  patriotism.  In  1864,  each 
State  of  the  Union  was  invited  by  Congress 
to  erect  in  this  hall  the  statues  of  two  of  its 
most  illustrious  civic  or  martial  heroes. 
Rhode  Island  was  the  first  to  respond  to  the 
invitation.  She  sent,  in  1871,  two  life-size 
marble  statues  ;  one  of  Major-Gen.  Nathan- 
iel Greene,  in  the  Continental  uniform,  the 
other  of  Roger  Williams.  The  latter  is  the 
artist's  ideal  of  her  civic  hero,  and  not  an 
effigy  of  the  man.  'Connecticut  followed,  in 

1  Copyright,  1885,  by  Samuel  S.  Cox.  All  rights 
reserved. 


1872,  with  heroic  statues,  in  marble,  of  Jon- 
athan Trumbull,  the  original  "  Brother  Jon- 
athan," and  Roger  Sherman.  New  York 
gave,  in  1873,  life-size  statues,  in  bronze,  of 
Gen.  George  Clinton,  a  Democrat  par  excel- 
lence, and  Robert  R.  Livingston,  in  his  chan- 
cellor's robes.  In  1876,  Massachusetts  gave 
semi-heroic  statues,  in  marble,  of  John  Win- 
throp,  her  first  governor,  and  Samuel  Ad- 
ams. Winthrop  is  represented  as  landing 
with  the  charter  of  1630,  and. Adams  as  mak- 
ing his  famous  protest.  Vermont  gave,  the 
same  year,  a  marble  heroic  statue  of  Ethan 
Allan,  in  the  Continental  uniform,  represent- 
ing that  fiery  soldier  when  demanding  the 
surrender  of  Ticonderoga  "  in  the  name  of 
the  Great  Jehovah  and  the  Continental  Con- 
gress." Her  civic  effigy,  contributed  in  1880, 
represents — in  marble,  semi-heroic — Jacob 
Collamer,  as  addressing  the  Senate  on  Con- 
stitutional law.  Maine  set  up,  the  same  year, 
a  semi-heroic  statue,  in  marble,  of  her  first 
governor,  William  King.  The  other  States  will 
soon  fill  the  vacant  niches;  and  here,  while  this 
Union  shall  endure,  will  stand  the  mute  but 
eloquent  senate  of  American  worthies.  Pass- 
ing through  this  shrine  to  the  present  halls 


1885.] 


The   Thirty-Fifth  and  Thirty-Sixth   Congresses. 


291 


of  legislation,  what  senator  or  representative 
can  fail  to  breathe  in  some  inspiration  of  the 
devotion  to  liberty  and  justice  that  is  here 
commemorated  !  This  historic  hall,  whose 
vaulted  roof  still  whispers  the  eloquence  of 
the  past,  has  long  been  silent  to  the  lofty 
flights  of  forensic  discussion  and  debate  for 
which  the  days  of  Clay  and  Webster  and 
Calhoun  were  famous.  It  was  abandoned 
twenty-eight  years  ago  by  the  House  of  Rep- 
resentatives, for  the  more  commodious  cham- 
ber now  occupied  by  that  body. 

The  1 6th  of  December,  1857,  is  memora- 
ble in  the  annals  of  Congress.  Looking 
back  to  that  day,  the  writer  can  see  the  mem- 
bers of  the  House  of  Representatives  take 
up  the  line  of  march  out  of  the  old  shadowy 
and  murmurous  chamber  into  the  new  hall, 
with  its  ornate  and  gilded  interior.  The 
scene  is  intense  in  a  rare  dramatic  quality. 
Above  shine,  in  varicolored  light,  the  escut- 
cheons of  thirty  States  ;  around  sit  the  mem- 
bers upon  richly  carved  oaken  chairs.  Al- 
ready arrayed  upon  either  side  are  the  sec- 
tions in  mutual  animosity.  The  Republi- 
cans take  the  left  of  the  Speaker,  the  Demo- 
crats the  right.  James  C.  Orr,  of  South  Car- 
olina, a  full,  roseate-faced  gentleman  of  large 
build  and  ringing  metallic  voice,  is  in  the 
chair.  James  C.  Allen,  of  Illinois,  sits  below 
him,  in  the  clerk's  seat.  The  Rev.  Mr.  Ca- 
rothers  offers  an  appropriate  and  inspiring 
prayer.  He  asks  the  divine  favor  upon  those 
in  authority  ;  and  then,  with  trembling  tones, 
he  implores  that  the  hall  just  dedicated  as 
the  place  wherein  the  political  and  constitu- 
tional rights  of  our  countrymen  shall  ever  be 
maintained  and  defended,  may  be  a  temple 
of  honor  and  glory  to  this  land.  "  May  the 
deliberations  therein  make  our  nation  the 
praise  of  the  whole  earth,  for  Christ's  sake." 
A  solemn  hush  succeeds  this  invocation. 
The  routine  of  journal  reading,  a  reference 
of  the  Agricultural  College  bill,  upon  the  re- 
quest of  the  then  member,  now  senator, 
from  Vermont,  Justin  S.  Morrill,  and  the 
presentation  of  a  communication  regarding 
the  chaplaincy  from  the  clergy  of  Washing- 
ton, are  followed  by  the  drawing  of  seats  for 
the  members,  who  retire  to  the  open  space 


in  the  hall.  A  page  with  bandaged  eyes 
makes  the  award,  and  one  by  one  the  mem- 
bers are  seated. 

Then,  by  the  courtesy  of  the  chairman 
of  the  Printing  Committee — Mr.  Smith,  of 
Tennesee — a  young  member  from  Ohio  is 
allowed  to  take  the  floor.  He  addresses  the 
Speaker  with  timidity  and  modesty,  amid 
many  interruptions  by  Humphrey  Marshall, 
of  Kentucky,  Mr.  Bocock,  of  Virginia,  Judge 
Hughes,  of  Indiana,  George  W.  Jones,  of 
Tennessee,  and  General  Quitman,  of  Mis- 
sissippi, each  of  whom  bristles  with  points 
of  order  against  the  points  of  the  orator. 
But  that  young  member  is  soon  observed 
by  a  quiet  house.  Many  listen  to  him — 
perhaps  to  judge  of  the  acoustic  property 
of  the  hail,  some  because  of  the  nature  of 
the  debate;  and  then,  after  a  few  moments, 
all  become  excited  !  Again  and  again  the 
shrill  and  high  tones  of  Mr.  Speaker  Orr  are 
heard  'above  the  uproar.  He  exclaims  : 
"  This  is  a  motion  to  print  extra  copies  of 
the  President's  message.  Debate  on  the 
subject  of  the  message  is,  therefore,  in  order 
— upon  which  the  gentlemen  from  Ohio  has 
the  floor ! "  That  gentleman  is  now  the 
writer.  His  theme  was  the  Lecompton  Con- 
stitution. As  the  questions  discussed  involved 
the  great  issues  leading  to  war  or  peace,  his 
interest  in  the  mise  en  scene  became  less ; 
but  his  maiden  speech — the  maiden  speech 
in  the  new  chamber — began  under  influ- 
ences anything  but  composing. 

This  preliminary  etching  of  the  capitol  is 
intended  only  to  limn  the  circumstances  as 
they  affected  the  young  and  ambitious  legis- 
lator ;  or,  as  a  prologue  to  the  stirring  scenes 
which  greeted  his  first  appearance  in  the  rdle 
of  orator  under  such  grave  conditions. 

The  times  were  then  sadly  out  of  joint. 
The  author  had  a  keen  anticipation  of  the 
consequences  of  sectionalism.  His  first  de- 
bate intensified  this  anticipation.  He  had 
warned  and  worked,  from  his  first  entrance 
into  public  life, against  the  passionate  zealotry 
of  both  sections.  He  denounced  as  equally 
perilous  the  policy  and  theory  of  secession, 
and  the  provocations  and  conduct  of  the 
other  extreme.  He  voted  to  avert  the  im- 


292 


The  Thirty-fifth  and  Thirty-Sixth  Congresses. 


[Sept. 


pending  struggle  by  every  measure  of  adjust- 
ment. He  was  secretary  of  the  border 
States'  convention  of  congressmen  which 
sought  to  avoid  trouble  and  reconcile  the 
sections.  Along  with  such  men  as  Stephen 
A.  Douglas,  Thomas  Corwin,  Charles  Fran- 
cis Adams,  John  J.  Crittenden,  and  the  giants 
of  those  days,  he  was  content  to  be  an  hum- 
ble advocate  of  every  proposition  tending 
to  allay  the  excitement  growing  out  of  the 
fugitive  slave  law,  the  extension  of  slavery 
into  the  territories,  and  kindred  questions. 
When  the  war  came,  he  aided  the  Adminis- 
tration, by  his  votes  for  money  and  men,  to 
maintain  the  Federal  authority. 

The  author  believed  then,  as  he  believes 
now,  that  in  all  representative  governments 
a  constitutional  opposition  is  one  of  the  safe- 
guards of  liberty ;  and  that  it  is  a  legislator's 
duty  to  challenge  freely  the  conduct  of  the 
administration,  in  regard  to  the  use  of  the 
means  committed  to  it  by  the  people.'  Be- 
cause the  time  of  war  is  the  time  of  danger, 
it  does  not  follow  that  criticism  by  the  op- 
position at  such  a  period  may  not  be  con- 
sistent with  patriotism.  England  was  saved 
from  disgrace  in  the  Crimean  war  by  a  defi- 
ant opposition,  which  was  led  by  the  London 
"  Times."  A  government  may  be  magnified 
by  opposing  the  weakness  of  its  adminis- 
tration. It  may  be  saved  and  strengthened 
by  a  vigorous  criticism  upon  an  imbecile 
party  or  corrupt  policy  ;  otherwise,  the  very 
function  of  government  might  be  palsied 
by  the  incapacity  or  corruption  of  the  func- 
tionary. And  should  we  be  less  heedful  how 
we  undignify  the  office  by  an  undue  con- 
tempt of  the  officer,  than  how  we  unduly 
dignify  the  officer  at  the  expense  of  the 
office  ?  It  is  a  wise  saying,  that  "  the  best 
men  are  not  always  the  best  in  regard  to 
society." 

In  all  free  countries  an  opposition  is  an 
element  of  the  government.  It  is  as  indis- 
pensable to  the  safety  of  the  realm  as  a  free 
press  or  a  free  pulpit.  To  dispense  with  it 
is  to  endanger,  if  not  to  dispense  with,  lib- 
erty. The  valiant  arm  of  the  soldier  owes 
much  of  its  strength  to  those  who,  regardless 
of  the  frowns  of  power  or  the  allurements  of 


patronage,  maintain  a  steadfast  front  against 
the  corruption,  insolence,  and  tyranny  which 
are  always  incident  to  war.  A  distinguished 
Southern  statesman,  James  Guthrie,  of  Ken- 
tucky, said  to  the  writer  in  1865:  "The 
Revolution  has  left  deep  scars  on  the  Con- 
stitution of  the  United  States,  and  of  the 
States.  But  as  they  were  made  o*n  the  road 
to  restoration  and  peace,  we  begin  the  race 
of  progress  with  renewed  confidence  in  free- 
dom and  justice."  The  apology  for  many  a 
political  and  social  scar  must  be  left  to  the 
evils  and  necessities  of  the  time  when  the 
cicatrice  was  formed.  But  can  this  justify  a 
representative  of  the  people  in  remaining 
an  indifferent  spectator  while  the  wounds 
are  being  inflicted  ? 

To  understand  the  immediate  cause  of 
the  war  requires  a  special  discussion  of  the 
conduct  of  the  Thirty-fifth  Congress.  Its 
Speaker  was  a  liberal  South  Carolinian,  James 
C.  Orr.  He  afterwards  took  a  large  part 
in  the  resurrection  of  his  State  after  the 
war.  The  consequences  of  congressional 
action  as  herein  detailed  bring  us  very  close 
to  the  great  struggle  which  threatened  the 
Union  with  disseverance,  and  seemed  to  set 
back  the  hands  on  the  dial-plate  of  time  in 
our  Western  Continent. 

Had  the  Democratic  party  which  came 
into  power  with  Mr.  Buchanan  and  the 
Thirty-fifth  Congress  united  in  wisdom  to 
thrust  aside  the  Lecompton  Constitution, 
there  would  have  been  no  distraction  in  its 
ranks  as  early  as  1860.  But  it  is  not  so  sure 
that  the  slavery  question  would  not  have 
come  in  some  other  form  to  have  kept  up  the 
irrepressible  conflict.  Had  they  thus  united, 
perhaps  the  Charleston  Convention  of  1860 
would  have  agreed. 

In  inquiring  into  the  real,  if  not  the  prox- 
imate, causes  of  the  war  and  the  alienation 
of  the  sections,  we  cannot  ignore  the  ques- 
tions as  to  Kansas. 

To  be  sure,  Kansas  was  the  occasion,  rath- 
er than  the  cause,  of  conflict.  The  slavery 
agitation  was  the  paramount  cause.  There 
is  something  ineffably  repugnant  to  the  hu- 
man heart  in  the  relation  of  master  and 
slave.  The  idea  of  one  human  being  own- 


1885.] 


The  Thirty-Fifth  and  Thirty-Sixth    Congresses. 


293 


ing  another  human  being  would  thrust  itself 
forward  in  all  these  struggles,  irrepressibly 
foremost.  Whether  in  resistance  to  the  con- 
stitutional authorities — as  in  the  case  of  fu- 
gitives from  justice  and  labor — or  in  the  ad- 
mission of  new  States,  or  in  the  organization 
of  territories,  the  anti-slavery  zealot,  whether 
sincere  or  not,  handled  a  weapon  so  tem- 
pered with  seeming  justice,  so  flashing,  as  it 
were,  in  defense  of  a  higher  than  human 
law,  and  wreathed  as  with  the  "  beauty  of  the 
lilies  "  by  the  lyric  poetry  of  the  time,  that 
the  sanctions  of  authority  were  as  mere 
houses  of  cards  before  his  blows.  No  won- 
der that  with  such  an  impulse  the  devotees 
of  anti  slavery,  in  the  language  of  one  of  their 
eloquent  champions,  "would  rend  the  Union 
to  destroy  slavery,  though  hedged  round 
by  the  triple  bars  of  the  national  compact, 
and  though  thirty-three  crowned  sovereigns, 
with  arms  in  their  hands,  stood  around  it." 
The  pro-slavery  men  of  i856-'7  forgot  the 
growing  power  of  this  sentiment,  and  the  in- 
creasing power  of  the  North  to  enforce  it. 
They  desperately  struggled  to  force  Kansas 
into  the  Union  as  a  slave  State  by  a  stu- 
pendous fraud.  In  the  reaction  against  its 
perpetration,  a  fresh  agitation  was  aroused. 
This  new  agitation  outlasted  the  interest  in 
the  case  of  Kansas.  It  absorbed  all  the 
energies  of  debate.  The  whole  country  be- 
came a  Kansas.  The  first  elaborate  speech 
made  by  the  author  in  Congress,  and,  as  al- 
ready noted,  the  first  made  in  the  new 
hall  of  the  House,  on  the  i6th  of  December, 
1857,  was  also  the  first  delivered  against 
Lecompton  by  any  one  in  the  lower  branch 
of  Congress.  It  was  taken  to  Judge  Doug- 
las on  the  Sunday  preceding  the  discussion, 
to  read  him  parts  of  it  in  manuscript.  The 
"Globe"  of  that  time  will  show  the  debate, 
and  the  attempt  by  Southern  statesmen, 
Messrs.  Bocock,  Quitman,  Jones,  and  others, 
to  cut  it  off.  As  a  consequence  of  this 
speech,  the  writer  lost  caste  with  the  Admin- 
istration. 

The  excitement  accompanying  that  dis- 
cussion has  long  since  subsided.  The  points 
of  the  argument  will  appear  from  this  extract : 

"  I  propose  now  to  nail  against  the  door, 


at  the  threshold  of  this  Congress,  my  theses. 
When  the  proper  time  comes  I  will  defend 
them,  whether  from  the  assaults  of  political 
friend  or  foe.     I  would  fain  be  silent,  sir, 
here  and  now.     But  silence,  which  is  said  to 
be  as  '  harmless  as  a  rose's  breath,'  may  be 
as   perilous   as   the   pestilence.     This  peril 
comes  from  the  attempt  to  forego  the  capi- 
tal principle  of  Democratic  policy,  which  I 
think  has  been  done  by  the  constitutional 
convention    of    Kansas.      I    maintain :     i. 
That  the  highest   refinement   and   greatest 
utility  of  Democratic  policy — the  genius  of 
our  institutions — is  the  right  of  self-govern- 
ment.    2.  That  this  self  government  means 
the  will  of  the  majority,  legally  expressed. 
3.   That   this   self-government    by   majority 
rule  was  sacredly  guaranteed  in  the  organic 
act  of  Kansas.     4.  That  it  was  guaranteed 
upon  the  question  of  slavery  in  terms,  and 
generally  with   respect  to  all  the  domestic 
institutions  of  the  people.     5.  The  domestic 
institutions  include  all  which  are  local,  not 
national — State,  not   Federal.     The  phrase 
means  that,  and  that  only — that  always.     6. 
That  the  people  were  to  be  left  perfectly  free 
to  establish  or  abolish  slavery,  as  well  as  to 
form  and  regulate  their  own  institutions.     7. 
That  this  doctrine  was  recognized  in  every 
part  of  the  Confederacy  by  the  Democracy, 
fixed  in  their  national  platform,  asserted  by 
their  speakers  and  presses,  reiterated  by  their 
candidates,  incorporated  in  messages  and  in- 
structions, and  formed  the  feature  which  dis- 
tinguished the  Democracy  from  the  opposi- 
tion, who  maintained  the  doctrine  of  con- 
gressional intervention.     8.  The  Lecompton 
Constitution,  while  it  is  asserted  that  it  is 
submitted  to  the  people  in  the  essential  point, 
thus  recognizing  an  obligation  to  submit  it 
in  some  mode,  cannot,  in  any  event,  be  re- 
jected by  the  people  of  Kansas.     The  vote 
must  be  for  its  approval,  whether  the  elector 
votes  one  way  or  another.     The  people  may 
be  unwilling  to  take  either  of  the  proposi- 
tions, and  yet  they  must  vote  one  or  the  oth- 
er of  them.    They  have  to  vote  '  constitution 
with  slavery,'  or  'constitution  with  no  slav- 
ery ' ;  but  the  constitution  they  must  take." 
These  were  the  points  elaborated  in  that 


294 


The   Thirty-Fifth  and  Thirty-Sixth  Congresses. 


[Sept. 


discussion.  Differing  with  Mr.  Buchanan, 
the  author  was  constrained  afterwards  to  dif- 
ferwith  Judge  Douglas,  on  the  Compromise. 
Bill  reported  by  a  Committee  of  Conference. 
He  voted  for  the  latter,  on  the  ground  that 
it  returned  for  a  fair  election  the  fraudulent 
constitution  to  the  people,  and  because  there 
were  people  enough  for  a  State  in  Kansas. 
This  action  was  fully  justified  by  the  subse- 
quent action  of  the  people  under  that  bill. 
Subsequently,  the  writer  voted  to  receive  the 
free  State  of  Kansas  ;  and  after  justifying 
its  former  vote,  scarcely  exaggerated  the 
rancor  of  the  campaign  when  he  said  in 
the  House  that 

"For  voting  for  this  Conference  Bill,  even 
after  I  was  justified  by  the  popular  vote  of 
Kansas  in  the  summer  of  1858,  I  was  com- 
pelled to  meet  from  Republicans  of  Ohio  a 
campaign  unexampled  for  its  unprovoked 
fierceness,  its  base  and  baseless  charges  of 
personal  corruption,  its  conceit,  its  ignor- 
ance, its  impudence,  its  poltroonery,  its  bil- 
lingsgate, its  brutality,  its  moneyed  corrup- 
tion, its  fanatical  folly,  its  unflagging  slang, 
its  drunken  saturnalia,  and  its  unblushing 
libels  and  pious  hypocrisy  !  [The  writer  had 
not  then  learned  meekness.]  At  the  capi- 
tal of  Ohio,  in  its  most  noble  and  intelligent 
precincts,  the  people,  ashamed  of  and  indig- 
nant at  the  audacious  falsehood  and  brazen 
clamor  from  the  presses  of  the  State,  and 
from  the  little  penny-a-liners  and  pettifoggers, 
who  echoed  the  libels  of  members  fresh 
from  this  floor — in  spite  of  all  this,  the  peo- 
pled doubled  my  majority  of  1856.  I  had 
the  satisfaction — prouder  than  a  temporary 
victory — of  seeing  the  policy  I  had  voted 
for  with  the  earnest  conviction  of  duty,  and 
with  the  sustaining  advice  of  such  a  states- 
man as  Robert  J.  Walker,  vindicated  by 
time,  and  sustained  by  its  practical  operation. 
As  the  crowning  act  of  this  triumph,  I  shall 
vote  for  the  admission  of  Kansas  under  this 
constitution.  In  doing  this,  I  court  all  crit- 
icism, defy  all  menace,  and  truly  represent 
almost  every  man,  woman,  and  child  in  my 
district." 

Inasmuch  as  that  vote  for  the  Conference 
bill  was  greatly  impugned,  and  as  it  seemed 


to  be  a  departure  from  the  original  position 
of  Judge  Douglas,  the  writer  was  solicitous 
to  have  the  Judge  explain  their  mutual  rela- 
tions to  this  question.  This  he  did  during 
the  campaign  of  1860.  On  the  aoth  of  Sep- 
tember he  spoke  to  an  immense  meeting  at 
Columbus,  Ohio,  in  which  he  thus  explained 
the  differences  between  himself  and  other 
Democrats  : 

"  I  made  the  first  speech  in  the  Senate 
against  the  Lecompton  Constitution,  and 
without  consulting  Mr.  Cox  or  any  one  else, 
and  Mr.  Cox  made  the  first  speech  against 
it  in  the  House,  without  consultation  or 
dictation  from  me.  We  fought  it  through 
on  our  own  responsibility  until  Lecompton 
was  dead  ;  and  when  Lecompton  was  de- 
feated, its  friends  got  up  the  English  bill  to 
cover  its  retreat.  The  Honorable  Robert  J. 
Walker,  then  Governor  of  Kansas,  advised 
Mr.  Cox  and  myself  to  go  for  it,  giving  as- 
surance that  when  presented  to  the  people  of 
Kansas  they  would  kill  it,  ten  to  one.  Un- 
der these  circumstances,  some  of  our  men 
felt  it  their  duty  to  go  for  the  bill.  I  did 
not  think  it  a  fair  submission  to  the  will  of 
the  people,  and  determined  to  fight  it,  too. 
Mr.  Cox  said  he  had  consulted  the  members 
of  the  Ohio  delegation,  that  they  all  agreed 
to  vote  for  it,  and  that  under  the  circum- 
stances he  should  vote  with  them.  I  told  him 
I  had  no  quarrel  with  those  of  my  friends 
who  differed  with  me  honestly  on  that  point, 
and  afterwards  I  wrote  letters  in  favor  of  the 
election  of  some  of  those  who  had  voted  for 
the  English  bill."  The  Judge  concluded  by 
urging  his  friends  in  the  district  to  "  nail  the 
slander  by  reelecting  Mr.  Cox." 

Had  Judge  Douglas  yielded  his  resolution 
on  this  subject,  and  voted  for  the  Conference 
bill,  the  territorial  question  would  not  have 
been  mooted  at  the  Charleston  Convention 
with  so  marked  a  personal  application.f'His 
nomination  would  have  been  made  without 
division.  For  a  time,  at  least,  secession 
would  have  been  prevented,  and  war'averted. 
The  contests  of  that  time  were  much  embit- 
tered by  the  Dred  Scott  case.  The  decision 
of  the  Supreme  Court  in  that  case  was'cal- 
culated  to  divide  and  disintegrate]  the  old 


1885.] 


The  Thirty-Fifth  and  Thirty-Sixth  Congresses. 


295 


parties,  and  to  build  up  the  Republicans. 
Mr.  Douglas  and  the  Northern  Democrats 
sustained  that  decision;  but  they  could  not 
venture  to  sustain  the  Lecompton  Constitu- 
tion, without  inviting  certain  ruin  to  the  party 
and  defeating  his  personal  aspirations.  It 
was  on  this  question  that  he  finally  broke 
with  the  Southern  Democracy.  Hencefor- 
ward they  regarded  him  and  his  followers  as 
little  better  than  "Black  Republicans." 

IT  is  a  common  practice,  since  the  great 
success  of  the  Federal  arms  in  putting  down 
the  insurgent  States,  to  look  upon  the  "Lost 
Cause "  as  having  been  altogether  in  the 
wrong;  but  unless  there  was  great  and  gen- 
eral provocation  to  revolt,  no  such  harmoni- 
ous action  in  favor  of  secession  could  have 
been  taken  by  the  Southern  States.  It  will 
not  be  forgotten  by  those  who  participated 
in  the  discussions  of  .the  Thirty-sixth  Con- 
gress, which  preceded  and  presaged  the  war, 
that  great  attempts  were  then  made  by  em- 
inent statesmen  to  stay  the  progress  of  se- 
cession. Nor  were  these  attempts  confined 
to  the  Senate  and  the  House.  They  were 
made  in  "  Peace  Conventions,"  and  in  other 
bodies  which  had  great  influence  with  busi- 
ness boards  and  State  legislatures.  Those 
who  thus  acted  must  have  had  hopeful  rea- 
son for  their  attempts  to  reconcile  the  sec- 
tions. The  faults  were  not  all  on  one  side. 
The  greatest  grievance  of  the  South  was  not, 
perhaps,  as  openly  expressed  as  it  might  have 
been.  The  moral  sense  of  mankind  did 
not  sustain  the  institution  of  slavery.  The 
breaches  of  the  Constitution,  in  respect  to 
the  fugitive-slave  law,  had  been  frequent  and 
aggravating.  That  law  had  been  maintained 
by  the  decision  of  the  Supreme  Court.  Its 
violation  was  a  pregnant  cause  of  complaint. 
On  constitutional  grounds,  that  law  should 
have  been  sustained.  The  action  of  certain 
States  of  the  North  in  obstructing  its  execu- 
tion, notably  in  Wisconsin  and  Ohio,  was  de- 
fended in  and  out  of  Congress  on  moral,  con- 
stitutional, and  legal  grounds.  Even  such 
eminent  men  as  Salmon  P.  Chase,  then  Gov- 
ernor of  Ohio,  when  the  famous  Oberlin  case 
of  Plumb,  Peck,  et.  al.  was  before  the  State 


Court  upon  the  writ  of  habeas  corpus,  did  not 
hesitate  to  affirm  that  personal  liberty  was  of 
greater  moment  than  the  Constitution  ;  that 
State  rights  were  superior  to  Federal  decrees ; 
and  that  no  mandate  of  the  Federal  govern- 
ment should  be  obeyed  for  the  return  of  hu- 
man beings  to  bondage. 

It  is  well  known  that  Mr.  Chase  advised 
Mr.  Lincoln  to  let  the  seceding  States  go, 
rather  than  resort  to  armed  coercion.  In- 
deed, Mr.  Chase  had  preached  the  State 
rights  theory  all  his  life,  in  justification  of 
State  resistance  to  the  enforcement  of  the 
fugitive-slave  law.  From  the  case  of  Jones 
vs.  Van  Zant,  in  1842,  to  the  celebrated 
Oberlin  fugitive-slave  rescue  cases,  Ex  parte 
Langston  and  Ex  parte  Bushnell,  in  1859, 
reported  in  the  Ninth  Ohio  State  Reports, 
the  Ohio  friends  of  Chase  did  not  hesitate 
to  express,  in  the  most  unqualified  manner, 
their  determination  to  nullify  any  Federal 
law  or  act  of  which  they  did  not  approve,  in 
connection  with  the  slavery  question. 

The  cases  of  .Langston  and  Bushnell  were 
prosecuted  on  a  writ  of  habeas  corpus,  by  the 
State  Attorney-General,  C.  P.  Wolcott,  under 
the  direction  of  Governor  Chase,  for  the  re- 
lease of  those  parties  who  had  been  convicted 
under  the  Federal  statute,  and  in  a  Federal 
Court,  for  violating  the  fugitive-slave  law. 
On  that  occasion  Governor  Chase  openly 
declared  that  he  would  sustain  by  force,  if 
necessary,  the  decision  of  the  Supreme 
Court  of  Ohio  against  the  decision  of  the 
Supreme  Court  of  the  United  States,  even  if 
it  should  result  in  a  collision  between  the 
State  and  the  General  Government.  Not  at 
any  time  in  South  Carolina,  among  the  most 
ardent  of  the  Calhoun  school,  was  "  nullifi- 
cation "  more  rife  or  aggressive  than  among 
the  Ohio  abolitionists.  What  cared  either 
of  these  factionists  for  argument?  They  be- 
lieved they  were  right ;  and  if  the  Constitu- 
tion disagreed  with  their  theories,  the  Con- 
stitution must  go — not  their  theories. 

The  territorial  question,  already  referred 
to,  had  no  less  magnitude  in  the  minds  of 
the  Southern  people.  That  grievance  took 
the  form  of  a  complaint  that  the  Constitu- 
tion was  violated  by  the  popular  sovereignty* 


296 


The  Thirty-Fifth  and  Thirty-Sixth  Congresses. 


[Sept. 


in  declaring  against  slavery  in  organic  laws 
for  the  Territories,  preliminary  to  their  ad- 
mission as  States.  When  the  Thirty-sixth 
Congress  assembled,  the  members  who  stood 
between  the  factional  sections,  under  the  lead- 
ership of  Judge  Douglas,  George  E.  Pugh, 
Senator  Stewart,  of  Michigan,  and  others  in 
the  Senate,  and  of  William  A.  Richardson, 
Thomas  L.  Harris,  and  others  in  the  House, 
found  themselves  in  a  small  minority.  They 
were  between  the  two  fires  of  implacable 
opponents.  In  attempting  to  emulate  the 
Christian  philosophy  of  reconciling  enmities, 
many  of  these  peacemakers  found  themselves 
driven  from  their  party  associations ;  and 
others  were  quick  to  respond  to  the  allure- 
ments of  the  vigorous  party  which  was  then 
approaching  power.  Whatever  justification 
there  may  have  been  for  the  complaints  of 
the  Southern  statesmen  and  States  against 
the  maladministration  of  Federal  laws  by 
Northern  people  and  States,  there  was  no 
such  grievance  as  would  justify  secession 
and  the  dispartment  of  the  country.  There 
was  no  difference  that  would  justify  either 
secession  or  revolution.  No  revolutions,  ac- 
cording to  Sir  James  Macintosh,  are  justifia- 
ble, however  well  grounded  upon  grievances, 
without  a  reasonable  probability  of  a  success- 
ful termination.  True,  there  was  in  that  Con- 
gress an  exaltation  on  the  part  of  Southern 
men,  which  led  them  to  hope,  even  before 
Sumpter  was  fired  upon,  that  the  separation 
which  they  sought  would  be  accomplished. 
Had  they,  even  a  priori,  considered  the  me- 
chanical forces  of  the  North,  which  are  now 
so  manifest  in  the  results  of  the  war,  they 
might  well  have  halted  upon  the  dogma  of 
Sir  James  Mackintosh.  But  among  the 
many  fine  traits  of  Southern  men  was  that 
impetuosity  and  ardor  of  sentiment  and 
heart  which  does  not  look  to  consequences 
when  there  is  conviction  in  a  justifiable 
cause.  In  the  light  of  historical  philosophy, 
an  unbiased  mind  can  apprehend  what  a  tre- 
mendous hold  the  mere  abstract  doctrine  of 
secession  had  upon  these  men,  who  antici- 
pated a  still  larger  curtailment  of  their  consti- 
tutional rights.  When  it  is  remembered  that 
there  were  real  grounds  for  this  apprehension, 


and  when  it  was  argued  with  so  much  logic 
and  brilliancy,  that  the  rights  of  the  States 
could  be  preserved  only  in  a  new  confeder- 
acy, it  is  not  marvelous  that  the  call  for  se- 
cession fired  the  Southern  heart. 

When  the  time  for  final  action  came,  the 
movements  in  favor  of  secession  were  made 
with  great  formality  and  solemnity.  Ordi- 
nances came  with  all  the  precision  and  regu- 
larity of  legislative  order.  States  withdrew 
in  the  presence  of  excited  and  awe-struck, 
audiences,  after  the  most  dramatic  and  ap- 
parently authorized  sanction.  The  great 
body  of  the  oratory  of  that  time  came  from 
such  men  as  Benjamin,  Davis,  Curry,  La- 
mar,  Pugh  of  Alabama,  Garnet,  and  Bo- 
cock.  It  developed  all  the  graces  of  el- 
oquence. Fair  women  from  the  galleries, 
warm  with  Southern  blood,  gave  applause 
more  precious  than  coronets  of  gold  and 
jewels  to  the  oratory  of  their  impassioned 
champions.  As  one  by  one  the  States  be- 
came unrepresented,  not  a  word  was  heard, 
except,  perhaps,  in  debate  of  the  abstract 
right  to  secede.  There  seemed  to  be  a  tacit 
acknowledgment  that  secession  at  present 
was  the  best  course.  No  attempt  was  made 
to  arrest  any  one.  Prominent  Republicans, 
like  Lieutenant-Governor  Stanton,  of  Ohio, 
—not  to  mention  his  namesake,  the  Secre- 
tary of  war — Mr.  Greeley,  and  Mr.  Chase, 
abetted  the  movement  of  secession  by  op- 
posing any  constraint  upon  the  departing  sis- 
ters. These  facts,  forerunners  of  the  mighty 
conflict,  seem  now  inexplicable  to  many 
persons,  because  it  is  forgotten  that  from 
December,  1860,  until  March,  1861,  there 
was  hope  of  reconciliation.  Douglas  and 
Crittenden  were  still  sanguine  when  they  tel- 
egraphed to  Georgia  that  the  rights  of  the 
South  and  of  every  State  and  section  would 
be  protected  in  the  Union. 

The  first  efforts  at  compromise  were  by  no 
means  confined  to  the  Democratic  Senators 
and  members.  Governor  Corwin,  Charles 
Francis  Adams,  Edward  Joy  Morris,  and 
others  in  the  House;  Senators  Cameron, 
Baker,  Dixon,  Foster,  Collamer,  and  oth- 
ers in  the  Senate,  were,  at  the  beginning 
of  Pthe  session,  and  for  some  time  after- 


1885.] 


The  Thirty-Fifth  and  Thirty-Sixth  Congresses. 


297 


wards,  regarded  as  not  indifferent  to  the 
compromise  which  would  at  least  retain  the 
border  States,  if  it  did  not  stop  the  move- 
ment of  the  Gulf  States.  The  most  experi- 
enced and  able  Southern  men  believed  that 
the  step  they  were  about  to  take  would  be 
bloodless;  that  their  array  in  strength  and 
mien  of  resistance  would  prevent  coercion 
by  arms.  Some  of  them  looked  upon  se- 
cession as  a  mere  temporary  alienation.  Even 
so  late  as  the  secession  of  Texas,  Judge 
Reagan,  one  of  its  Representatives,  after  he 
had  left  his  seat  in  Congress,  took  pains  to 
inform  the  author  that  he  thought  the  South 
would  be  out  only  for  a  season.  When  the 
excitement  subsided,  and  especially  if  any 
guarantees  were  given  for  the  protection  of 
their  rights,  he  believed  the  States  would  re- 
turn. In  this,  how  signally  ability  and  ex- 
perience failed  to  discern  the  future  !  Man- 
kind generally  reckon  the  greatness  of  men 
by  success.  If  this  be  the  touchstone,  the 
vaunted  statesmanship  of  the  South  vanishes. 
But  what  a  company  of  conspicuous  men 
answered  to  the  roll-call  on  the  6th  of  De- 
cember, 1860,  in  the  Thirty-sixth  Congress. 

At  the  head  of  the  Senate  stands  John  C. 
Breckenridge,  offering  his  name,  so  proudly 
connected  with  the  history  of  Kentucky,  to 
the  task  of  dismemberment.  He  was  among 
the  last  to  leave  his  home  to  take  the  sword  for 
the  South.  He  was,  after  the  war,  a  fugitive 
upon  English  soil,  pleading  with  his  stricken 
confederates  to  do  the  best  by  submission 
to  Federal  rule.  His  health  had  been  im- 
paired by  his  exertions  in  the  field.  The 
writer  saw  him  some  time  before  his  decease. 
He  was  sojourning  at  the  Thousand  Isles, 
in  New  York.  His  spirit  was  peaceful,  calm, 
and  exalted — fit  companion  of  a  form  upon 
which  God  had  set  his  seal.  He  lives  not 
only  in  the  spirit  of  those  whose  admiration 
he  engrossed,  but  in  his  sons,  one  of  whom 
is  in  the  present  Congress  from  Arkansas. 

Another  son  of  that  great  commonwealth 
is  there,  John  J.  Crittenden.  How  nobly  he 
stands  for  the  Union  !  Mr.  Crittenden  was 
not  demonstrative,  unless,  perhaps,  among 
intimate  friends  or  in  the  family  circle. 
He  was  a  man  of  great  simplicity  of  char- 


acter and  nobility  of  soul.  He  had  vast 
experience  in  public  affairs.  He  possessed 
the  integrity  and  fervor  of  his  Welsh  and 
Huguenot  descent.  He,  of  all  the  men 
of  his  day,  had  the  best  right  to  be  a  Con- 
federate. He  was  born  in  the  old  Con- 
federacy seven  days  before  the  Constitution 
of  this  country  was  adopted  in  general  con- 
vention. He  was  a  sound  scholar.  His  elo- 
quence was  Ciceronian.  His  legal  intellect 
was  profound.  His  patriotism  was  boundless 
and  impulsive.  In  1811  and  1812,  when  he 
was  a  member  of  the  Kentucky  Legislature, 
he  received  martial  honor  from  Governor 
Shelby,  who  had  no  toleration  for  Great 
Britain.  Young  Crittenden  was  his  aid-de- 
camp in  the  war  of  i8i2-'i4.  He  took  paft 
in  the  battle  of  the  Thames.  From  that 
time  onward,  he  must  be  judged  as  a  Ken- 
tuckian  who  subordinated  the  most  intense 
State  pride  to  an  unquenchable  love  of  the 
whole  Union.  He  did  not  appear  in  any 
Federal  relation  until  he  was  elected  to  the 
United  States  Senate,  in  1817.  More  or  less 
associated  with  such  men  as  Webster  and 
Clay,  and  all  the  public  men  connected  with 
the  first  half  century  of  the  country,  his  is  a 
history  that  belongs  to  the  conservative  ele- 
ment. But  never  until  sectionalism  raised 
its  front  in  warlike  menace,  did  his  great 
abilities  shine  forth  with  their  full  luster  of 
rhetoric  and  fire  of  will. 

In  the  Senate  of  i86o-'6i,  Mr.  Crittenden 
gave  voice  to  the  Union  sentiment  of  the 
country.  He  not  only  shared  the  sentiments 
of  such  statesmen  as  John  A.  Dix,  Edward 
Everett,  Elisha  Whittlesey,  Robert  C.  Win- 
throp,  and  others,  but  he  represented  all 
those  patriotic  men  who  united  to  adopt  the 
Crittenden  compromise  on  the  slavery  ques- 
tion. These  resolutions  were  in  the  form  of 
a  series  of  constitutional  amendments.  They 
were  inspired  by  the  alarming  character  of 
the  controversy  between  the  sections.  They 
proposed  the  restoration  of  the  Missouri 
Compromise,  and  the  extension  of  the  com- 
promise line  throughout  the  territories  of  the 
United  States  to  the  eastern  border  of  Cali- 
fornia. Slavery  was  to  be  recognized  in  all 
the  territories  south  of  that  line,  and  to  be 


298 


The  Thirty-Fifth  and  Thirty-Sixth  Congresses. 


[Sept. 


prohibited  in  all  territories  north  of  it.  When 
territories  north  or  south  of  the  line  should 
be  formed  into  States,  they  should  then  be 
at  liberty  to  exclude  or  admit  slavery  as  they 
pleased.  In  either  case,  there  would  be  no 
objection  to  their  admission  to  the  Union. 
This  was  the  mode  proposed  by  the  Critten- 
den  compromise,  by  which  to  settle  the  great 
controversy.  Incidentally,  he  proposed  to 
amend  the  Constitution,  so  as  to  declare  that 
Congress  should  have  no  power  to  abolish 
slavery  in  the  District  of  Columbia  while 
slavery  existed  in  Maryland  and  Virginia. 
And,  inasmuch  as  the  fugitive-slave  law  was 
constitutional,  he  desired  a  declaration  for 
its  faithful  execution.  He  proposed  amend- 
ments to  that  end.  They  seem  trifling  now. 
They  had  reference  to  the  fees  of  the  Circuit 
Court  commissioners,  and  to  the  posse  comi- 
tatus  in  cases  of  resistance  to  the  United 
States  marshals  in  making  arrests  under  that 
law.  He  also  intended,  if  possible,  to  make 
the  Constitution  unalterable  in  certain  mat- 
ters. This,  in  a  country  subject  to  the  laws 
of  progress,  was  in  flagrant  violation  of  that 
which  was  an  irrevocable  law  of  advance- 
ment !  To  this  inconsistency,  the  love  of  the 
Union  led  that  best  of  patriots.  This  shows 
how  earnest  were  the  men  who  sought  to 
avoid  the  "  Irrepressible  Conflict." 

In  the  Senate  of  the  United  States,  on  the 
1 8th  of  December,  1860,  Mr.  Crittenden 
spoke  to  these  propositions.  He  regarded 
the  Constitution  as  the  very  essence  of  life 
to  the  Union.  He  lifted  himself  to  the  great 
occasion  in  a  spirit  of  conciliation.  He  did 
not  stop  to  picture  the  direful  consequences 
of  a  failure  to  settle  the  question  by  a  divis- 
ion upon  the  line  of  the  Missouri  Compro- 
mise. We  had  lived  prosperously  and  peace- 
fully upon  that  line.  Any  sacrifice  which 
could  be  made,  North  or  South,  to  maintain 
that  condition,  he  regarded  glorious  as  well 
as  just.  The  Union  was  permanent.  It  had 
been  necessary  after  the  Revolution  to  yield 
many  prejudices,  and  much  State  policy,  in 
order  to  secure  independence  with  union. 
He  recognized  the  hand  of  Providence  in 
helping  our  ancestors  in  that  trying  era.  He 
quoted  from  Washington,  who  said  :  "  But  for 


Providence,  we  could  not  have  accomplished 
this  thing."  He  spoke  as  if  the  muse  of  his- 
tory were  listening  to  him.  The  writer  well 
remembers  that  speech,  and  the  excessive 
emotion  which  it  produced.  The  peroration 
still  rings  as  a  part  of  the  memory  of  that 
critical  time  : 

"  Sir,  I  wish  to  God  it  was  in  my  power 
to  preserve  this  Union  by  recognizing  and 
agreeing  to  give  up  every  conscientious  and 
other  opinion."  Then  turning  to  the  Sena- 
tors from  the  South.  "Are  you  bent  on  rev- 
olution, bent  on  disunion  ?  God  forbid  it ! 
I  cannot  believe  that  such  madness  possesses 
the  American  people.  I  can  speak  with 
confidence  only  of  my  own  State.  Old 
Kentucky  will  be  satisfied  with  it.  She 
will  stand  by  the  Union  and  die  by  the 
Union,  if  this  satisfaction  be  given  !  Noth- 
ing shall  seduce  her.  The  clamor  of  no 
revolution,  the  seductions  or  temptations  of 
no  revolution,  will  tempt  her  to  move  one 
step.  Disunion  and  separation  would  de- 
stroy our  greatness.  Once  disunited,  we  are 
no  longer  great.  The  nations  of  the  earth, 
who  have  looked  upon  you  as  a  formidable 
power  rising  to  untold  and  immeasurable 
greatness  in  the  future,  will  scoff  at  you. 
Your  flag,  that  now  claims  the  respect  of  the 
world — what  will  become  of  it  ?  It  is  gone, 
and  with  it  the  protection  of  American  citi- 
zens and  property,  to  say  nothing  of  the 
national  honor  which  it  displayed  to  all  the 
world.  The  protection  of  your  rights,  the 
protection  of  property  abroad,  is  gone  with 
the  flag,  and  we  are  here  to  conjure  and  con- 
trive different  flags  for  our  different  repub- 
lics, according  to  the  feverish  fancies  of  rev- 
olutionary patriots.  No,  sir ;  I  want  to  fol- 
low no  such  flag.  I  do  not  despair  of  the 
republic.  I  cannot  despond.  I  cannot  but 
believe  that  we  will  find  some  means  of  rec- 
onciling and  adjusting  the  rights  of  all  par- 
ties by  concession,  if  necessary,  so  as  to  pre- 
serve and  give  more  stability  to  the  country 
and  to  these  institutions." 

The  failure  of  the  compromise  measures 
is  well  known.  In  his  farewell  address  to 
the  Senate,  in  March,  1861,  Mr.  Crittenden 
said,  with  genuine  humility,  that  he  had  not 


1885.] 


The  Thirty-Fifth  and  Thirty-Sixth  Congresses. 


299 


risen  with  any  vain  ambition  or  purpose  to 
play  the  orator.  He  seemed  to  feel  that  we 
were  a  failing  state,  and  that  no  comprom- 
ise would  be  acceptable.  Scarcely  ever  has 
there  been  such  an  appeal  as  he  then  made 
to  history,  to  the  present  interests,  and  the 
future  prosperity  and  glory  of  the  country. 
He  returned  to  Kentucky,  but  not  to  retire 
to  the  ease  of  his  home.  He  came  to  the 
next  Congress  in  the  first  years  of  the  war — 
that  in  which  the  writer  served  with  him. 
In  July,  at  thecalled  session  of  1861,  Stephen 
A.  Douglas,  his  greatest  competitor,  died. 
John  J.  Crittenden  was  the  first  man  to  pro- 
nounce his  eulogy.  The  writer,  in  following 
— and  feeling  that  there  was  but  one  left  of 
all  the  great  men  of  old  who  had  been  with 
Douglas  in  the  Senate — said  : 

"  Who  is  left  to  take  the  place  of  Stephen 
A.  Douglas?  Alas,  he  has  no  successor! 
His  eclipse  is  painfully  palpable,  since  it 
makes  more  obscure  the  path  by  which  our 
alienated  brethren  may  return.  Many  Union 
men,  friends  of  Douglas,  in  the  South  heard 
of  his  death  as  the  death-knell  of  their  hope. 
Who  can  take  his  place  ?  The  great  men 
of  1850  who  were  his  mates  in  the  Senate 
are  gone,  we  trust,  to  that  better  union  above 
where  there  are  no  distracting  counsels 
— all — all  gone  !  All  ?  No,  thank  heaven ! 
Kentucky  still  spares  to  us  one  of  kindred 
patriotism,  fashioned  in  the  better  mould  of 
an  earlier  day,  the  distinguished  statesman 
who  has  just  spoken,  Mr.  Crittenden,  whose 
praise  of  Douglas,  living,  I  love  to  quote, 
and  whose  praise  of  Douglas,  dead,  to  which 
we  have  just  listened,- laudari  a  vir^o  laudato, 
is  praise  indeed.  Crittenden  still  stands 
here,  lifting  on  high  his  whitened  head,  like 
a  pharos  in  the  sea,  to  guide  our  storm- 
tossed  and  shattered  vessel  to  its  haven  of 
rest.  His  feet  tread  closely  upon  the  re- 
treating steps  of  our  statesman  West.  In  the 
order  of  nature  we  cannot  have  him  long. 
Already  his  hand  is  outstretched  into  the 
other  world  to  grasp  the  hand  of  Douglas  ! 
While  he  is  spared  to  us,  let  us  heed  his 
warning  ;  let  us  learn  from  his  lips  the  les- 
sons of  moderation  and  loyalty  of  the  elder 
days,  and  do  our  best,  and  do  it  nobly  and 


fearlessly,  for  our  beloved  Republic."  Too 
real,  alas!  was  this  shadow  of  coming  events. 
Worn  out  by  the  arduous  labors  of  the  Thir- 
ty-sixth Congress,  the  great  Crittenden  went 
home  to  his  well-beloved  State,  never  to  re- 
turn. He  died  in  July,  1863 — this  great 
man  died,  while  the  .shock  of  embattled 
armies  was  rocking  the  foundations  of  the 
Union.  Who  can  tell  how  much  of  its 
strength  in  that  day  was  due  to  John  J. 
Crittenden  ? 

In  that  Congress,  foremost  in  influence 
for  peace  or  war,  for  Union  or  disunion,  is 
Jefferson  Davis;  how  then  unlike  that  Davis, 
who,  in  Maine,  but  a  few  years  before,  had 
spoken  burning  words  for  the  perpetuity  of  the 
Union.  He  had  fought  gallantly  in  Mexico  for 
its  extension  and  honor.  Whatever  of  preju- 
dice his  name  may  have  since  aroused  has 
been  incident  to  recalling  the  memories  of  a 
beaten  cause.  At  that  Congress  he  was  far 
more  potential  in  directing  the  fateful  genius 
of  Southern  statesmanship  than  any  other 
man  in  the  Senate.  His  own  memoirs  have 
been  published.  There  his  character  is 
analyzed  and  his  motives  questioned  with 
pitiless  and  torturing  inquisition  ;  still  the 
great  body  of  his  countrymen  South  will 
cherish  his  memory,  despite  all  adverse  criti- 
cism. Whether  he  ever  renounced  his  se- 
cession doctrines,  while  acting  as  the  Chief- 
tain of  the  Confederacy,  has  not  been  proven. 
It  has  been  surmised  and  inferred.  The 
same  presiding  care  which  shielded  him  from 
a  trial  for  treason,  and  gave  him  peaceful  re- 
tiracy  in  a  Southern  home,  seems  still  to 
hover  over  his  old  age.  Remembering  his 
personal  courtesy,  his  urbane  and  dignified 
manners,  his  silvery  oratory,  his  undaunted 
courage  as  a  soldier  and  honesty  as  a  man, 
the  historian  of  this  eventful  epoch  — in 
which  madness  ruled  in  the  most  sedate 
counsels — cannot  fail  to  recall  much  to  the 
credit  of  this  leader  of  the  Southern  people. 
He  may  not  have  exercised  the  wisdom  of 
some  who  acquiesced  promptly  and  grace- 
fully in  the  inevitable.  Yet  with  many  this 
trait  of  enduring  consistency  is  a  virtue. 
But  it  must  be  said  that  he  was  not  forward  in 
secession.  His  State  was  not  among  the  fore- 


300 


The  Thirty-Fifth  and  Thirty-Sixth  Congresses. 


[Sept. 


most  to  secede.  She  waited  until  the  9th  of 
January,  1861,  before  passing  her  ordinance, 
and  her  Senators  lingered  until  the  2ist  be- 
fore they  withdrew.  It  is  generally  credited 
among  those  who  were  familiar  with  Mr.  Da- 
vis's  inclinations,  that,  even  after  the  ordi- 
nance passed,  he  was  anxious  to  remain. 
There  is  undubitable  evidence  that  while  in 
the  Committee  of  Thirteen,  he  was  willing 
to  accept  the  compromise  of  Mr.  Crittenden, 
and  recede  from  secession.  (This  Commit- 
tee and  a  House  Committee  of  thirty- three 
members  were  then  considering  "the  state 
of  the  Union.")  The  compromise  failed  ; 
because,  as  Senator  Hale  said,  on  the  i8th 
of  December,  1860,  the  day  it  was  intro- 
duced, it  was  determined  that  the  contro 
versy  should  not  be  settled  in  Congress. 
When  it  failed,  the  hero  of  Buena  Vista  be- 
came the  Confederate  leader. 

Much  as  he  is  underrated  by  some  South- 
ern men  who  opposed  him  during  the  war,  he 
was  fitted  to  be  the  leader  of  just  such  a  re- 
volt. Every  revolution  has  a  fabulous  or  act- 
ual hero  conformable  to  the  local  situation, 
manners,  and  character  of  the  people  who 
rise.  To  a  rustic  people  like  the  Swiss,  Wil- 
liam Tell,  with  his  cross-bow  and  the  apple  : 
to  an  aspiring  race  like  the  Americans,  Wash- 
ington, with  his  sword  and  the  law,  are,  as 
Lamartine  once  said,  the  symbols  standing 
erect  at  the  cradles  of  these  two  distinct 
Liberties !  Jefferson  Davis,  haughty,  self- 
willed,  and  persistent,  full  of  martial  ardor 
and  defiant  eloquence,  was  the  symbol,  both 
in  his  character  and  his  situation,  of  the 
proud,  impulsive,  but  suppressed  ardors  and 
hopes  of  the  Southern  mind. 

His  colleague  in  the  Senate,  Albert  G. 
Brown,  was  still  more  reluctant  to  sever  his 
connection.  He  was,  before  the  Charleston 
Convention,  if  not  openly,  at  least  covertly,  a 
coworker  with  Douglas  and  others  in  striving 
to  preserve  the  unity  of  the  Democratic  party 
and  the  country.  Governor  Brown  was  a 
member  of  the  Confederate  Congress.  He 
was  outspoken  in  his  criticism  of  the  conduct 
of  the  Confederate  authorities.  He  had  not 
much  heart  or  faith  in  the  secession  move- 
ment. He  was  overshadowed  as  a  Senator 


by  Mr.  Davis ;  but  he  was  far  more  ap- 
proachable in  his  relations  towards  other 
members.  Time  has  mellowed  many  of  the 
men  who  then,  to  an  angry  North,  seemed 
so  intensely  vindictive.  Governor  Brown, 
since  the  war,  frequently  acted  with  those 
who  sought  reconciliation,  and  sometimes 
adversely  to  his  own  party. 

But  by  far  the  most  truculent  Senator 
from  the  South  was  Louis  T.  Wigfall,  of 
Texas.  He  was  a  man  of  scarred  face  and 
fierce  aspect,  but  with  rare  gifts  of  oratory. 
He  was  bitter  at  times,  as  well  as  classical, 
in  his  denunciations.  Yet  much  of  his  strong 
talk  and  eccentric  conduct  was  more  than 
compensated  for  by  great  and  generous  qual- 
ities of  heart.  Many  years  after  the  war  he 
settled  in  Baltimore,  but  he  did  not  long 
survive  his  removal  north.  Next  to  him  in 
truculency,  though  not  in  sociality,  was  Al- 
fred Iverson,  of  Georgia.  He  was  outspok- 
en and  bold  for  the  sudden  disruption  of  the 
Union.  Perhaps  no  other  Senator  would 
have  used  such  significant  language  as  he  did 
in  the  fierce  debate  which  took  place  on 
December  3d,  1860.  He  charged  that  the 
secession  of  Texas  was  clogged  by  the  gov- 
ernor of  that  State,  Houston,  and  said, 
with  impetuous  and  vindictive  utterance, 
that  if  that  official  did  not  yield  to  public 
sentiment,  "some  Texan  Brutus  will  arise 
to  rid  his  country  of  the  hoary-headed  in- 
cubus." 

Other  Senators  were  truculent;  but  most 
of  those  from  the  South  were  sad  at  the 
terrible  consequences  of  separation.  Not 
so  Senator  Iverson.  He  echoed  the  speech 
of  the  Texan  Senator,  Wigfall:  "Seize  the 
forts  and  cry,  'To  your  tents,  O  Israel!'" 
The  colleague  of  the  latter,  Robert  Toombs, 
was  far  more  amenable  to  reason  than  his 
rough  manner  and  boisterous  logic  indicated. 
He  was  a  man  of  commanding  person,  re- 
minding one  of  Mirabeau.  Bating  his  broad 
Africanese  dialect,  he  was  fiercely  eloquent 
in  the  epigrammatic  force  of  his  expression. 

The  Virginia  Senators  ranked  among  the 
foremost  in  the  movement.  Much  was  ex- 
pected from  the  moderation  of  Robert  M.  T. 
Hunter,  but  he  did  little  to  stay  the  revolu- 


1885.] 


The  Thirty-Fifth  and  Thirty-Sixth   Congresses. 


301 


tion.  Little  was  expected  of  James  M.  Ma- 
son, and  he  did  less.  The  former  was  a 
calm,  phlegmatic  reasoner;  the  latter  had  a 
defiant  and  autocratic  demeanor,  that  con- 
ciliated no  one.  Both  were  imbued  with 
the  ideas  of  the  ultra  Calhoun  school. 

Louisiana  was  represented  in  the  Senate 
by  John  Slidell  and  Judah  P.  Benjamin.  Mr. 
Slidell  was  a  man  of  social  prominence  and 
wealth.  He  was  as  cunning  in  his  methods 
as  he  was  inveterate  in  his  prejudices.  He 
combined  the  fox  with  some  other  strange 
elements.  The  writer  heard  his  savage  and 
sneering  threat  to  destroy  the  commerce  of 
the  North  by  privateers.  As  he  delivered  it, 
his  manner  was  that  of  Mephistopheles,  in 
one  of  his  humors  over  some  choice  antici- 
pated deviltry.  But  who  shall  picture  the 
bland,  plausible,  and  silver-tongued  Judah 
P.  Benjamin  ?  His  farewell  speech  was  as 
full  of  historic  reference  as  of  musical  and 
regretful  cadences.  As  he  bade  adieu  to 
the  old  Union,  he  drew  from  the  spectators 
many  plaudits  for  his  rhetoric,  which  he 
could  not  evoke  for  his  logic. 

Next  to  him  in  the  suavity  of  his  manner,  if 
not  in  the  cogency  of  his  speech,  was  Clement 
C.  Clay,  of  Alabama.  He  voluntarily  surren- 
dered after  the  war,  and  is  now  dead.  He  had 
a  graceful  bearing  ;  and  although  never  very 
hale  in  health,  was  ever  ready  to  assume  his 
role  in  the  daring  drama.  The  other  Sena- 
tor from  Alabama,  Benjamin  Fitzpatrick, 
was  a  model  of  senatorial  frankness.  His 
name  is  seldom  mentioned  since  the  war. 
He  was  nominated  in  1860  on  the  ticket 
with  Douglas  at  Baltimore.  But  for  the  in- 
cessant importunity,  if  not  threats,  of  South- 
ern men  who  thronged  his  room  to  shake 
his  determination,  he  would  have  stood  by 
the  Northern  Democracy  in  its  struggle. 

The  other  Senators  from  the  South  did 
not  then  play  very  prominent  parts  on  the 
congressional  stage.  Thomas  L.  Clingman, 
of  North  Carolina,  was  expected  to  fight  the 
Union  battle,  but  he  failed  at  the  critical 
time.  He  had  large  experience  in  congres- 
sional life,  but  just  elevated  to  the  Senate,  he 
rather  pursued  what  he  believed  was  the 
popular  doctrine.  The  Senators  from  Del- 


aware, the  elder  Bayard  and  Willard  Sauls- 
bury,  were  able  men.  The  former  was  a  log- 
ical thinker,  accomplished  in  constitutional 
law.  He  was  a  believer  in  the  unforced  as- 
sociation of  the  States.  He  retired  from  his 
place  disgusted  with  that  public  opinion 
which  would  not  allow  free  speech  as  a  means 
to  restrain  usurpation  and  conclude  the  war. 
He  was  succeeded  by  his  son,  than  whom  no 
abler  Senator  has  appeared  to  contend  for 
public  or  personal  honesty  and  liberty.  The 
Senators  from  South  Carolina  did  not  appear 
at  the  last  session  of  that  Congress.  Although 
that  State  did  not  pass  her  ordinance  until 
the  lyth  of  December,  her  Senators  resigned 
on  the  preceding  loth. 

Alfred  O.  P.  Nicholson,  Senator  from 
Tennessee,  was  no  speaker ;  he  did  not 
make  his  mark;  he  had  been,  however,  a 
successful  editor.  The  other  Senator,  An- 
drew Johnson,  made  his  mark.  Although 
he  had  fought  the  battle  in  Tennessee  for 
Breckenridge  against  both  Bell  and  Doug- 
las, he  came  to  the  closing  session  as  if  he 
were  novus  homo.  He  had  great  will  and 
tenacity  of  purpose ;  his  efforts  were  vigo- 
rous and  effective  in  repelling,  from  a  South- 
ern standpoint,  the  aggressive  debate  of  the 
secessionists  of  the  Senate.  His  elocution  was 
more  forcible  than  fine — more  discursive 
than  elegant.  He  hammered  away  with 
stalwart  strength  upon  his  thought,  until  he 
brought  it  into  shape.  He  rarely  failed  to 
produce  the  impression  he  intended.  It  was 
seen,  then,  that  he  was  destined  to  act  a  great 
part  in  the  future.  Douglas  frequently  ex- 
pressed his  regret  that  Mr.  Johnson  had  not 
made  his  blows  tell  earlier  in  the  hot  conflict 
of  1860,  when  Crittenden  and  himself  were 
championing  the  interests  of  all  sections, 
and  striving  to  avert  in  time  the  calamities 
which  were  pressed  by  extremists,  North  and 
South. 

The  Senators  from  Maryland,  as  from 
Kentucky,  like  their  States,  occupied  middle 
ground,  and  were  ever  ready  and  eager  to 
mediate.  The  same  cannot  be  said  for  Ar- 
kansas. One  of  her  Senators,  Mr.  Sebastian, 
was  reluctant  to  follow  South  Carolina.  He 
did  not  follow  his  own  State,  yet  he  would 


302 


The  Thirty-Fifth  and  Thirty-Sixth   Congresses. 


[Sept. 


not  go  against  her.  He  stayed  at  home  qui- 
etly during  the  war.  He  was  expelled  from 
the  Senate.  He  died  in  1865.  The  expul- 
sion was  revoked,  and  his  full  salary  up  to 
that  time  was  paid  to  his  family.  The  other 
Senator  from  Arkansas,  Mr.  Johnson,  was 
nothing  loath  to  secede.  He  offered  him- 
self, after  the  war,  to  the  authorities,  in  a 
characteristic  letter,  frank  and  manly.  Of 
the  Missouri  Senators,  Mr.  Polk  went  South, 
where  his  friends  did  not  expect  him  to  go  ; 
and  Mr.  Green,  unexpectedly,  remained 
North  in  the  seclusion  of  private  life.  The 
former  had  been  governor  of  his  State,  but 
was  not  otherwise  greatly  distinguished.  The 
latter  was  a  worthy  foeman  of  Douglas  in  the 
fierce  struggle  on  the  Lecompton  question. 

IT  was  not  out  of  any  regard  for  slavery 
as  an  institution,  that  the  friends  of  peace 
and  Union  offered  to  amend  the  Constitu- 
tion in  the  mode  proposed  by  Mr.  Critten- 
den.  The  purpose  of  those  who  favored 
such  an  amendment  was  to  eliminate  from 
national  discussion  all  questions  relating  to 
slavery.  They  desired  to  leave  that  decay- 
ing institution  to  exhaust  its  vitality  in  a  nat- 
ural death.  They  were  content,  as  a  famous 
Ohio  platform  said,  to  live  in  the  hope  of 
its  ultimate  extinction.  Being  incompatible 
with  the  enlightening  influences  of  a  progres- 
sive age,  it  could  not  long  survive.  Its  death 
being  a  question  of  a  few  years,  or  at  most  a 
generation,  was  it  not  wise  statesmanship  to 
seek  to  avoid  a  conflict  that  might  dismem- 
ber the  Union  ?  Such  a  conflict  must  im- 
brue the  whole  land  in  blood,  and  certainly 
maintain,  if  not  generate,  sectional  animosi- 
ties both  bitter  and  lasting. 

The  conflict  of  arms  was  far  from  being  ir- 
repressible, whatever  might  be  the  character 
of  the  moral  conflict  between  the  spirit  of  lib- 
erty and  slavery.  And  even  after  the  con- 
flict had  commenced,  its  continuance  was 
not,  at  any  time,  an  absolute  necessity  for  ac- 
complishing a  peace  with  union — if  slavery 
would  be  left  where  for  seventy-five  years  of 
constitutional  government  it  had  existed, 


namely,  as  a  State  institution — a  domestic  re- 
lation. These  are  the  views  which  actuated 
the  Democracy  of  the  North  in  accepting 
the  Crittenden  proposition.  They  sought, 
above  all  things,  to  avert  a  war  of  sections. 
It  became  a  capital  tenet  of  Democratic  faith 
that  war  could  be  avoided,  and,  after  the 
war  came,  that  peace  and  union  were  at  all 
times  within  reach,  on  terms  of  compromise 
honorable  and  equitable  to  both  sections.  It 
is  in  this  light  that  the  course  of  the  North- 
ern Democrats  is  to  be  judged,  preceding  and 
during  the  secession  war.  They  would  shed 
no  blood,  either  to  maintain  or  to  destroy  the 
institution  of  slavery  ;  but  all  that  they  had 
would  be  freely  given  to  maintain  the  Union, 
and  the  supremacy  of  the  constitution  of 
their  fathers.  They  ask  no  special  credit 
for  destroying  slavery — the  war  effectually 
did  that ;  and  they  were  not  aloof  from  its 
perils.  They  scorn  the  charge  that  they  de- 
sired to  maintain  it  as  an  institution.  They 
wanted  slavery  to  die  in  peace,  rather  than  in 
war.  The  idea  of  a  temporary  sacrifice  to 
slavery,  with  a  view  of  maintaining  the  Union, 
was  always  paramount  in  the  Democratic 
councils.  It  would  be  waste  and  excess  to 
detail  the  acts  of  the  factions  which  precipi- 
tated the  whole  people  into  a  state  of  war. 
It  is  sufficient  to  say  that  war  was  forced  upon 
the  country,  while  the  great  mass  of  the  peo- 
ple desired  peace.  Is  evidence  required  on 
this  point  ?  Let  the  letter  of  General  Grant 
—just  published — dated  Galena,  April  ipth, 
1 86 1,  speak  the  sentiments  of  the  party  of 
which  he  was  then  a  member.  After  refer- 
ring to  the  reprehensible  conduct  of  the 
States  in  so  prematurely  seceding,  he  says  : 
"  In  all  this  I  can  but  see  the  doom  of  slav- 
ery. The  North  does  not  want,  nor  will  they 
want,  to  interfere  with  the  institution,  but 
they  will  refuse  for  all  time  to  give  it  protec- 
tion, unless  the  South  shall  return  soon  to 
their  allegiance."  The  Democratic  party  felt 
that  each  age  would  work  out  its  own  re- 
forms ;  and  that  those  which  come  according 
to  general  desire  are  the  best  and  most  en- 
during. 

S.  S.  Cox. 


1885.]  That  Second  Mate.  303 


THAT  SECOND  MATE. 

OUT  from  the  mouth  of  Fuca's  strait, 

Into  the  dark  and  stormy  night — 
Deck  in  charge  of  the  second  mate — 

We  bade  good-by  to  Flattery  Light. 

Mate  in  "  brief  authority  "  dressed, 

Hark  !  do  you  hear  him  haze  the  crew  ? 

Angels'  tears  would  suit  him  best ; 
Cowardly  cur,  I  warrant  you. 

Grim  and  stark,  with  the  hoarsest  voice ; 

Curse  or  blow  for  the  merest  thing; 
I  wonder  that  our  Captain's  choice 

Gave  such  a  brute  his  petty  swing. 

Captain  Morse,  of  the  kindest  face, 
Coolest  head,  and  the  warmest  heart, 

Highest  type  of  the  sailor  race — 
How  can  he  take  that  bully's  part? 

Musing  thus  as  I  pace  the  deck, 

Plunged  the  boat  in  the  rising  sea — 

Crash  !  and  we  lie  a  helpless  wreck 
Decks  wave-swept  and  the  rocks  alee. 

Shaft  has  snapped  in  the  starboard-box  ! 

Wheel  still  hangs  by  the  broken  end ! 
God !  do  you  feel  those  dreadful  shocks  ? 

That  mass  of  iron  the  bilge  will  rend. 

Above  the  roar  of  wind  and  wave, 

O'er  the  cries  of  the  frightened  throng, 

Rings  the  voice  of  the  Captain  brave, 
All  cool  and  steady,  clear  and  strong : 

"Fill  with  water  the  starboard  boats — 

She  won't  capsize  if  the  great  wheel  drops. 
Don't  give  up  while  the  old  ship  floats; 

Fetch  a  scope  of  chain,  and  good,  stout  stops. 


304  That  Second  Mate.  [Sept. 

"  Cut  a  hole  in  the  paddle-box ; 

Bend  a  line  to  that  cable  ring; 
Quick!  with  your  strongest  tackle  blocks 
Which  of  you  dares  secure  that  thing?" 

"Whoever  wants  to  go  to  hell, 

Follow  me ! "  cries  that  brutal  mate. 
Just  as  sure  as  I'm  here  to  tell, 
There  was  not  one  to  hesitate  ! 

"  Two  are  enough  ! "  the  Captain  cries — 

All  of  the  crew  would  follow  him ; 

This  ship  is  saved,  or  a  hero  dies — 

Christ !  what  a  sea  she  wallows  in. 

Into  that  plunging  wheel  they  go, 

Climbing  over  the  slippery  arms; 
Churned  by  the  surges  to  and  fro, 

Threatened  each  step  with  direst  harms. 

Instant  death  if  the  great  wheel  drops ! 

Certain  death  if  they  lose  their  hold  ! 
Death  is  the  only  thing  can  stop 

The  way  of  men  thus  truly  bold. 

Ages,  it  seems,  with  choking  throats, 
We  stand  and  watch  the  seething  brine. 

Hurrah  !  o'er  the  mossy  paddle-floats 

Stagger  the  mfin ;  they've  passed  the  line ! 

"Reeve  the  chain,  and  snug  and  taut; 

Lash  the  wheel  to  the  steamer's  side. 
Cheer  my  hearties !  the  fight  is  fought ; 
Under  sail  she  will  safely  ride." 

Wonderful  how  that  mate  can  change, 

Seen  from  a  different  point  of  view  ! 
Captain's  choice  doesn't  seem  so  strange; 

Judge  of  men !  and  a  good  one,  too  ! 

Second  mate  was  born  to  command, 

Regular  sailor,  truck  to  keel ; 
Rough  of  speech,  and  of  heavy  hand, 

But  heart  as  true  as  the  finest  steel. 

George   Chismore. 


1885.] 


You  Set. 


305 


YOU   BET. 


How  still  it  is  ;  how  little  stir;  how  devoid 
of  life  these  crater-like  basins,  with  their 
rocky  bottoms  and  their  steep  walls  of  red 
earth,  where  once  stood  the  busy  town  of 
You  Bet.  We  know  it  was  You  Bet,  because 
the  name  still  adheres  to  the  few  buildings 
left  on  the  bluff  that  divides  these  basins, 
and  because  there  are  traditions  of  its  having 
once  stood  here.  It  is,  or  rather  was,  one 
of  a  series  of  hamlets  standing  over  the 
"  Dead  Rivers  "  that  traverse  the  several  di- 
vides between  the  North  Fork,  Bear  River, 
Steep  Hollow,  and  Greenhorn  Canon,  being 
the  central  one  of  the  group.  Looking 
south,  it  has  Little  York  and  Gold  Run  on 
that  side,  with  Red  Dog  and  Gouge  Eye, 
now  Hunt's  Hill,  on  the  other;  the  most 
widely  separated  of  these  places,  measuring 
in  a  straight  line,  being  not  over  six  miles 
apart.  Following  the  wagon  road,  however, 
in  its  windings  along  the  sides  of  the  inter- 
vening canons,  the  distance  is  more  lhan 
twice  that  much.  As  has  You  Bet,  so  have 
its  neighbors  nearly  all  disappeared,  some  of 
jthem  having  suffered  total  extinction,  and 
this  at  the  hands  of  the  very  men  who  built 
and  named,  and  who  once  occupied  and 
owned  them.  As  the  miners  founded,  so  did 
the  miners  destroy,  these  ancient  towns  — 
the  drinking  saloon,  in  obedience  to  the 
doctrine  of  the  "  survival  of  the  fittest,"  hav- 
ing almost  always  been  the  last  to  succumb. 

From  the  Central  Pacific  railroad,  a  little 
below  Dutch  Flat,  looking  east,  three  or  four 
buildings  can  be  seen  two  miles  off  that 
way,  strongly  outlined,  being  perched  on  the 
crest  of  a  high  ridge,  with  a  precipitous  face 
on  the  west.  This  is  all  that  remains  of 
You  Bet.  The  buildings  here  left  consist  of 
a  store,  a  lodging  house,  a  butcher's  shop, 
and  a  drinking  saloon,  all  modern  structures, 
the  old  town  having  stood  where  now  yawns 
a  -great  hydraulic  pit  more  than  two  hundred 
feet  deep.  The  house  that  hangs  half  way 
over  the  abyss,  liable  to  tumble  into  it  at 
VOL.  VI.— 20. 


any  moment,  is  not  occupied  at  present,  be- 
cause the  last  habitation  so  situated,  when 
it  went  over  the  bank,  was  badly  damaged 
by  the  descent;  moreover,  one  of  the  occu- 
pants was  killed. 

Now,  while  You  Bet  has  been  thus  re- 
duced to  four  buildings  (or,  not  to  wound 
the  pride  of  the  inhabitants,  let  us  call  it 
five),  Little  York,  its  next  neighbor  on  the 
south,  can  boast  of  no  more  than  three. 
When  it  is  stated  that  two  of  these  are  private 
residences,  it  is  inferentially  known  that  the 
third  is  not  devoted  to  use  of  that  kind. 
Red  Dog,  on  the  other  side,  is  represented 
by  a  single  smoke-begrimed  brick  structure, 
once  a  store,  which,  being  fire-proof,  with- 
stood the  conflagration  that  licked  up  the 
rest  of  the  town — the  "  sample  room,"  in  this 
particular  case,  included.  Going  on  two 
miles  further  north  brings  us  to  the  last  of 
these  hamlets  in  that  direction.  But  here 
there  is  so  little  left,  that  we  may  as  well 
write  "  Gouge  Eye  fuif,"  and  go  back.  As 
for  Hunt's  Hill,  the  hill  is  there,  but  it  would 
take  a  very  close  hunt  indeed  to  find  any 
town,  or  even  the  semblance  of  a  town,  there 
or  thereabouts.  At  the  south  end  of  this 
string  of  settlements,  close  to  the  railroad, 
stands  the  better  preserved,  but  almost  equally 
deserted  town  of  Gold  Run,  looking  sixteen 
hundred  feet  down  on  the  North  Fork  of 
the  American  River,  which  here  rolls  a  "  sil- 
ver thread"  of  a  copper  color,  its  waters 
kept  ever  turbid  by  the  slums  from  the  drift 
mines  and  the  river-bed  workings  further  up, 
no  hydraulic  operations  being  now  in  pro- 
gress along  this  stream.  With  the  stoppage 
of  hydraulic  mining,  of  which  a  great  deal 
was  formerly  carried  on  near  by,  the  business 
of  Gold  Run  has  waned  almost  to  the  van- 
ishing point;  and  unless  this  style  of  mining 
shall  soon  be  resumed,  the  place  must  event- 
ually become  the  home  of  a  complete  and 
permanent  desolation. 

Besides  the  five  towns  named  and  stand- 


306 


You  Bet. 


[Sept, 


ing  thus  in  a  row,  there  are  several  others 
scattered  about  in  the  vicinity.  A  walk  of 
ten  minutes  to  the  northwest,  through  the 
chemisal  and  the  manzanita  chaparral,  would 
take  us  to  a  half  score  windowless,  doorless 
cabins,  with  two  or  three  more  pretentious 
but  equally  well  ventilated  tenements,  the 
which  comprise  what  is  left  of  the  ancient 
hamlet  of  Wallupe — this  being  the  American, 
and  of  course,  the  improved,  spelling  of  the 
Spanish  name  Guadalupe.  But,  whether  an 
improvement  or  not,  there  is,  for  this  depart- 
ure from  Spanish  orthography,  such  warrant 
as  precedent  affords ;  as  witness  the  popular 
mode  of  spelling  and  pronouncing  the  words 
Cosumnes  and  Mokelumnes,  so  different 
from  the  original  and  correct  method. 

But  this  misspelling  and  mispronouncing 
of  Spanish  words,  though  bad  enough,  is  not 
so  reprehensible  as  the  displacing  of  a  geo- 
graphical name  altogether,  and  substituting 
therefor  another  less  euphonious  and  appro- 
priate, as  has  been  too  much  the  practice 
with  our  people.  Surely,  Feather  River  was 
no  improvement  on  the  Rio  de  los  Plumas, 
nor  yet  Goat  Island  on  the  Yerba  Buena  of 
the  Spaniards.  Fortunate  was  it,  however, 
that  the  animals  found  feeding  on  this  insu- 
lar rock  were  wild  goats,  and  not  wild  asses, 
else  there  might  have  been  presented  in  the 
beautiful  Bay  of  San  Francisco  the  incon- 
gruity of  the  Island  of  Donkeys  and  the 
Island  of  Angels  standing  in  close  proximity 
to  each  other. 

But  the  town  of  Wallupe  having  so  de- 
parted, and  left  only  its  ghost  behind,  we 
need  not  trouble  ourselves  about  the  name, 
which,  the  reality  being  gone,  must  soon 
come  to  be  dropped  from  the  map,  as  it  has 
already  been  so  nearly  dropped  from  the 
memory  of  mankind.  That  so  much  of  Wal- 
lupe has  been  left,  is  due  to  the  fact  that 
the  mines  here  consisted  mostly  of  ravine 
and  gulch  diggings.  Had  the  place  stood  on 
a  hydraulic  bank,  it  would  have  shared  the 
fate  of  You  Bet,  Little  York,  and  other  of 
its  neighbors. 

Two  miles  to  the  south,  situated  on  a 
commanding  eminence,  surrounded  by  fruit 
trees  and  overshadowed  by  great  pines,  stands 
the  hamlet  of  Chalk  Bluffs.  It  was  once  a 


prosperous  camp,  but  the  mines  in  the  vicin- 
ity having  been  worked  out,  the  people  left — 
just  got  up  and  walked  away,  leaving  their 
flower  beds  and  orchards,  their  cottages  and 
cabins,  as  they  were.  The  flowers  continue 
to  bloom  and  the  vines  cluster  with  grapes  : 
the  apple,  the  pear,  and  the  peach  trees  bear 
abundantly,  though  few  there  are  to  care  for 
them  or  gather  their  fruits,  the  half  dozen  in- 
habitants left  having  no  use  for  more  than  a 
small  portion  of  them.  Though  the  houses 
are  mostly  vacant,  the  fences  about  them  have 
been  kept  up,  so  the  fruit  trees  here  have 
been  protected,  and  do  not,  as  at  Little  York 
and  other  of  these  abandoned  camps,  stand 
out  on  the  common.  Should  the  Pliocene 
deposits  known  to  exist  under  the  high  ridge 
above  Chalk  Bluff,  or  the  hydraulic  gravel 
banks  near  by,  ever  come  to  be  worked,  the 
hamlet  would  be  resurrected  and  become 
probably  a  more  important  mining  center 
than  ever  before.  The  lower  end  of  this 
ridge,  having  been  washed  away  by  the  hy- 
draulic process,  presents  a  high  bank  com- 
posed in  part  of  pipe  clay,  a  material  that 
usually  forms  a  portion  of  the  contents  of 
th»  Dead  River  channels.  This  body  of 
clay  has  through  exposure  to  the  atmosphere 
been  bleached  nearly  white,  hence  the  name 
Chalk  Bluff,  applied  to  it  by  the  miners.  . 
Southwest  of  You  Bet,  five  miles  as  the 
road  runs,  and  two  as  the  crow  flies,  is  lo 
cated  the  still  populous,  and  until  recently, 
rather  prosperous  town  of  Dutch  Flat.  "  Na- 
veled  in  the  woody  hills,"  adorned  with  flow- 
ers and  embowered  in  fruit  and  ornamental 
trees  of  many  kinds,  this  is  one  of  the  most 
pleasant  and  comfortable  places  to  be 
found  in  the  foothills  of  the  Sierra.  It  is 
the  abode  of  schools  and  fraternal  brother- 
hoods, of  delightful  homes  and  a  genial  peo- 
ple. But  there  seems  a  danger  that  this 
town,  so  beautified  and  enriched,  may  be 
destined  to  undergo  a  process  of  slow  decay, 
possibly  to  suffer  early  extinction.  There 
hovers  over  it  the  shadow  of  a  great  disaster. 
There  is  little  to  support  the  considerable 
population  here,  except  the  hydraulic  mines 
in  the  vicinity,  and  since  these  have  been 
enjoined  from  running,  the  prospect  for  the 
inhabitants  is  gloomy  enough.  As  a  last 


1885.] 


You  Bet. 


307 


desperate  resort,  there  has  been  some  talk  of 
digging  up  and  washing  the  gravel  left  in  the 
main  street,  and  under  the  houses  all  along 
it,  for  the  much  gold  it  is  thought  to  contain. 
While  this  ground  would,  no  doubt,  pay  well 
for  handling  it,  it  would  be  a  pity  to  disem- 
bowel the  place  in  this  ruthless  manner ; 
wherefore  such  procedure  is  stoutly  opposed 
by  most  of  the  citizens.  Just  what  fortunes 
may  be  in  reserve  for  Dutch  Flat,  it  would, 
under  the  circumstances,  be  hard  to  di- 
vine. 

And  now,  after  moralizing  a  little,  there 
will  be  an  end  of  this  chapter  on  the  dead 
and  dying  hamlets  that  do  so  abound  along 
this  portion  of  the  gold  belt  of  California.  Not 
at  all  pleasant  is  it  to  sit  as  I  do,  in  this 
grove  of  young  pines,  and  look  out  over  the 
field  of  desolation  so  spread  out  around  me ; 
the  less  so  that  it  was  my  lot  to  have  been 
one  of  the  great  army  of  diggers,  who,  many 
years  ago,  toiled  and  suffered  in  the  placers 
here,  than  which  few  richer  were  ever  found 
in  the  State.  Then  and  now  !  How  hardly 
can  one  realize  that  such  changes  could  have 
taken  place  in  the  comparatively  short  period 
of  thirty  years  !  From  a  solitude  to  a  hive 
of  roaring  industry,  and  back  again  to  a  sol- 
itude, with  only  the  far-off  blue  mountains, 
the  beautiful  wilderness  around,  and  the 
rivers  rolling  as  they  did  of  yore.  And  that 
active,  energetic  army  of  toilers — where  are 
they?  For,  of  a  certainty,  very  few  of  them 
are  to  be  seen  here  or  hereabouts  any  more. 
I  declare  to  you,  Mr.  Editor,  that,  looking 
out  from  this  eminence,  out  over  these  ba- 
sins, with  their  billowy  heaps  of  bqwlders 
glistening  in  the  sun,  and  the  whole  vast 
panorama  in  view,  I  cannot  now  discern  a 
single  human  being.  It  is  a  strange  disap- 
pearance !  But  I  know  where  some  of 
them  are,  and  will  tell  you  a  little  further  on ; 
for,  anticipating  what  thought  is  uppermost 
in  the  mind  of  the  reader,  I  may  as  well  stop 
here,  and  make  for  these  uncouth  names  such 
apology  as  best  as  I  can,  since  it  must  be  ad- 
mitted that  some  of  them  are  decidedly  odd, 
and,  in  a  few  instances,  even  carry  about 
them  an  odor  of  vulgarity. 

In  the  first  place,  then,  it  may  be  observed 
that  the  naming  of  towns  and  other  localities 


was  in  these  early  days  generally  the  result 
of  some  unimportant  incident  or  mere  chance, 
and,  being  often  the  work  of  an  individual 
or  company,  did  not  represent  the  views  or 
wishes  of  the  community  at  large,  who  were 
not  at  all  likely  to  be  consulted  in  the  prem- 
ises. Some  miner,  perhaps  a  rough  fellow, 
would,  by  reason  of  some  trivial  everit,  or 
freak  of  fancy,  give  a  name  to  a  place  ;  and, 
no  one  taking  any  interest  in  the  matter,  it 
would  be  suffered  to  stand,  even  though  with- 
out significance,  propriety,  or  even  decency ; 
for  it  may  be  observed  that  the  names  of  the 
towns  above  mentioned  are  respectable  and 
even  classical  compared  with  some  that 
could  once  be  found  on  the  map  of  Califor- 
nia— if,  to  be  sure,  that  would  help  our  case 
any.  As  will  be  seen,  too,  some  amendment 
in  this  particular  is  going  on,  Hunt's  Hill 
having  supplanted  Gouge  Eye,  as  some  bet- 
ter names  might  also  come  to  supplant  Red 
Dog  and  You  Bet,  were  not  these  towns  al- 
ready so  near  death's  door. 

Though  of  unpolished  exterior,  and  some- 
times a  little  boisterous  in  their  convivialities, 
these  pioneer  miners  were  not,  as  a  class, 
men  of  depraved  tastes  or  vicious  habits. 
This  would,  in  fact,  be  inferred  from  what 
Bret  Harte  has  told  us  about  them,  in  his 
story  of  "  The  Outcasts  of  Poker  Flat."  We 
have  it  on  the  authority  of  the  great  humor- 
ist, that  the  inhabitants  of  that  camp  arose  as 
one  man  and  drove  the  gamblers  and  other 
ungodly  characters  out  of  the  place,  threat- 
ening them  with  dire  punishment  should  they 
dare  to  return.  What  more  could  the  most 
puritanic  church-goer,  or  even  the  witch-burn- 
ers, in  their  day,  have  done  than  this  ?  And 
is  it  to  be  supposed  that  the  denizens  of 
Red  Dog,  You  Bet,  and  Gouge  Eye  were  less 
zealous  in  the  cause  of  evangelical  religion 
and  good  morals  than  these  Poker-Flat- 
ters ?  We  should  say  not;  and,  although  the 
writer  cannot  vouch  for  the  fact,  it  is  to  be 
presumed  that  these  good  people,  in  the  ab- 
sence of  theaters,  prize  fights,  and  horse 
races,  and  having  no  facilities  for  picnics  and 
balls,  did  every  Sabbath  attend  regular  preach- 
ing, and  encourage  by  their  presence  the 
edifying  Sunday  school  and  prayer-meeting. 
If  the  writer  cannot  recall  these  precious  oc- 


308 


You  Bet. 


[Sept. 


casions,  it  does  not  follow  that  they  did  not 
occur;  and  if  the  days  of  such  unregenerate 
person  have  been  extended  beyond  those 
vouchsafed  these  devout  people,  such  pres- 
ervation is  not  to  be  attributed  to  his  supe- 
rior piety,  but  rather,  perhaps,  to  the  anti- 
septic properties  of  sin. 

But  dismissing  this  question  of  religion 
and  morals,  let  me  redeem  now  my  promise 
to  tell  you  where  some  of  the  men  who  took 
part  in  the  stirring  scenes  here  once  enacted 
are  now  to  be  found.  Over  against  the 
knoll  where  I  sit  is  another,  of  gentle  accliv- 
ity, and,  like  this,  covered  with  a  growth  of 
thrifty  young  pines.  There  on  that  knoll  is 
the  ancient  necropolis  of  You  Bet  and  the 
camps  around,  and  there  within  its  precincts 
have  been  gathered  many  of  the  early  inhab- 
itants of  these  pioneer  towns.  Though  the 
hues  of  ruin  have  crept  over  the  place,  the 
ground  itself,  as  is  almost  everywhere  the 
case  with  these  old  graveyards,  remains  in- 
tact. You  will  say  it  is  to  the  credit  of  the 
miners  that  these  homes  of  the  dead  have 
been  so  generally  respected.  Not  especially 
so.  In  looking  for  a  spot  for  sepulture,  the 
early  miner  was  apt  to  select  some  rocky 
ridge  or  knoll  which  stood  apart  from  the 
diggings,  and  which,  being  supposed  to  con- 
tain little  or  no  gold,  he  had  reason  to  think 
would  never  be  disturbed.  Had  it  ever  been 
found  that  they  contained  pay  dirt,  these 
consecrated  grounds  would  have  been  at- 
tacked and  run  off  to  bed-rock  long  ago. 

But,  while  the  land  has  been  so  spared 
by  the  remorseless  gold-seeker,  time  has  not 
been  equally  lenient  with  the  tombs  them- 
selves, which,  with  no  one  to  care  for  them, 
have,  during  these  long  years,  been  slowly 
yielding  to  decay.  The  place  presents,  in 
fact,  a  sadly  neglected  appearance.  The  most 
of  the  low  mounds  have  been  leveled  with 
the  earth;  the  palings  about  them  have  fallen 
off,  and  the  exterior  inclosure  is  nearly  all 
gone.  The  head-boards,  where  any  are  left, 
lean  at  all  angles,  or  have  tumbled  to  the 
ground,  so  bleached  and  weathered  that  the 
inscriptions  upon  them  can  no  longer  be  deci- 
phered; but  it  matters  not,  for  few  will  ever 
come  seeking  to  read  or  replace  them.  Nor 
does  it  matter  that  the  wild  vines  and  the 


brambles  grow  thick  over  these  graves.  They 
who  tenant  them  are  mostly  forgotten  now. 
There  were  those  who,  years  agone,  thought 
of  them  perpetually,  and  longed  for  their  pres- 
ence in  their  old  homes.  But  they  wished 
and  waited  in  vain,  for  neither  the  lost  ones 
nor  note  nor  tidings  of  them  came,  or  ever 
will  come,  any  more.  The  names  of  more 
than  a  few  who  sleep  in  this  field  of  graves 
we  do  not  know,  nor  whence  they  came,  nor 
how  they  died.  There  are  representatives 
here  of  every  country  on  the  face  of  the 
earth :  the  households  that  have  been  deso- 
lated by  their  absence  are  in  all  lands.  As 
they  were  mostly  young  men,  none  of  them 
very  old,  their  loss  was  the  more  keenly  felt. 
They  were  husbands  and  fathers,  leaving 
wives  and  children  behind;  they  were  sons, 
who  could  not  well  be  spared  from  home; 
they  were  tenderly  reared  youth,  who  should 
never  have  been  suffered  to  go  out  on  this 
rough  and  perilous  life ;  and  some  there  were 
who  had  other  ties  than  those  of  kindred — 
the  betrothed  left  behind  suffering  often  most 
of  all. 

As  I  stood  once,  years  ago,  on  the  vacant 
site  of  Sutler's  Mill,  filled  with  the  thoughts 
and  emotions  such  locality  was  calculated  to 
inspire,  there  came  along  a  man  of  venerable 
appearance,  who,  accosting,  entered  into  con- 
versation with  me.  After  talking  a  little,  and 
alluding  to  the  great  gold  discovery  at  that 
place,  I  went  on  to  say  something  about  the 
propriety  of  having  erected  "on  the  spot  a 
monument  to  perpetuate  that  memorable 
event.  "Yes,"  said  the  old  man,  after  lis- 
tening for  a  time  to  my  talk,  "  by  all  means 
let  a  monument  be  erected  here;  let  its 
foundations  be  laid  broad  and  deep,  that  it 
may  last  for  all  time,  and  let  the  superstruc- 
ture be  built  of  death-heads  and  cross-bones 
gathered  from  the  nameless  graves  of  the 
innumerable  victims  who  have  perished  far 
from  their  homes,  miserable  and  alone,  in 
these  accursed  gold  fields  of  California": 
and  the  old  man's  speech  took  much  of  the 
frothy  sentiment  out  of  me. 

Very  aptly,  O  California,  has  the  artist 
pictured  thee  as  a  comely  maiden,  presenting 
rich  gifts  with  one  hand,  and  grasping  a 
scourge  of  thorns  with  the  other. 

Henry  DeGroot. 


1885.]  Helen  Hunt  Jackson.  309 


HELEN  HUNT  JACKSON. 

("H.  H.") 

WHAT  songs  found  voice  upon  those  lips, 

What  magic  dwelt  within  the  pen, 
Whose  music  into  silence  slips — 

Whose  spell  lives  not  again! 

For  her  the  clamorous  today 

The  dreamful  yesterday  became  ; 
The  brands  upon  dead  hearths  that  lay 

Leaped  into  living  flame.   .  .  . 

Clear  ring  the  silvery  Mission  bells 

Their  calls  to  vesper  and  to  mass  ; 
O'er  vineyard  slopes,  thro'  fruited  dells, 

The  long  processions  pass ; 

The  pale  Franciscan  lifts  in  air 

The  Cross,  above  the  kneeling  throng; 
Their  simple  world  how  sweet  with  pray'r, 

With  chant  and  matin-song  ! 

There,  with  her  dimpled,  lifted  hands, 

Parting  the  mustard's  golden  plumes, 
The  dusky  maid,  Ramona,  stands 

Amid  the  sea  of  blooms. 

And  Alessandro,  type  of  all 

His  broken  tribe,  forevermore 
An  exile,  hears  the  stranger  call 

Within  his  father's  door. 

The  visions  vanish  and  are  not, 

Still  are  the  sounds  of  peace  and  strife, 
Passed  with  the  earnest  heart  and  thought 

Which  lured  them  back  to  life. 

O,  sunset  land  !     O,  land  of  vine, 

And  rose,  and  bay !  in  silence  here 
Let  fall  one  little  leaf  of  thine, 

With  love,  upon  her  bier. 

Ina  D.   Coolbrith. 


310 


Last  Days  of  Mrs.  Helen  Hunt  Jackson. 


[Sept. 


LAST    DAYS   OF    MRS.    HELEN    HUNT   JACKSON. 


IN  view  of  the  wide-spread  interest  in  Mrs. 
Helen  Hunt  Jackson,  and  the  affectionate  re- 
gard in  which  she  is  held  throughout  the 
country,  it  seems  fitting  that  some  message 
of  sympathy  and  of  consolation  should  be 
sent  out  from  the  place  which  saw  the  last  of 
her  loyal,  self-abnegating  life. 

I  had  first  known  "H.  H."  through  the 
medium  of  her  early  books,  conceiving  a 
girl's  enthusiastic  admiration  for  the  bright, 
womanly  character  I  saw  revealed,  and  after- 
wards, in  Colorado,  had  been  pleasantly  sur- 
prised by  meeting  her  during  the  early  days  of 
her  sojourn  at  Colorado  Springs,  and  forming 
her  personal  acquaintance.  I  remember  her 
at  that  time  as  a  charming,  brown-haired 
woman,  with  thoughtful  blue  eyes,  frank  of 
speech,  with  a  merry  laugh,  and  a  warm 
heart  for  those  she  liked.  I  learned  then 
something  of  the  circumstances  of  her  life  : 
that  she  was  a  daughter  of  Professor  Fiske, 
of  Amherst,  and  the  widow  of  a  brother  of 
ex-Governor  Hunt,  of  Colorado;  and  that 
her  literary  work  had  been  an  afterthought 
in  life,  taken  up  to  occupy  and  distract  her 
mind  after  the  loss  of  her  husband  and  two 
little  children.  Having  been  reared  in  the 
literary  atmosphere  of  an  Eastern  college 
town,  receiving  a  thorough  education,  and 
being  familiar  with  books  from  her  early 
childhood,  beginning  to  write  only  after  she 
had  reached  mature  years,  the  first  produc- 
tions associated  with  her  name  show  none  of 
the  crudity  usual  to  young  writers.  She  took 
her  stand  in  the  field  of  letters  full-grown, 
like  a  literary  Minerva,  and  her  subsequent 
history  in  her  chosen  field  has  been  a  con- 
tinuous record  of  success. 

A  year  or  more  aftei  our  first  meeting  she 
became  the  wife  of  Wm.  S.  Jackson,  of  Color- 
ado, a  refined  and  noble-hearted  gentleman. 

Our  paths  separated,  and  several  years  in- 
tervened before  I  saw  her  again.  Our  next 
meeting  was  in  Los  Angeles,  and  I  was  im- 
pressed by  the  change  that  had  taken  place 


in  her  appearance.  The  winsome,  blue-eyed 
woman  was  gone.  Years  of  high  thought,  of 
deep  study,  and  earnest  purpose  had  dignified 
and  ennobled  her  face,  and  the  whitening  hair 
which  crowned  her  broad  forehead  invested 
her  with  a  regal  air,  which  was  borne  out  by 
her  perfect  self-poise  and  commanding  de- 
cision. This  was  at  the  time  of  her  greatest 
activity,  when  she  prosecuted  her  work  with 
unresting  energy ;  when  every  number  of  the 
"  Century  "  revealed  some  new  token  of  her 
industry  and  zeal,  and  she  was  garnering 
richer  material,  to  be  afterwards  resolved  into 
the  novel  of  "  Ramona,"  which  may  be  re- 
garded as  the  crowning  success  of  her  life. 

Again,  several  months  ago,  after  another 
lapse  of  years,  I  was  summoned  to  her  side, 
and  again  the  first  thing  I  remarked  was  the 
subtle  change  that  had  passed  over  her. 
The  dignity  and  nobility  were  still  there,  but 
my  gentle  blue-eyed  woman,  with  her  merry 
laugh,  had  come  back,  and  over  all  brooded 
another  ineffable  look,  the  gentle  solemnity 
of  a  soul  approaching  the  throne  of  its 
Maker. 

From  that  time  to  the  last,  I  was  with  her 
as  frequently  as  circumstances  would  permit, 
and  it  is  a  pleasure  to  recall  the  most  minute 
details  of  our  intercourse.  My  only  diffi- 
culty in  giving  this  little  account  is  to  deter- 
termine  the  line  which  separates  the  confi- 
dences which  were  purely  personal,  from 
those  which  may  properly  be  given  to  the 
public. 

The  house  in  which  she  spent  the  last 
days  of  her  life  has  a  peculiar  and  attractive 
site.  It  stands  on  the  southeastern  slope  of 
Russian  Hill,  at  the  corner  of  Broadway  and 
Taylor  Streets,  and  the  ground  falls  away  be- 
hind it,  so  that  —  as  she  herself  expressed 
it — she  was  "  on  the  ground  floor,  and  yet 
in  the  second  story  " ;  for  there  is  a  high 
basement  beneath  the  house  in  the  rear. 
The  large  parlors  on  the  first  floor,  with  com- 
fortable adjuncts  of  dressing  rooms,  bath 


1885.] 


Last  Days  of  Mrs.  Helen  Hunt  Jackson. 


311 


etc.,  were  appropriated  for  her  use.  They 
were  tastefully  furnished,  with  a  carpeting  of 
light  olive  tones,  which  the  sunshine  trans- 
formed to  a  dull  gold.  The  paper  on  the 
wall  repeated  the  same  tones  with  a  flash  of 
gilt ;  there  were  dark  wine-colored  hangings 
above  the  windows,  and  the  furniture  in  the 
hack  parlor,  where  she  lay,  was  of  massive 
rosewood.  Tall  windows  face  to  the  south 
and  east,  and  the  eastern  ones,  which  open 
upon  a  narrow  balcony,  command  a  superb 
prospect,  by  reason  of  the  abrupt  descent  of 
the  ground  beyond,  looking  off  across  Tel- 
egraph Hill  and  the  water-front,  over  the 
broad  and  beautiful  bay,  past  Goat  Island, 
with  its  rocky  outlines,  to  where  Oakland 
and  Berkeley  nestle  at  the  base  of  the  pur- 
ple Contra  Costa  hills. 

Mrs.  Jackson  entered  the  room  for  the 
first  time  with  the  preconceived  disfavor  of 
an  invalid,  to  whom  any  change  is  unwelcome. 
Her  first  remark — -"  I  did  not  imagine  it  was 
so  pleasant ! " — was  quickly  followed  by  the 
outspoken  reflection:  "What  a  beautiful 
place  to  die  in  ! " 

Although  far  removed  from  many  whose 
presence  would  have  been  dear,  she  was  ten- 
derly cared  for  to  the  last  by  friends  who 
reckoned  no  sacrifice  too  great  to  gratify  her 
slightest  wish. 

Her  illness  was  a  painless  one,  a  gradual 
prostration  of  all  the  vital  energies,  under 
the  influence  of  a  powerful  and  irresistible 
disease.  Throughout  the  long  and  trying 
ordeal,  neither  her  patience  nor  her  courage 
ever  failed. 

Whenever  the  conversation  turned  upon 
her  ailment,  with  its  mysterious  symptoms 
and  .steady  disorganization  of  the  system, 
baffling  the  physicians'  skill  and  thwarting 
the  well-meant  efforts  of  her  friends,  she  was 
always  first  to  turn  the  subject,  saying  with 
a  reassuring  little  smile,  token  of  the  brave 
spirit's  triumph  over  the  failing  body :  "  Now 
let  us  talk  of  something  more  pleasant ! " 

And  she  would  so  completely  ignore  her 
weak  bodily  condition,  and  enter  into  conver- 
sation with  such  spirit  and  zest,  that  one  for- 
got she  was  an  invalid,  and  was  conscious 
only  of  the  clear,  analytical  mind,  with  its 


flashes  of  humor,  and  of  the  great,  generous 
heart.  Each  effort  her  friends  put  forth  to 
serve  her  met  with  the  most  tender  appreci- 
ation, even  though  it  proved  of  no  avail.  A 
young  lady,  a  stranger  to  Mrs.  Jackson,  who 
understood  her  condition,  had  experience 
in  ministering  to  the  wants  of  an  invalid 
mother,  and  fancied  she  could  tempt  the  in- 
valid's capricious  appetite.  The  tray  of 
dainty  food  she  prepared  with  her  own 
hands,  and  arranged  with  exquisite  taste,  was 
sent  up,  and  returned  almost  untouched,  but 
a  cordial  message  of  thanks  was  sent  to  the 
young  nurse. 

"  Tell  her  it  did  me  ever  so  much  good," 
dictated  the  invalid  to  the  messenger.  "It 
was  beautiful  of  her  to  do  it.  When  the  tray 
was  brought  in  and  put  before  me,  it  was  like 
a  charming  picture.  I  never  saw  anything 
so  pretty." 

It  was  next  to  impossible  to  betray  Mrs. 
Jackson  into  any  discussion  of  her  own  work, 
although  she  conversed  freely  on  the  princi- 
ples and  topics  with  which  she  dealt.  I 
think  it  is  no  exaggeration  to  say  that  she 
not  only  separated  her  individuality  from 
her  literary  productions,  but  she  even  tried 
to  ignore  her  instrumentality.  Her  work 
was  an  impersonal  matter,  prosecuted  for 
the  fulfilment  of  impersonal  ends  and  aims. 

"The  Prince's  Little  Sweetheart,"  one  of 
the  last  sketches  from  her  pen,  published  in 
the  May  number  of  the  "Century,"  was  a 
fanciful  little  tale  which  provoked  wide- 
spread comment  and  discussion.  Oddly 
enough,  its  readers  were  everywhere  divided 
into  two  distinct  classes — one  regarding  it 
as  an  absurd  and  unmeaning  fable,  the  other 
reading  a  deep  meaning  in  the  quaint  story, 
whose  simple  pathos  went  to  their  hearts. 

As  I  started  to  leave  her  after  a  little  after- 
noon call  one  day  early  in  July,  the  story 
somehow  came  into  my  mind,  and  I  said,  a 
little  awkwardly : 

"  Oh,  by  the  way,  Mrs.  Jackson  !  That 
story  of  yours  in  the  May  '  Century.'  I 
wanted  to  tell  you  that  I  understood  it,  and 
liked  it.  It  seems  to  me  to  voice  the  con- 
centrated tragedy  of  young  wifehood." 

"It  is   the  oddest  thing  in  the  world— 


312 


Last  Days  of  Mrs.  Helen  Hunt  Jackson. 


[Sept. 


about  that  story,"  she  earnestly  rejoined. 
"  I  believe  I  have  never  in  my  life  written 
anything  of  which  I  have  heard  so  much. 
Letters  have  been  pouring  in  upon  me  ever 
since.  Some  beg  me  to  explain  its  meaning, 
and  others  thank  me  for  it.  I  have  just  re- 
ceived a  letter  from  Miss  —  ' — mention- 
ing a  famous  writer  in  the  East — "  and  she 
declares  that  it  is  the  best  thing  I  have  ever 
written.  Now  the  truth  of  the  whole  mat- 
ter is,  that  story  was  a  dream." 

"A  dream?" 

"Yes,  a  dream.  It  occurred  after  my  ac- 
cident last  year,  and  in  my  own  house  at 
Colorado  Springs.  I  dreamed  it  all  out, 
every  detail,  just  as  I  afterwards  wrote  it. 
And  the  strange  part  of  it  was,  that  when  I 
woke  up  I  saw  the  little  sweetheart  standing 
before  me  in  her  homely  brown  gown  and 
with  her  pitiful  little  face,  as  plainly  as  I  see 
you  at  this  moment.  But  while  I  looked  at 
her,  she  faded  away  and  was  gone.  It  was 
the  most  singular  experience  I  ever  had  in 
my  life." 

"  Nevertheless,  I  shall  never  see  a  neglect- 
ed wife  as  long  as  I  live,  without  thinking  of 
the  Prince's  little  sweetheart,  in  her  coarse 
brown  dress  and  with  her  odd  slipper — " 

"Sweeping  spiders  !  "  supplied  Mrs.  Jack- 
son, with  a  merry  little  laugh  at  my  serious 
face. 

"  Yes,  sweeping  spiders." 

Words  which  are  lightly  spoken  sometimes 
attain  a  deep  significance  when  the  lips  which 
have  uttered  them  are  stilled ;  and  the  feeling 
grows  upon  me  that  this  dear  friend  has 
charged  me  with  a  message  to  my  co-workers 
in  this  State. 

In  our  conversations  together,  she  repeat- 
edly reverted  to  the  careless  methods  pre- 
vailing among  California  writers,  deploring 
the  fault,  where  it  was  the  result  of  necessity, 
and  giving  it  her  unmeasured  condemnation, 
wherever  it  was  born  of  indolence  or  indif- 
ference. 

"  The  trouble  is,  that  you  have  no  stan- 
dard," she  was  accustomed  to  assert.  "  With 
a  few  exceptions,  California  writers  do  their 
work  in  a  careless,  slovenly  fashion,  which  is 
a  disgrace  to  literature.  They  are  provin- 


cial, and  will  remain  so  until  they  lift  them- 
selves above  the  level  of  local  work,  and  try 
to  meet  the  highest  exactions  of  the  best 
standards  elsewhere.  Have  you  ever  tested 
the  advantages  of  an  analytical  reading  of 
some  writer  of  finished  style  ? "  she  asked 
abruptly. 

I  told  her  that  I  had  made  random  studies 
of  Thoreau  and  Richard  Grant  White,  and 
occasionally  of  Howells,  Aldrich,  and  other 
leading  authors,  whose  work  impressed  me 
as  characterized  by  particular  refinement 
and  good  taste — among  whom  I  might  have 
included  "  H.  H."  herself.  In  short,  that 
whenever  I  had  been  in  doubt  as  to  the  pro- 
priety of  an  expression,  the  construction  of 
a  sentence,  or  a  question  of  punctuation,  and 
had  the  time  to  spare,  I  was  in  the  habit 
of  taking  up  the  "  Atlantic,"  and  studying 
page  after  page,  until  my  own  judgment  was 
confirmed  or  reversed. 

"That  is  a  good  plan,"  she  earnestly  re- 
plied, "  but  I  will  tell  you  of  something  that 
is  better.  There  is  a  little  book,  called 
'  Outdoor  Papers,'  by  Wentworth  Higgin- 
son — I  think  it  is  out  of  print — that  is  one 
of  the  most  perfect  specimens  of  literary 
composition  in  the  English  language.  It 
has  been  my  model  for  years.  I  go  to  it  as 
a  text-book,  and  have  actually  spent  hours 
at  a  time,  taking  one  sentence  after  another, 
and  experimenting  upon  them,  trying  to  see 
if  I  could  take  out  a  word,  or  transpose  a 
clause,  and  not  destroy  their  perfection." 

Her  words  caused  me  to  reflect  that  if 
she,  whose  reputation  for  literary  excellence 
and  finish  is  scarcely  surpassed  by  any  con- 
temporary writer,  was  still  so  anxious  to  im- 
prove her  style  as  to  devote  so  much  time 
and  labor  to  hard  study  and  self  criticism, 
how  much  better  might  we,  of  limited  repu- 
tation and  small  experience  in  the  field  of 
letters,  take  kindly  to  the  elementary  train- 
ing of  which  we  stand  in  need. 

"  Never  use  an  obscure  phrase  or  an  un- 
usual word  when  direct  language  or  a  simple 
term  will  express  your  meaning,"  is  a  princi- 
ple I  have  often  heard  her  enjoin. 

Mercilessly  as  she  could  condemn  in  gen- 
eralizations, she  showed  the  most  delicate 


1885.] 


Last  Days  of  Mrs.  Helen  Hunt  Jackson. 


313 


consideration  when  she  made  a  personal  ap- 
plication. She  often  prefaced  some  little 
criticism  of  my  work  with  the  remark  : 

"  Now,  you  won't  mind  if  I  call  your  at- 
tention to  an  expression  here  that  I  don't 
like?  I  don't  find  fault  with  the  thought, 
but  here  is  a  word  that  must  be  changed. 
You  understand  that  this  is  all  a  mere  me- 
chanical matter — just  like  any  other  trade. 
I  have  had  a  little  more  experience  than  you, 
and  am  a  little  better  artisan ;  that  is  all. 
It  is  nothing  but  artisanship." 

"  Oh,  *Mrs.  Jackson  !  Drop  those  three 
extra  syllables,  and  call  it  art." 

"No,  artisanship  !"  she  would  insist  with 
emphasis. 

Notwithstanding  her  open  disapproval  of 
the  average  productions  of  California  writers, 
she  took  a  hearty  interest  in  local  literature. 
Toward  THE  OVERLAND,  especially,  she  dis- 
played the  most  Jcindly  feeling,  manifested 
in  practical  suggestions  as  well  as  contribu- 
tions from  her  pen,  for  she  regarded  the 
magazine  as  an  assertion  of  the  higher  stand- 
ard she  so  earnestly  advocated. 

Toward  the  last  she  often  spoke  of  the  ap- 
proaching change,  and  always  with  the  ut- 
most confidence  and  cheer.  Death  had  no 
terror  for  her  bright  spirit. 

"It  is  only  just  passing  from  one  country 
to  another  ! "  she  sometimes  said  ;  and  once 
she  smilingly  reproached  me  because  I  tried 
to  disprove  her  conviction  that  certain  indi- 
cations pointed  to  a  sure  release  within  a  cer- 
tain definite  space  of  time. 

"  I  had  decided  that  it  would  last  just  so 
many  days  longer,  but  you  have  upset  all  my 
calculations  ! "  she  said  pleasantly.  "  It  is 
very  unkind  of  you.  Now,  I  shall  have  to 
go  back  and  figure  it  all  over  again." 

She  never  said  it  in  so  many  words,  but  1 
knew  that  the  losses  we  had  both  suffered 
formed  a  strong  unspoken  bond  between  us ; 
that  in  the  land  where  she  was  going  there 
were  beautiful  young  faces  that  her  mother 
heart  yearned  after,  and  the  promise  of  re- 
union robbed  death  of  its  sting. 

The  "  Good-bye,  Good-bye,  Good-bye  !"  al- 
ways thrice  repeated,  which  rang  out  after 
me  every  time  I  left  her  this  summer,  told 


its  own  story.  There  was  rlo  time  after  the 
first  of  June  when  she  did  not  feel  a  secret 
conviction  that  the  end  might  come  at  any 
time,  and  that  each  parting  might  be  the 
last.  The  words  sounded  again,  more  fee- 
bly, but  with  the  same  sweet  message  of  af- 
fectionate regard  and  cheer,  on  Saturday, 
the  8th  of  August,  when  we  knew  the 'end 
was  at  hand.  That  night,  after  saying  fare- 
well to  all  about  her,  placing  her  hand  in  her 
husband's,  she  passed  into  a  painless  slum- 
ber, and  four  days  later,  on  the  i2th  of 
August,  as  the  day  waned  here  upon  earth, 
the  bright  day  of  immortality  dawned  for  her. 

Her  last  conscious  acts  were  tender  deeds 
of  helpfulness  for  others;  her  last  thoughts, 
of  self-forgetful  sympathy  for  those  she  left. 
One  little  incident  will  serve  to  illustrate  this 
beautiful  and  tender  phase  of  character  : 

Among  the  numerous  pathetic  instances 
of  misfortune  continually  brought  to  light  in 
our  city,  the  beginning  of  the  summer  re- 
vealed the  needs  of  a  young  woman,  of  hum- 
ble station,  but  with  singular  nobility  and 
purity  of  character,  who  was  not  only  in  ex- 
treme destitution,  abandoned  by  her  hus- 
band, but  had  before  her  the  sore  trial  of 
maternity.  The  case  chanced  to  come  to 
Mrs.  Jackson's  notice,  and  her  ready  sym- 
pathies were  at  once  enlisted.  Unsolicited, 
she  made  a  substantial  contribution  toward 
relieving  the  wants  of  the  young  mother,  and 
followed  her  fortunes  during  succeeding 
weeks  with  the  liveliest  interest  and  solici- 
tude. An  utterance  of  the  poor  woman's, 
wrung  from  her  in  a  moment  of  despairing 
anguish,  was  repeated  to  Mrs.  Jackson,  and 
made  a  deep  impression  upon  her  mind;  for 
she  hoarded  it  in  her  memory,  dwelling  upon 
it  again  and  again,  and  applauding  the  loyal 
spirit  of  motherhood  which  had  prompted  it. 
A  beautiful  little  girl  was  born  to  the  poor 
woman,  and  in  her  love  and  gratitude  to  the 
invalid,  the  mother  bestowed  upon  the  child 
the  name  of  her  benefactress.  This  circum- 
stance never  came  to  Mrs.  Jackson's  knowl- 
edge. She  grew  so  feeble  that  those  about 
her  tried  to  confine  the  conversation  to  light 
and  pleasant  topics ;  but  she  never  forgot. 
I  rarely  saw  her,  when  she  did  not  ask: 


Last  Days  of  Mrs.  Helen  Hunt  Jackson. 


[Sept. 


"Well,  how  is  our  poor  woman  now?" 
and  her  face  would  light  up  when  I  gave  her 
cheerful  news,  always  endeavoring  to  keep 
her  from  thinking,  as  far  as  possible,  of  the 
perplexities  which  loomed  up  in  the  future. 
The  thought  of  the  baby,  the  helpless  little 
creature  who  had  come  into  the  world  so  in- 
auspiciously,  handicapped  by  her  sex,  seemed 
at  times  to  absorb  the  mind  of  the  dying 
woman;  and  on  more  than  one  occasion  she 
said  to  me,  with  a  troubled  look  : 

"  I  cannot  understand  it;  and  oh  !  I  won- 
der, I  wonder  what  her  life  will  be.  How  can 
we  tell,  Mrs.  Apponyi,  that  it  might  not  have 
been  better  if  the  little  thing  had  never  seen 
the  light  ?  I  hope,  I  do  hope,  that  her  life 
may  be  a  blessing." 

And  now  I  come  to  a  little  incident  which 
I  hesitate  to  relate,  for  it  deals  with  that 
shadowy  borderland  between  this  life  and 
eternity,  which  many  seek  to  penetrate,  but 
whose  mysteries  none  have  solved. 

One  of  Mrs.  Jackson's  last  acts  was  to 
designate  various  articles  of  wearing  apparel 
to  be  sent  to  her  needy  protege.  No  one  in 
San  Francisco  mourned  her  loss  more  sin- 
cerely than  this  poor  woman,  who  had  never 
seen  her  face.  When  she  learned,  several 
days  later,  of  the  thoughtful  provision  made 
for  her  by  the  dying,  she  was  touched  and 
pained  beyond  expression.  Crossing  the 
room  to  where  her  little  girl  was  lying  upon 
the  bed,  she  lay  down  beside  her,  calling 
her  by  the  name  which  had  become  invested 
with  sacred  associations,  saying: 

"My  poor  little  daughter!  and  that  dear 
lady  will  never  know  that  you  bear  her  name. 
If  she  could  only  have  known  how  grateful 
I  felt !  Why  didn't  I  take  you  to  the  house 
and  let  them  carry  you  to  her?  I  am  sure 
that  the  sight  of  your  sweet  face  would  have 
done  her  heart  good,  and  made  her  feel  that 
her  kindness  had  not  been  lost.  Now  she 
is  dead,  and  can  never  know." 

Thislittle  woman,  who  is  honest  and  con- 
scientious as  well  as  true-hearted,  and  who  is 
quite  willing  to  attribute  the  whole  experience 
to  some  unconscious  day-dream,  tells  me 
that  at  that  moment  she  felt  the  ^arm,  firm 
pressure  of  another  hand  upon  her  own,  and 


looking  up  saw  a  bright,  womanly  face  bent 
over  her  and  her  child,  which  seemed  to 
say,  with  a  cheery,  reassuring  smile : 

"See!  I  am  not  dead;  I  am  here!"  and 
then  the  vision  faded  from  her  sight,  and 
she  was  alone  again  with  her  child.  She 
had  never  seen  Mrs.  Jackson,  or  heard  any 
one  describe  her,  but  her  description  of 
face,  manner,  and  intonation  formed  a  per- 
fect portrait.  The  story  is  given  without 
comment,  for  nothing  in  my  own  experience 
has  ever  led  me  to  place  faith  in  supernat- 
ural visitations  ;  but  if  spirits  are  gifted  with 
free  volition,  or  could  hover,  for  a  time,  over 
the  arena  of  life's  action,  I  like  to  think  that 
one  of  her  first  desires  would  have  been  to 
look  upon  the  face  of  the  innocent  child, 
before  whom  stretches  an  unknown  future, 
and  the  preservation  of  whose  life,  for  good 
or  ill,  was  partly  due  to  her  intervention. 

Some  misconception  ha»  arisen  in  regard 
to  the  attitude  of  the  people  of  San  Fran- 
cisco towards  this  gifted  writer,  who  labored, 
faltered,  and  passed  away  in  their  midst.  No 
throng  of  visitors  besieged  her  door,  no  daily 
bulletins  of  her  condition  were  published  by 
the  press ;  and  when  the  long  waiting  was 
over,  and  her  weary  spirit  found  the  rest  it 
craved,  little  outward  demonstration  was 
made.  The  newspapers,  while  showing  her 
all  proper  respect,  observed  so  noticeable  a 
reticence  as  to  provoke  the  comment  of 
Eastern  visitors,  who  asked  if  "  H.  H."  was 
so  little  known  upon  this  coast  that  Cali- 
fornians  felt  no  realizing  sense  of  the  loss  the 
world  and  literature  had  sustained. 

While  apparently  indifferent  to  her  pres- 
ence, the  people  and  the  press  of  San  Francis- 
co were  paying  her  the  highest  tribute  in  their 
power — that  of  faithful  observance  of  the 
wish  she  had  expressed.  When  she  came 
to  our  city  in  feeble  health  last  November, 
she  quietly  made  known  her  desire  to  be  left 
as  far  as  possible  undisturbed,  and  to  re- 
ceive no  visits,  save  from  the  friends  she  her- 
self called  about  her.  This  request  was  uni- 
versally respected.  Many  little  gifts  of  flowers 
and  fruit,  with  other  unobtrusive  courtesies, 
bore  witness  that  she  was  held  in  tender  re- 
membrance, and  the  few  who  were  admitted 


1885.J 


The   Verse  and  Prose  of  "  H.  H." 


315 


to  the  sick-room  were  besieged  with  anxious 
inquiries  regarding  her  condition  from  people 
who  would  have  considered  a  call  at  her  res- 
idence an  unwarrantable  intrusion.  Local 
journalists,  who  were  aware  of  her  condition, 
knowing  her  wish  to  keep  it  from  the  knowl- 
edge of  the  public,  refrained  from  any  pub- 
lished comment ;  and  so  it  happened  that  the 
first  notice  of  her  illness  appeared  in  an 
Eastern  paper  sometime  in  midsummer,  a 
fact  which  she  communicated  to  me  with  a 
sigh  of  resignation,  and  the  remark,  "  They 
have  got  hold  of  it  at  last ! "  With  the  ex- 
ception of  one  short  account  of  her  illness, 
published  by  a  morning  paper  in  a  spirit  of 
mistaken  sympathy,  and  in  ignorance  of  her 
preferences,  the  sacredness  of  the  sick  room, 
with  its  painful  record  of  the  gradual  en- 
croachments of  a  wasting  disease,  was  never 
invaded  by  the  spirit  of  journalistic  enter- 
prise— in  happy  contrast  to  the  spectacle  the 
country  has  just  witnessed  at  the  East,  where 
a  host  of  ambitious  reporters  counted  the 
speeding  pulse-beats  of  a  dying  hero,  and 
regaled  him  with  their  speculations  as  to  the 
length  of  days  allotted  him. 

It  was  Mrs.  Jackson's  dying  request  that 
no  unnecessary  parade  should  be  made  over 
her  death,  and  that  the  press  should  abstain 
from  giving  circulation  to  any  reports  which 
might  add  to  the  pain  the  news  would  con- 
vey to  friends  dwelling  at  a  distance.  This 
wish  was  observed  by  local  newspapers,  with 
the  same  fidelity  they  had  shown  in  comply- 
ing with  her  former  requests. 

As  an  instance  of  the  tender  and  reverent 
sentiment  prevailing  throughout  the  commu- 


nity, I  may  be  excused  for  giving  the  follow- 
ing extract  from  a  letter  written  a  few  days 
later  by  a  young  San  Francisco  girl  to  a 
friend  in  another  State : 

"  One  week  ago  today  a  bright  star  ceased  to  shine 
on  the  vision  of  mortality.  Her  glory  is  not  dimmed 
because  she  has  entered  heaven.  No  one  who  be- 
lieves in  the  continuity  of  love  can  fail  to  feel  that. 
Of  course  you  know  of  whom  I  speak — Helen  Hunt 
Jackson.  I  did  not  know  her  except  as  all  must — 
through  her  writings — but  she  was  a  warm  friend  of 

Mrs. 's,  and  I  saw  her  in  her  last  sleep  —  a 

lovely,  refined,  majestic  face,  with  a  regal  brow. 
Isn't  it  wonderfully  beautiful,  that  whatever  death 
may  destroy,  the  brow,  the  throne  of  intellect,  is  al- 
ways preserved  in'its  pristine  beauty.  It  is  almost  as 
if  it  said,  '  Thought  cannot  die.' 

"  On  her  coffin  there  were  laid  a  few  clover  blos- 
soms— simple  meadow  flowers  that  she  loved  in  life. 
And  Dr.  Stebbins  in  his  address,  which  was  tender 
and  appropriate,  said  that  she  desired  her  friends  not 
to  grieve,  but  simply  to  '  remember  how  she  loved 
them.'  The  world  will  cherish  and  be  proud  of  her 
fame  as  a  writer,  but  I  like  best  to  think  of  her  as  a 
noble,  grand,  loving  woman  who  went  out  of  this  life 
cheerfully,  and  with  tender  thoughts  for  others.  One 
of  her  last  acts  was  to  lay  aside  some  garments  of 
her  own  for  the  use  of  a  poor  woman  whom  she  knew 
only  through  Mrs.  . 

"Such  a  life  can  be  well  called  a  truly  successful 
one." 

A  beautiful  allusion  to  the  scene  at  her 
death-bed  was  made  by  a  morning  paper, 
which  compared  the  occasional  gleams  of 
consciousness  during  the  four  days'  lethargy 
which  preceded  her  death  to  a  passage  in  one 
of  her  own  poems  : 

"  I  am  looking  backward  as  I  go, 
And  lingering  while  I  haste,  and  in  this  rain 
Of  tears  of  joy,  am  mingling  tears  of  pain." 

Flora  Haines  Apponyi. 


THE  VERSE  AND  PROSE  OF  "  H.  H." 


I. 


IT  has  seemed  better  that  some  hasty  and 
inadequate  critical  comment  upon  the  writ- 
ings of  "  H.  H."  should  find  place  in  THE 
OVERLAND  just  now,  while  the  recent  death  of 
their  author  in  our  city  is  causing  an  impulse 
of  interest  in  them  that  keeps  them  out  of 


the  libraries  and  bookstores,  and  in  readers' 
hands,  than  that  we  should  wait  for  more  de- 
liberate ones.  "  H.  H."  has  not  been,  until  the 
publication  of  "  Ramona,"  an  author  greatly 
read  in  California.  Every  one  here  who  reads 
at  all  knew  her  more  or  less  through  the  maga- 
zines, and  several  of  her  older  poems  were 
household  words,  here  as  elsewhere ;  but  it  is 


316 


The    Verse  and  Prose  of  "  H.  H." 


[Sept. 


probable  that  many  people  in  California  are 
today  reading  her  books  who  scarcely  knew 
before  that  she  had  published  anything  but 
magazine  poems  and  sketches.  These  books 
consist  in  part  of  collections  of  the  previ- 
ous magazine  contributions,  but  not  entire- 
ly. They  are  as  follows  :  "  Bits  of  Talk 
about  Home  Matters,"  1873;  "Verses,"  1873; 
"The  Story  of  Boon,"  1874,  1878;  "Bits 
of  Travel,"  1875  ;  "  Bits  of  Talk  in  Verse 
and  Prose  for  Young  People,"  1876  ;  "Mercy 
Philbrick's  Choice,"  1876  ;  "Hetty's  Strange 
History,"  1877  ;  "Bits  of  Travel  at  Home," 
1878;  " Nelly's  Silver  Mine,"  1878;  "Let- 
ters from  a  Cat,"  1879;  "Verses,"  1879; 
"Mammy  Tittleback,"  1881  ;  "A  Century 
of  Dishonor,"  1881 ;  "The  Training  of 
Children,"  1882;  "Ramona,"  1884.  All 
these  are  published  by  Roberts  Brothers, 
except  "  A  Century  of  Dishonor,"  which  is 
from  Harper  &  Bros.,  and  "  The  Training 
of  Children,"  which  the  "  Christian  Union" 
published. 

This  list  of  only  fifteen  books  covers  the 
whole  field  of  possible  literary  activity  :  po- 
etry, fiction,  pure  essay,  sketch,  research  and 
controversy,  writing  for  children  —  every- 
thing except  technical  scholarship.  And 
all  these  different  things  are  done  well.  So 
much  for  the  trained  mind — for  it  was  not 
by  natural  versatility  that  this  universal  abil- 
ity came.  Such  variety  of  achievement  is 
not  uncommon  where  a  wide  mental  training 
is  added  to  some  special  natural  gift — in 
spite  of  the  popular  impression  that  a  special 
ability  dwarfs  its  possessor  in  other  direc- 
tions. Neither  Matthew  Arnold,  Mr.  Lowell, 
nor  Dr.  Holmes,  suffered  anything  as  essay- 
ists or  critics  for  being  poets,  and  few  editors 
in  the  country  were  more  efficient  political 
writers  than  Mr.  Bryant.  So  far  as  "H.  H." 
is  anything  spontaneously,  it  is  a  poet. 
Outside  of  poetry,  all  that  she  did  any  one 
may  do  who  begins  with  as  much  intelligence, 
receives  as  much  help  from  surroundings, 
and  trains  himself  with  as  much  care  and 
as  high  a  standard.  P6et,  unquestionably, 
"  H.  H."  is  first  of  all,  and  as  poet  chiefly  will 
live  in  literature. 

To  criticise  adequately  her  writings,  one 


should  consider  separately,  and  in  full,  her 
poetry ;  her  sketches  and  essays ;  her  writ- 
ings as  a  student  of  the  Indian  question  ; 
her  fiction  ;  her  children's  stories  and  talks. 
A  few  suggestions  towards  such  critcism  are 
all  that  I  can  here  offer. 


II. 


IN  1869,  a  poem  called  "Coronation,"  and 
signed  "  Mrs.  H.  H.  Hunt,"  appeared  in  the 
"Atlantic  Monthly."  I  believe  that  others 
had  already  made  their  appearance  in  week- 
lies and  dailies ;  but  this  was  the  earliest 
magazine  poem,  and  that  it  was  very  early 
in  the  author's  membership  in  the  literary 
corps  is  evident  from  the  signature  to  this, 
and  again  the  signature  "  Mrs.  Helen  Hunt " 
to  "  The  Way  to  Sing,"  a  year  later.  In  the 
fall  of  1870,  the  signature  "  H.  H."  seems  to 
have  been  settled  upon,  and  signed  consist- 
ently to  all  such  verse  and  prose  as  Mrs. 
Hunt  desired  to  acknowledge  her  own.  It 
seems  strange  that  the  literary  life  of"  H.  H." 
should  have  covered  a  period  of  only  fif- 
teen years,  so  long  is  it  since  we  have  been 
accustomed  to  think  of  her  as  occupying  an 
assured  position  in  the  front  rank  of  maga- 
zine writers.  But,  in  fact,  she  occupied  this 
rank  almost  from  the  first ;  she  wasted  no 
time  in  apprenticeship.  This  poem  "  Coro- 
nation "  was,  in  its  way,  a  classic  almost  from 
the  time  it  was  printed.  It  takes  its  place 
in  collections  from  the  time  of  its  publication 
on.  So,  too,  other  early  poems,  "  Tides,"  or 
"  Spinning  "— 

"  Like  a  blind  spinner  in  the  sun  — 
Such  poems  as  these  were  adopted  into  lit- 
erature at  once. 

What,  then,  are  the  qualities,  and  what  is 
the  rank  of  these  poems  ?  It  is  a  little  too 
early  yet  to  say  with  much  decision  what 
rank  they  will  finally  hold.  Although  upon 
an  author's  death,  his  whole  work  lies  before 
us,  forever  unchangeable,  not  to  be  added  to 
nor  subtracted  from,  if  he  has  died  in  his 
prime  it  needs  some  years  of  varying  tastes 
and  schools  of  letters  to  enable  us  really  to 
take  his  measure.  Yet  it  seems  clear  that 
the  poems  of  "  H.  H."  have  the  elements  of 


1885.] 


The    Verse  and  Prose  of  « H.  H." 


317 


permanency  more  than  of  popularity.  There 
seems  no  reason  why  the  most  of  the'm 
should  not  stand  always  on  record,  even  as 
they  stand  now,  to  be  read  and  valued  by 
those  who  love  beauty  enough  to  seek  it, 
but  not  to  catch  the  attention  of  those  who 
do  not.  For,  with  all  their  tenderness,  most 
of  her  poems  are  somewhat  cold.  It  is  hard 
to  say  wherein  this  coldness  consists  :  not 
in  their  perfect  dignity  and  restraint,  for  no 
poet  by  forgetting  these  virtues  has  ever 
come  nearer,  in  the  long  run,  to  the  heart  of 
the  people.  Longfellow,  who  is,  of  all  Amer- 
ican poets,  most  generally  dear,  is  in  a  high 
degree  personally  reticent  in  verse.  Nor  is 
it,  as  we  have  have  just  said,  for  lack  of  feel- 
ing ;  for  they  are  full  of  feeling,  a  sort  of  un- 
der-thrill  of  deep  sensitiveness  and  tender- 
ness breaking  through  the  fine  precision,  the 
faultless  finish,  of  the  verse.  I  should  say, 
however,  that  "  H.  H."  rarely  wrote  on  broad 
lines  of  common  human  experience  and  feel- 
ing, but  usually  expressed  the  moods,  the 
perceptions,  of  exceptional  and  sensitive  spir- 
its. It  is  easier  to  illustrate  this  trait  of  her 
poetry  than  to  define  it.  Take,  for  instance, 

Semitones. 

Ah  me,  the  subtle  boundary  between 

What  pleases  and  what  pains  !     The  difference 

Between  the  word  that  thrills  our  every  sense 

With  joy,  and  one  which  hurts,  although  it  mean 

No  hurt !     It  is  the  things  that  are  unseen, 

Invisible,  not  things  of  violence, 

For  which  the  mightiest  are  without  defense. 

On  kine  most  fair  to  see  one  may  grow  lean 

With  hunger.     Many  a  snowy  bread  is  doled, 

Which  is  far  harder  than  the  hardest  stones. 

'Tis  but  a  narrow  line  divides  the  zones, 

Where  suns  are  warm  from  those  where  suns  are 

cold. 

'Twixt  harmonies  divine  as  chords  can  hold, 
And  torturing  discords,  lie  but  semitones. 

Now  this  is  truth,  and  it  is  poetry  ; — truth 
to  a  very  frequent  and  a  very  keen  human 
feeling,  and  poetry  of  a  high  dignity,  simplici- 
ty, and  precision  of  expression.  But  it  is 
not  truth  which  recommends  itself  as  such 
to  the  busy  man,  though  he  be  a  man  of  feel- 
ing and  a  lover  of  poetry.  Possibly  he  has 
had  at  least  some  inkling  of  the  experience 
the  sonnet  speaks  of;  but  he  has  not  recog- 


nized that  he  had  it,  nor  attaches  any  import- 
ance in  his  memory  to  such  flutters  of  sensi- 
bility. In  short,  much  of  this  poetry  is 
concerned  with  subtleties  of  emotional  ex- 
perience, such  as  only  many  sensitive  women 
and  a  few  sensitive  men  care  about. 

Again,  there  is  little  of  the  "  lyric  cry  " 
about  it.  This  may  be  seen  by  comparing 
"  H.  H.  "  with  Mrs.  Browning  or  Miss  In- 
gelow.  Both  of  these  poets  can  be  well 
compared  with  her,  because  they  have  tones 
in  common  with  her;  that  grave,  finished 
beauty  of  expression  which  is  so  uniformly  a 
trait  of  her  poetry,  appears  occasionally  in 
theirs  ;  but  they  soar  upward  from  it  into  a 
lyric  intensity  (and  often  in  Mrs.  Browning's 
case,  without  due  regard  for  preserving  dig- 
nity and  reticence)  while  she  remains  always 
near  the  same  level.  For  instance  : 

"  my  heart  that  erst  did  go 
Most  like  a  tired  child  at  a  show 
That  sees  through  tears  the  mummers  leap," 

or  again 

"Though  all  great  deeds  were  proved  but  fables  fine; 

Though  earth's  old  story  could  be  told  anew  ; 

Though  the  sweet  fashions  loved  of  them  that  sue 
Were  empty  as  the  ruined  Delphian  shrine  ; 
Though  God  did  never  man  in  words  benign 

With  sense  of  His  great  fatherhood  endue ; 

Though  life  immortal  were  a  dream  untrue 
And  He  that  promised  it  were  not  divine ; 
Though  soul,  though  spirit  were  not,  and  all  hope 

Reaching  beyond  the  bourne,  melted  away  ; 
Though  virtue  had  no  goal  and  good  no  scope, 

But  both  were  doomed  to  end  with  this  our  clay ; — 
Though  all  these  were  not, — to  the  ungraced  heir 
Would  this  remain — to  live  as  though  they  were," 

might  be  presented  to  us  as  extracts  from 
the  poems  of  "  H.  H.,"  and  if  we  did  not 
already  know  them  to  be  Mrs.  Browning's 
and  Miss  Ingelow's,  we  should  see  nothing 
incredible  in  even  the  first  one  being  writ- 
ten by  the  same  hand  as 

"  Like  a  blind  spinner  in  the  sun, 

I  tread  my  days  ; 
I  know  that  all  the  threads  will  run 

Appointed  ways  ; 

I  know  each  day  will  bring  its  task, 
And,  being  blind,  no  more  I  ask." 

But  even  if  we  had  never  heard  of 


318 


The   Verse  and  Prose  of  "  H.  H." 


[Sept. 


"  God  be  with  thee,  my  beloved,  God  be  with  thee, 
Else  alone  thou  goest  forth, 
Thy  face  unto  the  north, 

Moor  and  pleasance  all  about    thee,  and  beneath 
thee, 

Looking  equal  in  one  snow, 
While  I,  who  strive  to  reach  thee, 
Vainly  follow,  vainly  follow, 
With  the  farewell  and  the  hollo, 
And  cannot  reach  thee  so. 
Alas,  I  can  but  teach  thee  : 
God  be  with  thee,  my  beloved,  God  be  with  thee,'' 

or  of 

"  While,  O,  my  heart,  as  white  sails  shiver, 

And  crowds  are  passing,  and  banks  stretch  wide, 
How  hard  to  follow,  with  lips  that  quiver, 
That  moving  speck  on  the  far-off  side. 

"Farther,  farther, — I  see  it, — know  it, 
My  eyes  brim  over,  it  melts  away  ; 
Only  my  heart  to  my  heart  shall  show  it, 
As  I  walk  desolate  day  by  day," 

we  should  still  know  better  than  to  believe 
for  a  moment  that  they  could  be  found  in 
any  strayed  poems  by  "  H.  H." 

Yet  in  speaking  of  the  absence  from  her 
poems  of  the  simple  "lyric  cry"  in  broad 
and  common  lines  of  human  feeling,  I  have 
been  careful  to  say  "  in  most  of  her  poems." 
Undoubtedly  she  touches  the  common  nerve 
sometimes — oftener  in  earlier  than  in  later 
poems.  For  instance: 

When  the  Tide  comes  In. 
When  the  tide  comes  in, 
At  once  the  shore  and  sea  begin 

Together  to  be  glad. 

What  the  tide  has  brought 
No  man  has  asked,  no  man  has  sought : 

What  other  ticks  "have  had 

The  deep  sand  hides  away  ; 
The  last  bit  of  the  wrecks  they  wrought 

Was  burned  up  yesterday. 

When  the  tide  goes  out, 

The  shore  looks  dark  and  sad  with  doubt. 

The  landmarks  are  all  lost. 

For  the  tide  to  turn 
Men  patient  wait,  men  restless  yearn. 

Sweet  channels  they  have  crossed 

In  boats  that  rocked  with  glee, 
Stretch  now  bare,  stony  roads  that  burn 

And  lead  away  from  sea. 

When  the  tide  comes  in 

In  hearts,  at  once  the  hearts  begin 

Together  to  be  glad. 

What  the  tide  has  brought 


They  do  not  care,  they  have  not  sought. 

All  joy  they  ever  had 

The  new  joy  multiplies  ; 
All  pain  by  which  it  may  be  bought 

Seems  paltry  sacrifice. 

When  the  tide  goes  out. 

The  hearts  are  wrung  with  fear  and  doubt  : 

All  trace  of  joy  seems  lost. 

Will  the  tide  return  ? 
In  restless  questioning  they  yearn  ; 
With  hands  unclasped,  uncrossed, 

They  weep  on  separate  ways. — 
Ah  !  darling,  shall  we  ever  learn 

Love's  tidal  hours  and  days  ? 

But  it  is  not  necessary  to  compare  "  H.  H." 
more  at  length  with  Mrs.  Browning  or  Miss 
Ingelow.  They  both  have  committed  faults 
and  crudities  that  "  H.  H."  knew  better  than 
to  commit ;  probably  neither  of  them  had 
nearly  the  well-balanced  mental  training  that 
she  had:  yet  to  compare  is  only  to  show 
that  though  the  arc  of  her  verse  touched 
theirs,  theirs  swept  on  and  away,  completely 
beyond  hers;  they  are  major  poets,  and 
"  H.  H." — in  spite  of  the  remark  attributed 
to  Emerson — is  only  the  most  accomplished 
of  American  minor  poets ;  and  that  is  saying 
of  all  minor  poets,  for  though  England  has  the 
advantage  of  us  in  great  poets,  our  minor  ones 
have  always  been  more  accomplished.  The 
story  of  Emerson's  remark,  by  the  way,  if  any 
reader  has  not  seen  it,  is,  that  some  one  asked 
him  if  he  did  not  consider  "  H.  H."  the  first 
among  the  women  poets  of  America;  to 
which  he  replied  meditatively,  "  You  might 
leave  out  the  '  women.' "  The  story  is  not 
impossibly  true,  for  in  his  private  scrap-book 
of  verse,  "Parnassus,"  published  in  1874, 
when  "  H.  H."  had  been  on  the  field  only  a 
very  few  years,  he  inserts  five  poems  out  of 
the  few  she  had  then  published,  to  only 
seven  or  eight  out  of  the  many  of  the  lead- 
ing American  poets — Longfellow,  Whittier, 
Holmes,  Lowell,  Bryant;  and  she  is  one  of  the 
only  three  American  poets  whom  he  specially 
mentions  in  his  preface,  and  the  one  most 
praised  of  the  three:  "The  poems  of  a 
lady  who  contents  herself  with  the  initials 
'  H.  H.,'  in  her  book  published  in  Boston 
(1874),  have  rare  merit  of  thought  and  ex- 
pression, and  will  reward  the  reader  for  the 


1885.] 


The   Verse  and  Prose  of  "  H.  H." 


319 


careful  attention  which  they  require."  If 
Emerson  did  rate  her  first  of  American  poets, 
he  is  probably  the  only  critic  who  did ;  his 
questioner,  who  placed  her  first  of  American 
women  poets,  was,  I  should  say,  more  nearly 
right.  For  while  Celia  Thaxter,  Elizabeth 
Stuart  Phelps,  and  Louise  Chandler  Moul- 
ton  have  done  some  things  that  she  could 
.  not  possibly  have  done,  she  has  done  much 
that  they  could  not.  If  the  lyric  quality 
were  the  only  standard,  they  might  be  com- 
pared with  her,  the  superiority  of  one  in 
freshness  and  nearness  to  nature,  of  another 
in  feeling  and  force,  and  of  the  third  in 
sweetness,  being  weighed  against  her  more 
perfect  art.  But  it  would  even  then  be  a 
question  which  was  the  greatest;  and  when 
she  enters  the  field  of  contemplative  poetry, 
she  stands  alone. 

And  though  people  will  more  generally 
cherish  such  a  poem  as  "  Best,"  it  will  be 
chiefly  as  a  most  admirable  writer  of  contem- 
plative poems  that  she  must  live  in  literature. 
It  was  this  class  of  her  writings  that  so  pleased 
Emerson,  as  is  evident  from  his  selections. 
One  of  these  will  illustrate  well  the  beauty 
of  her  poems  of  this  sort:  the  wisdom,  the 
unobtrusive  perfection,  somewhat  in  the  man- 
ner of  the  older  poets — for  "H.  H."  never 
fell  into  tricks  or  mannerisms,  either  indi- 
vidual or  fashionable. 

J°y- 

O  Joy,  hast  thou  a  shape  ? 

Hast  thou  a  breath  ? 

How  fillest  thou  the  soundless  air  ? 

Tell  me  the  pillars  of  thy  house  ! 

What  rest  they  on  ?     Do  they  escape 

The  victory  of  Death  ? 

And  are  they  fair 

Eternally  who  enter  in  thy  house  ? 

O  Joy,  thou  viewless  spirit,  canst  thou  dare 

To  tell  the  pillars  of  thy  house  ? 

On  adamant  of  pain 

Before  the  earth 

Was  born  of  sea,  before  the  sea, 

Yea,  before  the  light,  my  house 

Was  built.    None  knew  what  loss,  what  gain, 

Attends  each  travail  birth. 

No  soul  could  be  at  peace  when  it  had  entered  in  my 

house, 

If  the  foundations  it  could  touch  or  see, 
Which  stay  the  pillars  of  my  house. 


I  should  like  to  pause  a  moment,  to  ask 
the  reader  to  note  especially  in  this,  as  in  al- 
most every  poem  that  its  author  wrote,  its 
faultlessness.  Virtues  may  be  lacking  in 
her  poems,  but  faults  are  not  present.  And 
that  her  passion  for  perfection  wisely  kept 
her  somewhat  limited  in  her  poetic  man- 
ner, is  evident  from  one  of  the  rare  excep- 
tions to  the  thorough  good  taste  of  her  poetry. 
It  is  a  "  Spring  Madrigal "  in  which  she  at- 
tempts a  refrain  which  Miss  Ingelow  could 
have  handled  charmingly,  but  which  she 
manages  as  follows : 

"The  tree-tops  are  writing  all  over  the  sky, 

An'  a  heigh  ho  ! 
There's  a  bird  now  and  then  flitting  faster  by, 

An'  a  heigh  ho  ! 

The  buds  are  rounder  and  some  are  red 
On  the  places  where  last  year's  leaves  were  dead, 

An'  a  heigh  ho,  an'  a  heigh  !  " 

Do  but  turn  from  this  to  a  bit  of  description 
that  is  within  her  own  scope — and  with  this 
I  must  turn  to  the  consideration  of  her  prose, 
leaving  unsaid  much  that  ought  to  be  said  in 
any  adequate  comment  on  her  poems  : 

Poppies  in  the   Wheat. 

Along  Ancona's  hills  the  shimmering  heat, 
A  tropic  tide  of  air  with  ebb  and  flow, 
Bathes  all  the  fields  of  wheat  until  they  glow 

Like  flashing  seas  of  green,  which  toss  and  beat 

Around  the  vines.     The  poppies,  lithe  and  fleet, 
Seem  running,  fiery  torchmen,  to  and  fro, 
To  mark  the  shore.     The  farmer  does  not  know 

That  they  are  there.     He  walks  with  heavy  feet, 
Counting  the  bread  and  wine  by  autumn's  gain; 
But  I — I  smile  and  think  that  days  remain, 

Perhaps,  to  me  in  which,  though  bread  be  sweet 
No  more,  and  red  wine  warm  my  blood  in  vain, 

I  shall  be  glad,  remembering  how  the  fleet, 

Lithe  poppies  ran  like  torchmen  with  the  wheat. 

III. 

NEXT  to  poet,  "  H.  H."  must  be  consid- 
ered a  light  sketch-writer.  She  has  been 
more  prolific  and  more  generally  read  in 
this  line  than  any  other  except  verse.  Some 
thirty-four  sketches  of  travel,  at  home  or 
abroad,  she  contributed  to  two  magazines 
in  fourteen  years ;  and  some  were  included 
in  her  "  Bits  of  Travel,"  and  "  Bits  of  Travel 
at  Home  "  that  had  not  been  previously  in 


320 


The    Verse  and  Prose  of  "H. 


[Sept. 


the  magazines.  The  first  of  these  appeared 
in  the  fall  and  winter  of  1870,  and  from  time 
to  time  others  were  published,  until  in  1882 
they  began  to  come  out  in  rapid  succession, 
sixteen  in  the  two  years  i882-'83.  The  ac- 
cident that  ended  her  busy  life  thus  broke  in 
upon  an  undiminished  activity  in  this  class 
of  writing,  although  she  had  added  the  In- 
dian work  and  story-writing  to  her  occupa- 
tions. But  I  cannot  but  feel  that  there  had 
been  a  decline  in  her  poetry.  It  is  not  im- 
possible that  had  she  lived  to  be  old  she 
would  have  given  up  poetry  entirely  for  prose, 
as  Bryant  did.  There  had  not  been  any 
corresponding  decline  in  her  prose-wriring. 
The  Southern  California  sketches,  which  are 
the  most  familiar  to  Californians,  are  not 
equal  to  others.  They  were  perhaps  written 
too  much  with  a  purpose.  Some  Colorado 
sketches  appearing  at  the  same  time  in  the 
"  Atlantic  "  seemed  to  me  much  better.  In 
fact,  her  travel-sketches  always  seem  to  me 
at  their  best  when  Colorado  is  the  subject. 
"  A  Symphony  in  Yellow  and  Red,"  "  A 
Colorado  Road,"  "The  Procession  of  Flow- 
ers in  Colorado,"  "  Among  the  Sky  Lines," 
show  her  best  descriptive  and  human  turn. 
For  the  excellence  of  all  these  sketches  lies 
in  her  feeling  for  nature  and  her  feeling  for 
human  experience.  She  has  no  turn  for  in- 
cident and  very  little  humor.  But  she  de- 
scribes nature  with  observant  appreciation, 
putting  into  her  prose  description  exactly 
the  same  qualities  as  are  in  the  sonnet, 
"  Poppies  in  the  Wheat,"  quoted  above ; 
and  she  has  an  inexhaustible  human  interest 
— an  interest  in  human  life  rather  than  in 
human  nature,  I  should  say.  "  One  half 
the  world  doesn't  know  how  the  other  half 
lives,"  but  it  is  not  the  fault  of  "  H.  H."  that 
it  doesn't.  Penetrating  the  alleys  and  by- 
ways of  Edinburgh  or  Chester,  accepting 
any  invitation  to  enter  the  adobe  home  of 
the  poorer  Mexicans  in  Mexico  and  Los 
Angeles,  making  acquaintance  with  emi- 
grants on  the  Puget  Sound  boats,  and  inti- 
macies with  her  hosts  in  Norwegian  cottages, 
she  gets  the  story  of  their  history  and  pres- 
ent life,  and  repeats  it,  telling  of  their  looks 
and  ways  with  ever  fresh  interest,  and  with 


fair  picturesqueness  and  accuracy  in  dialect 
and  manner.  In  this  respect,  however,  she 
is  by  no  means  equal  to  the  best  sketch- 
writers  :  Mr.  Howells  or  Bret  Harte,  Miss 
Jewett  or  Rose  Terry  Cooke  would  have  the 
veritable  emigrant  or  Mexican  or  rustic 
Yankee  standing  before  us,  his  very  voice 
in  our  ears,  in  three  sentences,  where  "  H. 
H."  in  a  couple  of  pages  has  only  described 
him  and  told  his  story.  She  is  not  quick  at 
dialect  or  at  "  taking  off"  any  one.  But,  as 
I  said  above,  it  is  not  this  that  interests  her : 
it  is  not  the  artist's  nor  the  humorist's  spon- 
taneous delight  in  people  that  moves  her, 
but  the  desire  to  know  what  befalls  people  in 
this  sorry  world;  especially,  what  befalls  the 
poor  and  the  unlucky — what  their  misfor- 
tunes have  been,  what  their  pleasures,  what 
they  make  out  of  life.  It  seems  to  me  less 
the  tone  of  a  lover  of  men  than  of  a  well- 
wisher  of  mankind.  I  mean  by  this  to  dis- 
tinguish between  such  a  tendency  to  love 
every  one,  and  serve  people  out  of  this  spon- 
taneous impulse  of  tenderness,  as  is  personi- 
fied in  George  Eliot's  Dinah  Morris,  and  the 
more  common  quality  of  wishing  mankind 
better  and  happier,  hating  every  evil  that 
spoils  their  lives,  finding  the  bettering  of  the 
world  the  only  thing  worth  doing,  and  doing 
it  with  devotion ;  yet  all  the  time  very  possi- 
bly regarding  a  large  proportion  of  the  indi- 
vidual objects  of  this  benevolence  and  be- 
neficence with  distaste,  holding  far  away  from 
them  one's  own  inmost  personality,  as  a  fas- 
tidious and  sensitive  person  must — and  fas- 
tidiousness and  sensitiveness  breathe  in- 
stinctively from  every  line  of  this  author's 
poems,  however  philanthropy  dominates 
them  intentionally. 

The  sketches,  I  said,  are  not  really,  in 
their  human  interest,  as  artistic  nor  as  life-like 
as  the  best  sketch-writing.  But,  take  the 
whole  group  of  them,  few  writers  have  ever 
covered  so  varied  a  field  of  travel  with  so 
good  accounts  of  places  and  people.  The 
new  West,  especially,  owes  its  place  in  the 
magazines  to  her.  Some  excellent  writing 
of  this  sort  had  been  done  in  newspaper  cor- 
respondence ;  and  Europe  has  had  Mr.  How- 
ells  and  Mr.  James,  Mr.  Warner  and  Mr.  Al- 


1885.] 


The   Verse  and  Prose  of  "  H.  H." 


321 


drich,  to  keep  it  before  American  readers  in 
American  magazines ;  but  the  sketch  of 
Western  America,  treated  as  worthyliterature, 
instead  of  manufactured  article,  belongs  to 
"H.  H." 

IV. 

AND  now,  in  order  to  save  a  little  space 
to   speak   of  "H.  H."  as  a  novelist,    it  is 
necessary  to  pass  somewhat  rapidly  over  her 
qualities   as   essayist,    and   critic  of  affairs, 
and  also  as  writer  for  children.     As  to  the 
child-sketches,  one  need  only  say  that  they 
are  very  good,  without  being  the  very  best ; 
they  are  not  children's  classics,  but  they  are 
excellently  well-judged  for  their  purpose,  and 
full  of  an  evident  love  of  children.     The  few 
"bits  of"  essays  show  the  same  qualities  as 
the  book  on  Indian  affairs,  which  is  to  be  re- 
garded as  her  real  contribution  to  serious  dis- 
cussion.    They  dwell  on  the  wrongs  of  chil- 
dren with  the  same  spirit  of  indignation  that 
inspires  the  book  upon  the  wrongs  of  the 
government  "  wards."     But  it  must  not  be 
understood  that  that  book  is  a  mere  rhetori- 
cal protest ;  it  is,  on  the  contrary,  a  piece  of 
careful  research,   based  upon  unanswerable 
government  reports,  and  told  with   a  good 
deal  of  restraint.    In  fact,  there  has  been  this 
same  restraint  in  all  she  has  written  of  Indi- 
an wrongs,  whether  scattered  in  bits  through 
her  travel  sketches,  in  fiction,  or  even  in  the 
more  emotional  language  of  poetry.     Nor  is 
this  a  repression  forcibly  put  upon  violent 
feeling,  which  would  fain  burst  out  in  invec- 
tive and  passionate  eloquence,  like  that  of  the 
early  abolitionists ;  its  deliberate  arraignment, 
its  arrows  tipped  oftener  with  cold  sarcasm 
than  with  hot  indignation,  indicate   rather 
that,  as  one  who  would  right  wrongs  and  ben- 
efit mankind,  she  chose  this  particular  wrong 
as  that  which  most  called  for  her  labor,  than 
that  it  swept  her  off  her  feet  into  irresistible 
sympathy  and  championship ;  it  is  a  philan- 
thropy   rather  of  the   intellect    and  moral 
sense  than  of  the  heart.     Mrs.  Jackson,  as 
is  well  known,  valued  "  A  Century  of  Dis- 
honor "  above  all  her  other  books,  and  it 
would  be  quite  away  from  the  point  to  com- 
ment on  this  as  one  of  the  instances  of  an  au- 
VOL.  VI.— 21. 


thor's  inability  to  estimate  truly  his  own  work; 
for  Mrs.  Jackson  knew  as  well  as  any  one  that 
"A  Century  of  Dishonor"  has  no  especial 
place  as  a  work  of  art  (though,  as  everything 
from  her  trained  hand  was  bound  to  be,  it  is 
well  written).  It  would  be  audacious  in  any 
one  to  say  that  it  may  not  yet  prove  to  be  what 
she  considered  it,  a  more  valuable  service  to 
humanity  than  any  of  her  purely  literary 
work.  It  is  hard  to  say  now  how  far  it  has 
already  wrought  results.  It  has  never  been  a 
popular  book — never  an  appeal  that  to  any 
extent  reached  the  public  mind,  as  a  more 
fervid  book  would.  Possibly  its  manner  has 
been  found  a  trifle  irritating,  and  stirred  some 
animosity.  It  contained  some  unjust  stric- 
tures on  special  proceedings,  in  which  the 
Secretary  of  the  Interior  seems  to  have  acted 
as  justly  as  was  possible  under  the  conditions 
left  him  by  predecessors ;  this,  at  the  time, 
prejudiced  some  readers  against  the  book, 
but  it  was  a  mere  matter  of  detail,  and 
against  the  truth  and  justice  of  the  showing 
as  a  whole,  nothing  can  be  said.  Whether 
it  has  or  has  not  proved  effective  in  forming 
public  sentiment  directly,  it  has  at  least  pro- 
vided Indians'  Rights  societies  and  editors 
with  much  material  and  many  weapons  where- 
with to  continue  the  attack. 


IV. 


I  HAVE  spoken  of  Mrs.  Jackson  as  "  H.  H.," 
while  commenting  on  her  poems  and  prose 
sketches.  "  A  Century  of  Dishonor "  was 
published  with  her  full  name,  and  the  signa- 
ture "  H.  H."  was  never  used  with  her  nov- 
els. "  Ramona  "  was  a  direct  outgrowth  of 
the  line  of  activity  of  which  "A  Century  of 
Dishonor  "  was  the  first  result,  and  was  signed 
"  Helen  Jackson."  Her  poems  and  sketches 
of  the  last  two  years  bear  the  same  signature. 
Mrs.  Jackson  had,  some  time  before  writing 
"  Ramona,"  printed  two  anonymous  novels, 
"Hetty's  -Strange  History,"  and  "Mercy 
Philbrick's  Choice."  These  were  apparently 
mere  experiments  in  fiction — that  most  allur- 
ing sort  of  composition,  which  draws  poets 
and  scholars,  doctors  and  admirals,  so  irre- 
sistibly in  these  days  of  the  rise  of  the  n  ovel 


The   Verse  and  Prose  of  "  H.  H." 


[Sept. 


and  the  decline  of  poetry.  They  were  printed 
in  the  "  No  Name "  series,  and  were,  very 
likely  solicited  by  the  publisher  and  anony- 
mous more  in  accordance  with  his  plan  than 
because  their  author  desired  it;  and  when 
the  authorships  of  the  series  began  to  be 
disclosed,  no  secret  was  made  of  her  having 
written  these  two  novels.  A  more  difficult 
and  interesting  question  of  anonymous  au- 
thorship had  been  for  some  time  hovering 
about  Mrs.  Jackson's  name.  This  was  the 
familiar  puzzle:  "Did  she  write  the  Saxe 
Holm  stories  ?  " 

It  is  likely  that  the  question  will  soon  be 
answered  now.  Yet,  if  she  did  write  them, 
and  kept  their  secret  so  closely  through  life, 
it  would  not  be  impossible  that  she  should 
have  arranged  to  have  it  always  kept.  To 
speculate  about  it  as  a  mere  matter  of  curi- 
osity would  be  foolish.  But  it  involves  some 
very  interesting  points  of  criticism,  which  I 
may  be  pardoned  for  touching  upon.  A  le- 
gitimate interest  attaches  to  the  question  : 
If  the  several  strong  indications  (given  by 
characters  and  incidents  in  the  stories)  which 
have  convinced  friends  of  Mrs.  Jackson  that 
she  wrote  them,  be  true,  how  is  it  to  be 
accounted  for  that  the  same  person  could 
write  in  two  so  different  manners?  Instances 
are  not  rare  in  which  a  writer's  signed  and 
unsigned  works  have  been  different  enough: 
a  novelist  of  considerable  repute  in  the  field 
of  society  studies  is,  with  some  show  of  evi- 
dence, credited  with  the  manufacture  of  a 
parallel  system  of  dime  novels;  and  one  of 
our  best  poets  with  a  hand  in  the  recent  no- 
ticeable improvement  in  the  quality  of  soap- 
advertising  verses.  But  all  Mrs.  Jackson's  ac- 
knowledged work  is  finished,  self-controlled, 
very  conscientious  artistically :  the  Saxe  Holm 
stories  have  marked  crudities,  extravagant  fan- 
cies, sentimental  excesses,  yet  certain  virtues 
in  an  occasional  happy  portrayal  of  character 
that  Mrs.  Jackson's  have  not,  and  a  boldness  of 
plot  which,  if  sometimes  ill-judged,  yet  shows 
an  audacity  not  altogether  objectionable. 
Are  such  incompatible  traits  possible  in  the 
same  writer  ?  Again,  could  the  same  person 
write  such  a  poem  as  "  My  Inheritance " 
and 


"  I  cannot  think  but  God  must  know 
About  this  thing  I  long  for  so  >:  ? 

The  chief  reason  for  doubting  that  she  could, 
is  that  the  simplicity  of  Draxy's  song  is  a  trifle 
strained,  so  as  to  hint  at  affectation  ;  and 
the  same  hint  of  affectation  appears  some- 
times in  the  stories,  especially  "  My  Tourma- 
line" and  "A  Four- Leaved  Clover."  Yet 
"  A  Four- Leaved  Clover  "  is  the  one  by  in- 
cidents in  which  Mrs.  Jackson  is  thought  to 
have  been  postively  identified  as  the  writer. 

It  is  not  necessary  to  offer  any  guess,  yes 
or  no.  I  am  moved,  however,  to  offer  two 
suggestions.  The  first  is,  that  the  reader 
curious  on  this  point  shall  note  the  succes- 
sion in  time  of  the  stories  and  of  Mrs.  Jack- 
son's novels.  The  Saxe  Holm  stories  began 
to  appear  quite  early  during  her  literary  life, 
continued  up  to  the  time  of  the  publication 
of  "  Mercy  Philbrick's  Choice,"  and  "  Het- 
ty's Strange  History,"  and  then  the  signa- 
ture disappeared  from  the  magazines.  Now 
it  is  worth  while  to  look  in  these  two  anony- 
mous novels  for  connecting  links  in  man- 
ner and  sentiment  between  the  Saxe  Holm 
stories  and  "  Ramona."  If  I  am  not  mis- 
taken, they  lessen  the  improbability  of  a 
common  authorship  very  much. 

Again  :  is  it  not  a  common  experience  that 
good  art  is  sometimes  inadequate  to  quite 
express  one  ?  that  the  cultivated  taste  per- 
mits its  possessor  some  little  private  assort- 
ment of  sentimentalities  that  are  in  very  bad 
taste  ?  One  reads  the  novel,  goes  to  see  the 
melodrama,  sings  the  song,  that  he  knows  to 
be  crude  and  artistically  bad ;  permitting  him 
self  this  because  it  meets  an  emotional  craving. 
At  least,  he  permits  his  unspoken  fancy  sen 
timental  indulgences  that  he  would  not  tell 
his  best  friend,  much  less  put  his  signature 
to  in  public.  What  if,  then,  one  whose  work 
was  habitually  dignified  and  carefully  artistic, 
chanced  to  feel  a  craving  for  bolder,  more 
careless,  more  morbid  and  inartistic  expres- 
sion ?  It  is  also,  I  think,  true  that  fiction  is 
the  hardest  kind  of  writing  to  gain  a  pure 
style  in  ;  and  true  that  many  people  can 
write  with  almost  perfect  dignity  in  verse, 
who  betray  false  taste,  affectations,  and  a 
certain  pervasive,  impalpable  crudity  as  soon 


1885.] 


Recent  Fiction. 


323 


as  they  touch  story  writing.  It  might  be 
that  one  would  wish  to  practice  her  hand, 
and  work  out  any  such  crudities,  in  the 
dark. 

Certainly,  "Ramona"  does  not  contain 
them.  "Ramona"  is  a  beautiful  story;  yet 
nevertheless,  I  should  say  that  it  does  not 
show  its  author  to  be  a  novelist.  It  is  a 


poet's  novel ;  a  prose  Evangeline.  It  has 
proved  serviceable  to  the  end  for  which  it 
was  written,  for  it  has  been  very  generally 
read,  and  has  affected  opinion  as  much  as 
could,  perhaps,  be  expected.  It  'is  read, 
however,  not  primarily  as  a  novel  with  a 
purpose,  but  as  a  sweet  and  mournful  poetic 
story. 

M.   W.  Shinn. 


RECENT  FICTION. 


THE  period  of  the  summer  novel  has  scarce- 
ly passed,  and  accordingly  few  of  the  novels 
that  come  before  us  this  month  for  review 
are  to  be  taken  very  seriously — perhaps  only 
three:  namely,  Mr.  Crawford's  Zoroaster, 
Miss  Howard's  Aulnay  Tower*  and  Kame- 
hameha*  by  C.  M.  Newell.  Aulnay  Tow- 
er, though  we  mention  it  among  the  few 
written  with  serious  intent,  is  still  not  at  all 
ambitious,  but  on  the  light,  idyllic  order. 
Remembering  Miss  Howard's  very  consid- 
erable— and,  we  may  add,  unexpected — 
achievement  in  "Guenn,"  one  opens  Aul- 
nay Tower  with  unusual  curiosity  and  in- 
terest ;  the  more  that  she  has  not  hastened 
to  take  advantage  of  her  previous  success  by 
a  swift  succession  of  books,  magazine  sketch- 
es, short  stories,  and  so  on,  but  has  remained 
silent  for  many  months — quite  long  enough 
to  allow  of  the  production  of  another  well- 
ripened  novel.  In  one  sense,  the  pleasant 
expectation  with  which  one  begins  Aulnay 
Tower  is  justified,  for  the  story  is  excellently 
well  done,  in  no  wise  unworthy  of  its  pred- 
ecessor. It  is  of  much  less  weight  and 
power  than  "  Guenn,"  but  in  its  own  line, 
the  idyl,  it  leaves  little  to  be  asked.  Not  that, 
even  as  an  idyl,  it  has  the  elements  of  im- 
mortality ;  but  it  is  a  simple  love  story,  sim- 

1  Zoroaster.     By  F.  Marion  Crawford.     London  and 
New  York  :  Macmillan  &  Co.     1885. 

2  Aulnay    Tower.     By  Blanche  Willis  Howard.     Bos- 
ton :  Ticknor  &  Co.     1885.     For  sale  in  San  Francisco 
by  Chilion  Beach. 

3  Kamehameha,  the  Conquering  King.    A  Romance 
of  Hawaii.     By  C.  M.  Newell.    New  York  and  London : 
G.  P.  Putnam's  Sons.     1885.     For  sale  in  San  Francis- 
co by  Strickland  &  Pierson. 


ply  and  well  told,  with  grace,  and  repose, 
and  picturesqueness.  Picturesqueness  is  the 
thing  above  all  others  that  Miss  Howard  nev- 
er fails  of.  Each  character  of  the  play,  and 
each  feature  of  the  setting,  stands  out  from 
the  canvas  with  unblurred  outlines — a  dis- 
tinct and  individual  whole.  Her  characters 
never  degenerate  into  confused  copies  of 
each  other  or  of  a  general  type  ;  nor,  on  the 
other  hand,  are  they  apt  to  be  individualized 
by  any  trick  of  speech  or  behavior,  after  the 
familiar  Dickens  device.  It  indicates  a  re- 
markable vividness  of  life  in  the  author's  own 
conception  of  her  characters,  that  she  can 
draw  them  with  such  clear  and  consistent 
lines ;  they  must  move  about  in  her  brain 
like  living  acquaintances. 

In  the  present  book,  however,  without  at 
all  losing  this  distinctness  of  figures,  the 
author  has  leaned  more  than  before  toward 
the  trick  we  have  just  mentioned  as  not  hers 
— that  of  labeling  each  character  by  some 
typical  trait  or  behavior.  The  characters, 
too,  are,  in  the  nature  of  things,  something 
of  conventional  types  :  the  elegant,  old  Le- 
gitimist nobleman;  the  scheming  priest ;  the 
coquettish  lady's  maid.  Yet  these  old  prop- 
erties are  made  very  fresh,  and  the  noble- 
man, priest,  and  maid  seem  real  people 
scarcely  the  less  for  being  conventional 
types.  The  reader  does  not  feel  disposed 
so  much  to  ask  whether  they  are  true  copies 
from  nature,  as  to  be  content  that  they  are 
complete  and  pleasing  pictures,  as  they  stand 
in  the  pages  of  the  story.  We  should  make 
the  exception  to  this,  that  the  maid  seems 


decent  Fiction. 


[Sept, 


somewhat  overdrawn  :  it  is  not  essential  to 
an  idyllic  story  of  this  sort  that  she  should 
be  exactly  what  a  French  lady's  maid  may 
really  be  ;  but  it  is  essential  that  she  should 
seem  probable.  And  while  in  her  main  out- 
lines this  little  maid  seems  highly  probable, 
the  author  has  utilized  her  as  a  sort  of  cho- 
rus, by  means  of  which  she  may  herself 
express  such  comments  on  her  characters, 
philosophical  reflections,  and  the  like,  as  she 
does  not  wish  to  say  in  her  own  person,  for 
fear  of  impeding  the  story.  The  end  is  well 
accomplished.  Put  very  neatly  into  the 
pretty  Frenchy  phrase  of  the  pretty  maid, 
these  reflections  not  only  do  not  in  the  least 
impede  the  story,  but  are  very  entertaining  ; 
nevertheless,  on  a  little  close  listening,  one 
hears  the  voice  of  the  author  through  the 
disguise. 

These  are,  however,  small  faults  to  find  in 
a  book  so  pleasant,  so  conscientious,  so  well- 
conceived.  When  "  Guenn  "  was  reviewed 
in  our  pages,  we  said  that  the  thing  which 
justified  very  great  hope  of  Miss  Howard's 
future  was  the  enormous  amount  of  art-con- 
science that  had  evidently  gone  into  the  book, 
especially  considering  the  character  and  the 
brains  it  showed  to  acquire  and  use  this  con- 
science, after  having  made  a  hit  with  a  girlish 
summer  novel.  Aulnay  Tower  shows  the 
same  intention  to  do  honestly  good  work,  • 
and  take  all  the  time  and  pains  that  are  neces- 
sary for  it.  Accordingly,  it  cannot  be  called 
a  falling-off  from  "  Guenn,"  though  intention- 
ally so  much  slighter.  Yet,  one  could  wish 
that  it  might  have  been  as  much  better  than 
"  Guenn,"  as  that  novel  was  than  its  prede- 
cessors. It  was  not  unreasonable  to  hope 
this,  considering  the  serious  study  of  her  art 
that  Miss  Howard  evidently  makes,  and  the 
union  of  the  power  to  tell  a  story  and  to 
draw  a  picture  with  real  emotional  power 
that  she  has  shown.  It  may  be  that  Aul- 
nay Tower  is  an  aside,  pending  the  appear- 
ance of  another  more  elaborate  work ;  or  it 
may  be  that  Miss  Howard  has  now  reached 
the  limit  of  her  powers,  and  all  her  conscience 
will  be  necessary  to  keep  to  her  present 
grade  of  work.  On  one  point  we  are  curious 
to  see  her  tested.  Her  two  mature  books 


are  both  European.  We  should  like  to  see 
if  she  can  do  as  well  with  American  subjects. 
"A  Roman  Singer,"  "But  Yet  a  Woman," 
"  Guenn  "  and  "  Aulnay  Tower,"  form  a 
group  of  excellent  novels,  all  written  by  Amer- 
icans in  a  foreign  manner,  and  on  foreign 
subjects  ;  they  are  not  dissimilar,  in  a  general 
way.  Can  this  excellence  be  transferred  to 
the  study  of  American  subjects?  Mr.  Craw- 
ford failed  lamentably,  absurdly,  when  he 
tried  it ;  Professor  Hardy  has  not  tried  it ; 
Miss  Howard  tried  it  first,  and  it  is  impossi- 
ble to  know  whether  her  faults  in  such  work 
were  due  entirely  to  immaturity,  or  partly  to 
subject.  "Guenn,"  although  French  in 
scene,  and  partly  in  characters,  yet  had  so 
much  that  was  American,  both  in  a  leading 
character  and  in  spirit,  that  it  seemed  more 
likely  thac  Miss  Howard  would  yet  do  good 
work  in  studying  American  life,  than  that 
either  Mr.  Crawford  or  Professor  Hardy 
would.  Aulnay  Tower,  however,  is  almost 
as  French  as  "  But  Yet  a  Woman  "  is  French, 
and  "  A  Roman  Singer  "  Italian. 

It  is  said  that  "  A  Roman  Singer"  was  Mr. 
Crawford's  first  book,  though  "  Mr.  Isaacs" 
was  first  published.  We  do  not  doubt  that 
it  will  yet  rank  as  his  best,  when  the  sensation 
of  novelty  that  the  orientalism  of  the  other 
awoke  has  entirely  passed  away.  Yet,  for 
the  present,  it  is  undoubtedly  more  to  Mr. 
Crawford's  interest  to  return  to  Asia  for  his 
subjects.  Except  for  the  purpose  of  getting 
immediate  readers,  however,  he  has  really 
regained  little  of  the  ground  he  had  lost,  by 
selecting  the  subject  of  Zoroaster  for  his  last 
novel.  It  was  a  happy  thought  for  a  histori- 
cal novel,  for  surely  some  one  who  should 
come  to  the  description  of  ancient  Persian 
life  with  some  such  knowledge  of  it  as  Eb- 
ers  has  applied  to  Egyptian,  and  with  more 
vivacity  and  brevity  than  the  learned  German 
displays,  would  have  a  rich  field  Persia  is 
nearer  to  present  human  interest  than  Egypt, 
by  virtue  of  its  far  greater  share  in  forming 
the  Hebrew  religion ;  and  a  novel  whose 
subject  is  Zoroaster  ought  to  illuminate,  most 
of  all,  the  religious  elements  of  Persian  life. 
But  Mr.  Crawford  has  evidently  come  to  the 
task  with  a  totally  inadequate  historical 


1885.] 


Recent  Fiction. 


325 


knowledge.  The  reader  is  surprised  at  the 
outset  to  come  upon  Zoroaster  as  a  young 
pupil  of  the  aged  Daniel.  It  is  true  that  the 
Parsees  place  his  date  as  late  as  500  B.  c., 
which  might  make  the  connection  with  Daniel 
possible ;  but  there  is  no  historical  foundation 
for  such  a  date.  The  Greek  historians,  on  the 
contrary,  carry  him  back  as  far  as  6,000  or 
7,000  years  B.C.;  and  modern  students  seem 
disposed  to  place  him  somewhere  between 
1,000  and  1,500  B.  c.  (all  the  way  between,  in 
fact,  as  it  is  quite  as  probable  that  the  general 
title  Zarathustra  is  the  personification  of  a 
school  or  line  of  religious  teachers  and  reform- 
ers, as  the  title  of  an  individual  reformer). 
Haug  considers  the  earliest  Zend  writings,  the 
Gathas,  as  the  only  purely  Zoroastrian  ones; 
possibly  the  work  of  the  original  reformer  or 
reformers,  possibly  of  disciples  at  no  remote 
period  from  the  formulating  of  the  Zoroastrian 
religion  ;  and  these  he  dates  between  1,200 
B.  c.  and  900  B.  c.  There  seems  little  doubt, 
therefore,  that  1,000  B.  c.  is  as  late  as  the 
original  Zoroaster  can  have  lived,  and  it  may 
have  been  much  earlier.  It  is  perfectly 
right,  for  the  purposes  of  a  historical  novel,  to 
assume  the  actual  historical  existence  of  a  Zo- 
roaster (though  it  would  have  been  more  ac- 
curate to  call  him  "  Spitama,  the  Zarathus- 
tra," or  "  the  Zoroaster,"  if  the  more  correct 
form  be  considered  pedantic) ;  but  it  is  a 
pity  to  throw  the  reader's  ideas  into  such 
helpless  confusion  as  by  representing  him 
the  reformer  of  the  religion  in  its  decadence, 
of  which  he  was  in  fact  the  founder.  One 
might  as  well  write  a  historical  novel  upon 
Moses,  and  represent  him  as  the  one  who 
restored  the  purity  of  the  Mosaic  religion, 
and  systematized  its  creeds,  after  the  return 
from  Babylon. 

But  Mr.  Crawford  has,  not  only  in  the 
date,  but  in  his  whole  conception  of  Zoroas- 
ter— and,  we  may  add,  of  the  structure  of 
the  universe — followed  modern  Parseeism 
much  more  than  modern  scholarship.  Zo- 
roaster, after  his  unfortunate  love  affair  has 
broken  off  his  life  at  court,  takes  to — not  the 
lofty  spiritual  life  of  wise  reasoning  that  cer- 
tainly must  have  been  his  (whether  Spitama 
or  another),  who  thought  out  for  himself, 


amid  the  polytheistic  dualism  of  the  primitive 
Iranian  creeds,  such  doctrines  as  these : 
"  Blessed  are  all  men  to  whom  the  living,  wise 
God,  of  his  own  command,  should  grant  those 
two  everlasting  powers  [immortality  and 
wholesomeness].  .  .  I  believe  thee,  O  God,  to 
be  the  best  thing  of  all,  the  source  of  light  for 
the  world.  .  .  Thou  Greatest  all  good  things 
by  means  of  the  power  of  thy  good  mind  at 
anytime.  .  .  .  Who  was  in  the  beginning  the 
Father  and  the  Creator  of  truth  ?  Who 
showed  to  the  sun  and  stars  their  way  ?  Who 
causes  the  moon  to  wax  and  wane,  if  not 
thou  ?  .  .  .  Who  is  holding  the  earth  and 
the  skies  above  it  ?  Who  made  the  waters 
and  the  trees  of  the  field  ?  Who  is  in  the 
winds  and  the  storms,  that  they  so  quickly 
run  ?  "  Not  to  this,  but  to  Oriental  occult- 
ism does  Mr.  Crawford's  Zoroaster  turn,  med- 
itates three  years  beside  a  brook,  and  emerges 
into  the  world  full-clad  with  the  powers  of  a 
magician,  and  the  views  of  the  Theosophic 
Society.  Compare  a  moment  with  the  above 
extract  from  the  Gathas  (Zoroaster's  own 
version  of  his  own  faith)  Mr.  Crawford's  ver- 
sion : 

"Gradually,  too,  as  Zoroaster  fixed  his  intuition  upon 
the  first  main  principle  of  all  possible  knowledge,  he 
became  aware  of  the  chief  cause— of  the  universal 
principle — of  vivifying  essence,  which  pervades  all 
things,  and  in  which  arises  motion  as  the  original  gen- 
erator of  transitory  being.  The  great  law  of  division 
became  clear  to  him — -the  separation  for  a  time  of  the 
universal  agent  into  two  parts,  by  the  separation  and 
reuniting  of  which  comes  light  and  heat,  and  the  hid- 
den force  of  life,  and  the  prime  rules  of  attractive  ac- 
tion ;  all  things  that  are  accounted  material.'  He  saw 
the  division  of  darkness  and  light,  and  how  all  things 
that  are  in  the  darkness  are  reflected  in  the  light  ;  and 
how  the  light  which  we  call  light  is  in  reality  dark- 
ness made  visible,  whereas  the  true  light  is  not  visi- 
ble to  the  eyes  that  are  darkened  by  the  gross  veil  of 
transitory  being.  And,  as  from  the  night  of  earth, 
his  eyes  were  gradually  opened  to  the  astral  day,  he 
knew  that  the  forms  that  move  and  have  being  in 
the  night  are  perishable  and  utterly  unreal ;  whereas 
the  purer  being  which  is  reflected  in  the  real  light  is 
true,  and  endures  forever." 

Here,  again,  as  in  "An  American  Poli- 
tician," Mr.  Crawford  shows  himself  capa- 
ble of  putting  forth  absolute  rubbish  as  some- 
thing very  wise  indeed  ;  and  the  great  de- 
fect in  intellectual  power  that  this  shows 


326 


Recent  Fiction. 


[Sept. 


must  inevitably  be  fatal  to  him  as  a  novelist, 
outside  of  simple  story-telling.  His  descrip- 
tive and  narrative  ability  is  considerable;  and, 
moreover,  he  often  touches  a  strong  chord  of 
simple  emotion — though  it  must  be  admitted 
that  he  also  sometimes  touches  a  very  weak 
and  artificial  one.  Putting  aside,  therefore, 
consideration  of  Zoroaster  as  a  historical 
novel,  we  can  speak  of  it  much  more  kindly 
as  a  story.  The  two  men,  Zoroaster  and 
Darius,  are  noble  and  interesting ;  the  two 
women,  the  Queen  Atossa  and  the  Hebrew 
princess  Nehushta,  are  to  the  present  review- 
er's mind  not  only  very  disagreeable  persons, 
but  commonplace.  The  queen,  especially,  is 
a  conventional  female  heavy  villain,  of  the 
completest  sort.  The  story  has  movement 
and  symmetry  (save  the  few  most  dreary 
pages  devoted  to  theosophy);  and  it  has  much 
beauty  of  description,  and  is  said  to  be  his- 
torically correct  therein.  We  quote  a  fine 
description  of  the  coming  of  Darius  at  the 
head  of  a  troop  of  his  horse,  which  illustrates 
the  best  qualities  of  the  book  : 

"  Nearer  and  nearer  came  the  cloud  ;  and  the  red 
glow  turned  to  purple  and  the  sun  went  out  of  sight; 
and  still  it  came  nearer,  that  whirling  cloud-canopy 
of  fine  powdered  dust,  rising  to  right  and  left  of  the 
road  in  vast  round  puffs,  and  hanging  overhead  like 
the  smoke  from  some  great  moving  fire.  Then,  from 
beneath  it,  there  seemed  to  come  a  distant  roar  like 
thunder,  rising  and  falling  on  the  silent  air,  but  rising 
ever  louder  ;  and  a  dark  gleam  of  polished  bronze, 
with  something  more  purple  than  the  purple  sunset, 
took  shape  slowly  ;  then  with  the  low  roar  of  sound, 
came,  now  and  then,  and  then  more  often,  the  clank 
of  harness*  and  arms;  till,  at  last,  the  whole  stamp- 
ing, rushing,  clanging  crowd  of  galloping  horsemen 
seemed  to  emerge  suddenly  from  the  dust  in  a  thun- 
dering charge,  the  very  earth  shaking  beneath  their 
weight,  and  the  whole  air  vibrating  to  the  tremen- 
dous shock  of  pounding  hoofs  and  the  din  of  clashing 
brass. 

"A  few  lengths  before  the  serried  ranks  rode  one  man 
alone — a  square  figure,  wrapped  in  a  cloak  of  deeper 
and  richer  purple  than  any  worn  by  the  ordinary  no- 
bles, sitting  like  a  rock  upon  a  great  white  horse. 
As  he  came  up,  Zoroaster  and  his  fourscore  men  threw 
up  their  hands. 

'"Hail,  king  of  kings!  Hail,  and  live  forever!' 
they  cried,  and  as  one  man,  they  prostrated  them- 
selves upon  their  faces  on  the  grass  by  the  road- 
side. 

"Darius  drew  rein  suddenly,  bringing  his  steed 
rom  his  full  gallop  to  his  haunches  in  an  instant. 


After  him  the  rushing  riders  threw  up  their  right 
hands  as  a  signal  to  those  behind  ;  and  with  a  deaf- 
ening concussion,  as  of  the  ocean  breaking  at  once 
against  a  wall  of  rock,  those  matchless  Persian  horse- 
men halted  in  a  body  in  the  space  of  a  few  yards, 
their  steeds  plunging  wildly,  rearing  to  their  height 
and  struggling  on  the  curb  ;  but  helpless  to  advance 
against  the  strong  hands  that  held  them.  The  blos- 
som and  flower  of  all  the  Persian  nobles  rode  there 
— their  purple  mantles  flying  with  the  wild  motion, 
their  bronze  cuirasses  black  in  the  gathering  twilight, 
their  bearded  faces  dark  and  square  beneath  their 
gilded  helmets. 

"  '  I  am  Darius,  the  king  of  kings,  on  whom  ye 
call,'  cried  the  king,  whose  steed  now  stood  like  a 
marble  statue,  immovable  in  the  middle  of  the  road. 
'  Rise,  speak,  and  fear  nothing  —  unless  ye  speak 
lies.'  " 

The  third  book  that  we  mentioned  above, 
Kamehameha,  is  likewise  a  historical  novel, 
and  likewise  in  a  new  field,  and  one  offering 
good  possibilities.  Mr.  Newell  has  experi- 
mented in  it  before,  without  winning  any 
great  fame.  Kamehatneha  is  by  no  means  an 
uninteresting  book,  and  there  seems  no  rea- 
son to  doubt  its  substantial  truth  to  history. 
Up  to  the  time  when  Kamehameha  came 
to  his  kingdom — -to  the  chiefdom,  that  is, 
of  the  district  that  became  the  nucleus  of  his 
kingdom  later — the  writer  can  have  only  le- 
gend to  depend  upon  for  his  narrative  ;  but 
after  that  period  the  native  accounts  may  be 
regarded  as  trustworthy  enough.  For  the 
beginning  of  Kamehameha's  reign  was  about 
two  years  after  Captain  Cook's  death,  and 
therefore  about  1781  ;  while  the  materials  for 
the  present  narrative  were  gathered  by  the 
author  forty  years  ago,  leaving  only  sixty 
years  to  be  bridged  from  the  beginning  of 
Kamehameha's  reign.  Not  only  did  the 
whole  period  of  that  reign,  therefore,  fall 
within  the  actual  memory  of  old  men  still 
living  forty  years  ago,  but  much  of  it  had 
been  committed  to  record  still  earlier,  upon 
the  first  coming  of  the  missionaries  in  1820, 
only  the  year  after  Kamehameha's  death  ; 
moreover,  from  the  time  of  Vancouver's  so- 
journ at  the  islands  in  1792  and  1794,  there 
was  intermittent  communication  with  Eng- 
land and  America,  so  that  the  chief  events  of 
this  period  in  Hawaiian  history  have  never 
been  entirely  dependent  upon  legend.  To 
the  outline  of  ascertained  history  thus  attain- 


1885.] 


Recent  Fiction. 


827 


able,  Mr.  Newell  has  added  the  more  de- 
tailed accounts  of  battles  and  the  like,  which 
he  obtained  forty  years  ago  from  the  reminis- 
cences of  old  men,  the  songs  of  bards,  and 
the  legends  of  priests. 

With  regard  to  the  Hawaiian  conqueror's 
childhood  and  youth  he  has  been  entirely 
dependent  on  tradition,  for  no  one  seems  to 
have  known  much  about  him  until  he  appear- 
ed as  an  ambitious  and  able  young  chief, 
claimed  as  a  son  by  three  royal  chiefs,  and 
made  the  part  heir  of  one  of  them.  This  ob- 
scurity of  origin,  as  usual  in  such  cases,  gave 
rise  to  an  abundance  of  romantic  legends, 
the  prettiest  of  which — and  the  one  least  fa- 
vored by  native  historians — Mr.  Newell  fol- 
lows. This  makes  Kamehameha  the  son  of 
the  Hawaiian  king  Kalaniopuu,  by  a  very 
puissant  priestess  and  "chiefess,"  as  Mr. 
Newell  has  it,  who  reigned  in  sole  authority 
over  a  secluded  valley  and  its  temple;  growing 
up  in  this  almost  inaccessible  valley,  under 
the  training  of  his  mother  and  her  assistant 
priestesses,  the  royal  youth  remained  in  ob- 
scurity till  of  an  age  to  be  sent  to  join  his 
father's  court,  where  his  extraordinary  prow- 
ess, intelligence,  and  breeding  immediately 
advanced  him  to  the  front  rank  of  favor. 
The  novelist  has  set  his  imagination  free 
in  dealing  with  this  legend,  and  has  treated 
it  really  with  a  great  deal  of  spirit  and  taste. 
The  priestess  Wailele  is  the  most  beautiful 
of  Hawaiian  women,  and  wisest  and  most 
holy  of  Hawaiian  priests ;  the  group  of  at- 
tendant priestesses,  the  deep  valley,  with  its 
temple  set  in  sacred  precincts  of  river-trav- 
ersed forest  between  vast,  sheer  cliffs,  over 
which  the  river  plunged  in  five  cataracts, 
make  an  attractive  picture.  It  is  good  judg- 
ment to  frankly  take  the  point  of  view  of  the 
legend,  and  boldly  represent  Pele  as  existent, 
appearing  to  her  worshiper,  inspiring  proph- 
ecy, interfering  occasionally  in  human  af- 
fairs ;  to  make  the  boy — the  chosen  favorite 
of  Pele,  the  long  foretold  conqueror — a  young 
hero  almost  more  than  human,  blameless 
and  high-souled.  This  is  only  treating  the 
legend  as  Tennyson  treated  the  Arthurian 
legends — with  apparent  good  faith  and  belief, 
and  with  all  the  idealization  that  may  be 


necessary  to  make  their  moral  code  accept- 
able to  nineteenth  century  imagination. 
Accordingly,  Wailele  is  in  advance  of  her 
times  in  the  matter  of  human  sacrifices,  and 
never  on  any  account  permits  them  ;  she 
brings  Kamehameha  up  to  her  doctrine  on 
this  point,  and  to  the  highest  views  and  hab- 
its as  to  veracity,  magnanimity,  gentleness, 
etc.  This  is  all  legitimate,  but  it  necessitates 
a  comical  change  in  the  story  at  the  point 
where  legend  ends  and  history  begins.  Up 
to  that  line,  the  gallant  young  prince  Kam- 
ehameha figures  with  all  the  chivalry  of 
a  Bayard  ;  after  it  we  find  King  Kameha- 
meha entrapping  and  assassinating  rivals, 
offering  human  sacrifices,  and  otherwise  con- 
ducting himself  much  more  like  a  savage 
monarch  than  a  knight  of  story.  Yet,  that 
he  was  in  fact  not  merely  an  able  warrior, 
and  shrewd  and  ambitious  ruler,  but  a  man 
of  much  amiability  and  magnanimity,  is  evi- 
dent enough  from  the  impression  made  up- 
on Vancouver  and  others.  It  would  un- 
doubtedly be  possible  to  make  a  far  better 
study  of  this  remarkable  South  Sea  king  than 
has  Mr.  Newell ;  nevertheless,  he  has  told 
an  interesting  and  fairly  accurate  story,  upon 
a  branch  of  history  totally  unknown  to  most 
readers,  and  yet  worth  their  knowing  some- 
thing of.  We  note  an  occasional  solecism, 
such  as  "  the  tesselated  flowers  of  the  ohia," 
where  tasseled  is  obviously  meant. 

We  may  dismiss  rather  rapidly  all  the  other 
novels  now  before  us.  Several  of  them  are 
good:  Bret  Harte's  By  Shore  and  Sedge, 
Miss  Phelps's  An  Old  Maid's  Paradise?  and 
Charles  Egbert  Craddock's  Down  the  Ra- 
vine? in  especial.  Bret  Harte's  is  not  a 
novel,  but  three  short  sketches,  Miss  Phelps's 
a  mere  episode  of  sea-side  summering,  and 
"Craddock's"  a  child's  story.  The  three 
sketches  in  By  Shore  and  Sedge  are  An 
Apostle  of  the  Tules,  Sarah  Walker,  and  A 

1  By  Shore  and  Sedge.     By  Bret   Harte.     Boston  : 
Houghton,  Mifflin  &  Co.    1885.    For  sale  in  San  Fran- 
cisco by  Chilion  Beach. 

2  An   Old    Maid's    Paradise.     By   Elizabeth    Stuart 
Phelps.    Boston :  Houghton,  Mifflin  &  Co.    1885.    For 
sale  in  San  Francisco  by  Chilion  Beach. 

8  Down  the  Ravine.  By  Charles  Egbert  Craddock 
Boston:  Houghton,  Mifflin  &  Co.  1885.  For  sale  in 
San  Francisco  by  Chilion  Beach. 


328 


Itecent  fiction. 


[Sept. 


Ship  of  '49.  Mr.  Harte's  hand  never  loses 
its  cunning,  and  it  is  noteworthy  how  in- 
stantly the  reviewer,  upon  opening  any  new 
story  from  him,  may  recognize  the  note  of 
competent  power,  the  contrast  to  any  other 
style  that  comes  to  his  eye  as  he  goes  from 
book  to  book.  Bret  Harte  cannot  write  sat- 
isfactorily of  anything  but  California — some- 
how, in  that  divine  period  of  young  manhood 
and  developing  power  that  it  was  his  fate  to 
pass  here,  California  became  stamped  with  a 
peculiar  freshness  and  force  upon  his  mind, 
such  as  no  later  environment  has  been  able 
fo  rival,  though  it  is  probable  he  would  him- 
self have  preferred  to  change  the  field  of  his 
subjects.  He  cannot  write  except  of  Cali- 
fornia; and  he  can  never  make  his  California 
a  new  thing  in  literature  again.  It  is  true, 
that  these  later  sketches  have  not  all  the 
dramatic  force  and  beauty  of  the  first  ones  ; 
but  it  is  not  deterioration  of  power,  so  much 
as  loss  of  novelty,  that  lessens  the  eagerness 
of  the  public  for  them.  "  An  Apostle  of  the 
Tules  "  is  more  of  the  old  quality  than  almost 
any  thing  the  author  has  lately  done ;  "  Sarah 
Walker  "  is  well  told,  as  everything  from  him 
is ;  and  "  A  Ship  of  '49  "  is  a  very  pretty 
story.  There  is  no  one  at  all  who  always 
has  described  the  external  aspects  of  Cali- 
fornia, sky  and  shore  and  sea,  plain  and 
mountain,  as  perfectly  as  Bret  Harte  still  does. 
Miss  Phelps's  little  study  of  an  old  maid 
in  her  own  new  house  by  the  sea,  is  very, 
pleasing — sweet  and  grave,  full  of  feeling, 
yet  serene.  It  is  one  of  a  cheap  "  Riverside 
Paper  Series,"  with  which  Houghton,  Mifflin 
&  Co.  join  at  last  the  procession  of  those 
who  issue  series  of  cheap  paper  summer  nov- 
els. These  paper  novels  appear  weekly  dur- 
ing the  summer  months,  and  thus  far  maintain 
a  more  classical  standard  than  any  other  se- 
ries. "  Down  the  Ravine "  is  exceedingly 
well  done,  showing  the  author  almost  more 
at  home  in  writing  for  children  than  in  other 
work.  The  needs  of  her  audience  compel 
her  to  be  less  discursive,  and  less  disposed 
to  idealize.  It  is  always  a  little  questionable, 
however,  whether  it  is  best  to  set  children  to 
reading  dialect,  especially  dialect  that  has 
any  roughness  about  it. 


Vain  Forebodings  \  is  one  of  Mrs.  Wistar's 
German  translations,  and  is  a  pleasant  story, 
but  containing  a  somewhat  surprising  point : 
for  the  sto'ry  is  of  a  benevolent  physician, 
who  first  cured  of  insanity  a  youth  upon 
whom  this  disaster  had  fallen,  after  he  had 
long  been  predisposed  to  it,  and  then  allowed 
his  daughter  to  marry  the  patient,  telling 
him  that  his  forebodings  of  insanity  as  his 
doom  are  folly,  and  his  scruples  about  mar- 
rying unnecessary,  since  all  he  needs  to  do 
to  be  safe  is  to  exercise  due  mental  self-con- 
trol. There  is,  undoubtedly,  very  much  in 
this  view,  yet  the  usual  view  of  the  fatal  na- 
ture of  any  predisposition  to  insanity  is  not 
to  be  lightly  set  aside. 

F.  Anstey,  whose  "  Vice  Versa  "  gave  him 
something  of  a  name  for  unique  invention, 
has  accomplished  another  successful  bit  of  in- 
genuity. The  Tinted  Venus*  is  one  of  those 
compositions  that  make  the  reader  wonder 
how  in  the  world  any  one  could  have  thought 
of  such  a  thing.  It  is  of  the  class  of  fiction 
that  must  not  be  commented  on  too  freely, 
for  fear  of  ':  spoiling  the  story  "  to  the  reader; 
so  we  will  only  say  that  it  is  very  ingenious, 
clever,  and  amusing,  and  worth  one's  while 
to  read  if  he  wishes  light  reading  for  a  leisure 
hour. 

The  Waters  of  Hercules*  a  rather  long 
novel,  in  the  German  style  and  with  German 
characters,  and  Uncle  Jack  and  Other  Sto- 
ries* by  Walter  Besant,  are  also  both  pleasant 
leisure-hour  books — though  no  one  will  ever 
be  really  any  the  worse  off  for  not  having 
read  them.  The  chief  interest  in  Mr.  Besant's 
stories  (there  are  three  in  the  book,  one  of 
them,  "Sir  Jocelyn's  Cap,"  decidedly  good) 
is  the  opportunity  they  give  to  note  the  au- 
thor's style,  unaffected  by  that  of  his  late  col- 
league. The  difference  is  perceptible.  Mr. 

1  Vain  Forebodings.    By  E.  Oswald.    Translated  from 
the  German  by  Mrs.  A.  L.  Wistar.     Philadelphia:  J. 
B.  Lippincott  Co.     1885.     For  sale  in  San  Francisco  by 
Joseph  A.  Hofmann; 

2  The  Tinted  Venus.     A  Farcical  Romance.     By  I1'. 
Anstey.     New  York:  D.  Appleton  &  Co.     1885.     For 
sale  in  San  Francisco  by  James  T.  White. 

8  The  Waters  of  Hercules.  New  York:  Harper  A; 
Bros.  1885. 

4  Uncle  Jack  and  Other  Stories.  By  Walte^Besant. 
New  York:  Harper  &  Bros.  1885. 


1885.] 


Etc. 


329 


Besant's  pleasant  humor  is  perhaps  a  trifle 
overdone,  and  he  takes  pains  in  all  three 
stories  to  express  decided  disapproval  of  ed- 
ucated girls  and  the  Oxford  examinations. 
The  three  remaining  novels  are  scarcely 
worth  reading.  Shis  All  the  World  to  Me,1 
and  A  Nemesis?  are  English  stories,  the 
first  one  quite  dull,  in  spite  of  smuggling, 
shipwrecks,  and  sensations  unnumbered,  on 
the  Manx  coast ;  the  second  one  is  an  agree- 
able, mildly  entertaining,  conventional  story 
of  the  detection  of  a  murder-  largely  by 
means  of  second  sight.  A  New  England 
Conscience*  is  very  well  meant,  but  very 
crude.  It  is  a  narration  of  the  religious  and 
other  psychological  experiences  of  a  country 
village  in  New  England.  This  village  is 
Methodist,  and  therefore  should  not  be  pro- 
duced by  the  author  as  a  typical  New  Eng- 
land one;  for  Methodism  is  not  the  charac- 
ter-forming faith  of  New  England.  More- 
over, when  she  sets  her  Methodist  pastor  to 
preaching  Election,  it  is  obvious  that  she 
is  ignorant  of  her  subject.  In  somewhat 

1  She's  All  the  World  to  Me.  By  Hall  Caine.  New 
York:  Harper  &  Bros.  1885. 

2 A  Nemesis;  or  Tinted  Vapors.  By  J.  Maclaren 
Cobban.  New  York :  Appleton  &  Co.  For  sale  in  San 
Francisco  by  James  T.  White. 

8  A  New  England  Conscience.  By  Belle  C.  Greene. 
New  York  and  London:  G.  P.  Putnam's  Sons.  1885. 
For  sale  in  San  Francisco  by  Strickland  &  Pierson. 


pointless  succession  we  have  described  to 
us  :  first,  Desire's  mother,  insane  with  relig- 
ious melancholy,  and  convinced  she  is  going 
to  hell,  with  some  account  of  the  sermons 
and  prayer-meetings  that  convinced  her ; 
second,  the  behavior  of  mothers  in  the  vil- 
lage upon  the  loss  of  children,  ending  with 
one  young  mother's  suicide  upon  her  baby's 
grave — -this  attributed  to  the  tone  of  preach- 
ing in  the  village,  which  had  failed  to  con- 
vince her  of  God's  love  in  removing  her 
baby:  the  successful  advent  of  the  faith- 
cure  to  the  village ;  a  Millerite  episode  in 
the  factory  neighborhood;  an  experience 
meeting ;  various  theological  conversations, 
ending  in  the  return  of  the  heroine,  Desire, 
to  a  strong  belief  in  hell,  previously  abjured, 
and  consequently  a  burning  desire  to  engage 
in  saving  souls  therefrom  by  work  as  a  city 
missionary  ;  her  putting  away  her  lover  that 
she  may  do  this  ;  reaction  from  the  belief  in 
hell  and  the  city  missionary  work,  and  final 
reacceptance  of  the  lover.  This  medley  is 
not  to  be  taken  as  a  true  study  of  New  Eng- 
land life  or  character,  and  sounds  to  us  like 
the  first  attempt  of  some  bright  and  inex- 
perienced girl  at  literature.  This  seems  the 
more  probable  from  the  superiority  of  the 
part  that  deals  with  Desire's  intercourse  with 
her  mother  to  any  of  the  rest;  there  is 
some  very  genuine  tenderness  here. 


ETC. 


AN  Eastern  religious  weekly  is  pressing  an  idea 
that  is  new,  we  think,  to  print,  though  not  to  private 
conversation  ;  and  that  is,  the  endowment  of  news- 
papers. The  idea  is  probably  to  the  business  mind 
chimerical ;  nevertheless,  there  seems  no  good  reason 
why  it  is  not  both  practical  and  wise.  The  newspa- 
per, it  is  said,  is  the  college  of  the  American  people  ; 
and  what  would  be  thought  of  a  college  in  which 
the  chairs  might  be  filled  absolutely  without  any 
test  of  moral  or  intellectual  requirement  ?  in  which 
any  horse-jockey  or  gambler  might  teach,  side  by 
side  with  the  most  venerable  scholars  of  the  time; 
and,  the  payment  being  by  fees  in  accordance  with 
the  acceptability  of  the  things  taught,  might  devote 
his  chair  to  instruction  in  cards  or  in  slogging,  or 
his  lecture  hour  to  stories  of  such  character  as  may 


barely  escape  the  intervention  of  a  not  over-strict  po- 
lice, and  enjoy  a  much  higher  salary  than  a  colleague 
in  the  same  college,  who  might  be  the  greatest  of 
American  historians,  or  botanists,  or  linguists?  What 
would  be  thought,  again,  of  a  college  in  which  it  was 
an  open  secret  that  the  doctrines  taught  were  some- 
times for  sale  ?  that  the  teacher  of  political  economy 
would  instruct  his  classes  in  the  justice  or  the  in- 
justice of  duties  on  wool,  according  as  the  sheep- 
growers  or  the  manufacturers  bribed  him  ;  or  that  the 
teacher  of  geography  would  make  facts  as  to  climate, 
product,  and  other  qualities  of  different  districts  bend 
to  the  interest  of  the  railroads  in  whose  pay  he  was ; 
or  that  the  facts  of  history  were  almost  avowedly 
taught  in  accordance  with  the  interests  of  the  politi- 
cal party  from  which  the  teacher  expected  most.  All 


330 


Etc. 


[Sept. 


this  under  the  wing  of  the  college,  so  that  the  student 
who  desired  to  learn  the  truth  had  no  possible  means 
of  knowing  which  teacher  was  conscientiously  telling 
it,  and  which  one  was  the  bribed  mouth-piece  of  spe- 
cial interests,  save  his  own  penetration.  And  among 
these  in  need  of  the  instructions  of  a  college,  such 
penetration  is  scarcely  to  be  expected.  Yet  this  is  no 
exaggeration  of  the  present  condition  of  that  "  Amer- 
ican college,"  the  newspaper.  Side  by  side  with  ve- 
racious papers  are  the  most  shamelessly  mendacious 
onesj  side  by  side  with  thoroughly  competent  edit- 
ors are  hopelessly  ignorant  boors,  pretending  to  teach 
with  as  much  confidence  as  the  competent  ones  ;  side 
by  side  with  incorruptible  opinions,  opinions  bought 
and  sold  like  furniture.  Moreover,  there  is  no  au- 
thority to  guarantee  the  uprightness  of  the  upright  pa- 
per, and  the  correctness  of  the  correct  one,  or  to  pro- 
tect them  from  accusation  of  venality  or  ignorance, 
any  more  than  there  is  to  condemn  the  venal  or  ig- 
norant one.  And  there  are  enough  to  see  to  it  that 
they  shall  be  abundantly  met  with  such  accusation. 
The  wise  and  discriminating  will  find  out  which  are 
managed  by  knaves.  But  what  a  condition  of  affairs 
for  a  college — to  be  so  arranged  that  only  the  wisest 
and  most  discriminating  of  its  students  can  be  safe 
against  gross  false  teaching  !  The  vast  majority  of 
newspaper  readers  can  not  know  whether  their  teach- 
er is  trustworthy  or  not.  A  more  obvious  and  com- 
monly lamented  evil  in  the  present  newspaper  sys- 
tem is,  that  it  leaves  the  public  unprotected  against 
uncleanliness  and  low  sensationalism.  Not  only  has 
the  vilest-minded  man  perfect  liberty,  without  pass- 
ing any  examination  or  obtaining  approval  of  any 
man,  to  step  into  a  chair  of  the  newspaper-college, 
and  thence  teach  what  is  congenial  to  him  to  who- 
ever will  take  the  elective,  but  much  that  is  vile 
and  shocking  intrudes  itself  into  every  man's  paper, 
and  can  hardly  be  avoided  by  the  most  careful  skip- 
ping. 

WITH  all  this,  we  are  disposed  to  think  he  was 
right  who  called  the  newspaper  "the  college  of  the 
American  people."  Its  potency  is  vast,  and  reaches 
more  corners  than  the  school-master.  Moreover, 
children  and  young  people  nowadays  read  news- 
papers a  great  deal.  With  the  general  laxity  of 
household  government  has  come  a  relaxation  of  the 
practice  of  hiding  books  and  papers  away  from  chil- 
dren; and  the  reader  will  be  amazed,  if  he  investigates 
a  little,  to  find  how  generally  the  newspapers,  with 
their  stories  of  ugliness  and  horrors,  lie  under  chil- 
dren's eyes,  in  most  middle-class  families.  It  is 
really  as  important  to  our  national  character  that  the 
newspaper  should  be  intelligent,  cleanly,  and  upright, 
as  that  the  college  should  be. 

THE  dangers  of  an  unrestrained  press  have  always 
been  more  or  less  realized,  and  efforts  have  been 
made  to  meet  them  by  a  press  censorship.  But  this 
involves  dangers  of  its  own,  and  moreover  would 


never  be  tolerated  in  this  country.  It  has  not  been 
thought  un-American  to  put  certain  legal  restric- 
tions about  the  professions  of  law  and  medicine,  and, 
in  part,  those,  of  teaching  and  of  civil  service.  If 
government  may  insist  that  a  man  must  have  a  de- 
cent character  and  a  certain  amount  of  education  be- 
fore he  may  practice  law  or  medicine,  there  is  noth- 
ing monstrous,  theoretically,  in  requiring  the  same 
before  he  may  run  a  paper.  But  it  is  doubtful  if  any 
such  system  would  work  in  the  case  of  a  calling  in- 
volving a  private  property,  as  a  newspaper  is  (though 
the  regulations  for  examining  pilots  and  engineers  to 
run  boats,  which  are  private  property,  forms  a  prece- 
dent), and  more  than  doubtful  whether  it  could  ever 
get  a  chance  to  try.  Nor  could  the  most  theoretic 
literary  fellow  recommend  it  with  much  heart ;  for 
the  functions  of  a  journalist  are  so  much  less  specific 
than  those  of  a  lawyer  or  doctor,  that  no  examination 
could  properly  test  capacity  for  them.  Moreover,  it 
would  be  impossible  to  restrict  proprietorship  in  pa- 
pers to  high-minded,  incorruptible,  and  educated 
men  ;  and  it  is  on  the  part  of  the  proprietor,  and  not 
the  editor,  that  the  mischief  comes  in.  It  is  for  the 
benefit  of  the  proprietor's  pocket,  not  for  his  own 
pleasure,  that  the  editor  puts  in  the  account  of  the 
murder,  the  divorce  trial,  the  slogging  match ;  that 
his  leaders  change  front  in  a  political  campaign ; 
that  news  are  edited,  and  items  that  might  hurt  this 
or  that  private  interest  carefully  ruled  out.  The 
right  or  wrong  of  the  present  very  general  submission 
of  the  editorial  pen  to  the  interest  of  the  proprietor, 
is  an  ethical  question  too  large  to  be  here  discussed  : 
not  all  editors  do  so  submit  it ;  and  the  requirement 
of  many  papers  that  they  shall,  keeps  many  a  high- 
minded  young  fellow  from  seeking  a  chair  in  the 
"American  college."  The  fear  of  loss  and  impov- 
erishment constrains  even  the  high-minded  editor 
to  make  the  journal  an  instrument  of  evil,  to  satisfy 
his  employer;  constrains  even  the  high-minded  pro- 
prietor to  sacrifice  the  honor  of  his  journal  before 
the  threat  of  powerful  interests,  or  to  bid  down  to 
low  tastes  to  increase  his  sales. 

SUPPOSE  private  ownership  eliminated  from  any 
paper  by  the  simple  device  of  an  endowment  ? — an 
endowment,  say,  just  large  enough  to  insure  the  ex- 
istence of  the  paper,  in  case  it  were  called  to  undergo 
a  period  of  popular  hostility  or  private  assault  ;  so 
that  its  enlargement  and  prosperity  would  still  have 
to  depend  on  its  own  exertions,  and  it  could  not  be- 
come sluggish.  Suppose  it  entrusted  to  aboard,  with 
powers  of  meddling  even  more  limited  than  those  of 
college  boards  ;  its  general  policy  defined  by  the 
terms  of  the  endowment,  its  special  course  left  very 
free.  No  one  would  have  any  vital  interest  in  getting 
the  purse  fuller  at  any  cost ;  every  one  would  have 
a  great  interest  in  carrying  and  improving  the  paper, 
extending  its  influence,  and  increasing  its  repute.  It 
would  be  edited  in  the  spirit  in  which  college  classes 
are  taught — and  every  one  knows  the  way  in  which 


1885.] 


Etc. 


331 


the  hearts  of  college  teachers  become  wrapped  up 
in  their  work,  and  the  loyalty  to  the  college  they 
acquire.  How  easily  might  such  a  paper  take  high 
ground  and  stand  unshaken  on  it  !  how  promptly 
might  all  that  was  low  or  unclean  be  wiped  from  its 
columns  !  how  impotently  angered  abuses  might  beat 
against  its  shield  !  And  if  any  one  says  that  "  people 
would  not  read  it,"  he  not  only  underrates  people, 
but  forgets  that  such  a  paper  is  in  no  wise  prohibited 
from  drawing  to  itself  the  wittiest  and  most  forcible 
writers,  using  the  greatest  enterprise  in  news  collec- 
tion, and  otherwise  making  itself  strong  and  prosper- 
ous, all  the  better  for  the  consciousness  of  an  impreg- 
nable fort  to  fall  back  on  when  the  heathen  rage. 

WE  learn  that  Mrs.  Helen  Hunt  Jackson,  before 
her  death,  gave  directions  that  all  her  papers,  includ- 
ing, certainly,  much  unpublished  manuscript,  and,  if 
we  are  not  mistaken,  much  correspondence,  should 
be  burned  unread ;  which  duty  has  been  loyally  dis- 
charged by  the  friend  to  whom  it  was  intrusted. 
How  many  such  holocausts  have  resulted  from  the 
treatment  of  Hawthorne's  and  Carlyle's  literary  re- 
mains we  shall  perhaps  never  know.  The  chapter  of 
personal  recollections  of  Mrs.  Jackson  which  we  pub- 
lish this  month  is  by  authority  of  her  husband. 

After  an  Old  Master. 

Now   doe  I  wishe  that  I  a  garden  were,  - 

Flowred  so  riche  that  shee  would  come  to  mee, 

And  pluck  some  litle  blossoms,  two  or  three, 
To  decke  the  frills  upon  her  stomacher. 
Then,  an  shee  were  Love's  gentle  almener, 

Neere  should  shee  lacke  the  goodlie  smells,  per- 
die, 

Of  stocks  and  violets  and  rosemarie  ; 
For  these  to  timid  love  will  minister. 
But  an  shee  should  her  love  from  mee  transfer, 

I  cannot  in  my  mynd  full  cleare  agree 
If  I  would  growe  sadd  rue  and  bitter  myrre 

And  symbole  my  despaire  in  willow  tree  ; 
Or  bee  a  waste,  so  dreare  men  should  aver 

Love  ill  repaide  such  piteous  constancie. 

Francis  E.  Sheldon. 

Gold  and  Silver. 

EDITOR  OVERLAND  MONTHLY  :  The  determined 
opposition  of  most  of  the  newspapers  of  this  "  Golden 
State  "  to  the  gold  standard,  and  their  unwillingness 
to  give  a  fair  hearing  to  their  opponents,  has  induced 
me  to  address  you,  feeling  sure  that  with  your  well- 
known  sense  of  justice,  you  will  not  deny  an  honest 
advocate  of  the  gold  standard  a  limited  space  in  which 
to  argue  his  side  of  the  question. 

The  confusion  created  (often  intentionally)  by  the 
double  standard  champions,  in  discussing  financial 
affairs,  by  confounding  bimetallism  with  double  stan- 
dard, coin  with  bullion,  money  with  wealth,  etc.,  etc. ; 
the  harsh  names  which  they  heap  on  us  poor  gold- 
bugs  ;  the  prediction  of  ruin  to  every  nation  that  does 
not  implicitly  believe  in  their  silver  doctrine  ; — make 


it  difficult  to  calmly  argue  the  case  with  them;  and  I 
warn  these  silver  enthusiasts  that  any  party  using 
vituperation  and  prophecy  instead  of  sound  argu- 
ments, is  doomed  to  final  defeat. 

So  many  abler  pens  than  mine  have  discussed  the 
matter,  that  I  do  not  expect  to  bring  new  or  origi- 
nal arguments  ;  but  I  will  try  to  set  forth  in  plain 
language  a  subject  that  should  be  understood  by 
every  man,  woman,  and  child,  as  it  enters  into  a 
thousand  daily  transactions  of  both  rich  and  poor. 

The  functions  of  the  precious  metals  (except  what  is 
used  in  the  arts)  are  twofold :  firstly,  as  they  serve  as 
standard  measures  of  value  ;  and  secondly,  as  circu- 
lating media  of  exchange,  i.  e.,  money. 

In  their  first  capacity  they  may  be  compared  to 
other  standard  measures;  for  instance,  to  the  stan- 
dard measure  of  length,  the  yard,  or  the  standard 
measure  of  weight,  the  pound.  These  standards  are 
clear  and  simple,  are  understood  by  everybody,  and 
cannot  be  altered  or  doubled  without  great  inconven- 
ience to  the  public.  Anybody  who  should  propose, 
in  the  interest  of  the  public  welfare,  to  have  two  dif- 
ferent yardsticks,  one,  say,  36  inchesin  length,  the  othi  r 
only  30  inches  ;  or  two  different  pounds,  one  weigh- 
ing 1 6  ounces,  and  the  other  12  ounces,  would  be 
looked  upon  with  great  suspicion.  Suppose  that  in 
answer  to  the  suggestion  that  this  would  lead  to 
great  confusion  and  uncertainty,  without  correspond- 
ing benefit,  this  same  person  should  exclaim  :  "Not 
at  all  !  Let  the  United  States  Congress  stipulate  by 
law  that  the  36-inch  yard  and  the  3O-inch  yard  shall 
be  equal  in  length,  and  that  the  i6-ounce  pound  shall 
be  equal  in  weight  to  the  12-ounce  pound,  and  all 
will  be  well."  We  believe  such  a  person  would  be 
considered  ripe  for  the  insane  asylum. 

And  yet,  that  is  exactly  what  the  advocates  of  the 
double  standard  do  say,  when  we  are  told  that  the 
people  need  two  different  standard  measures  of  value : 
a  412^  grain  silver  dollar,  now  worth  about  83 
cents  gold  (by  the  laws  of  supply  and  demand),  and 
a  25  4-5  grain  gold  dollar,  worth  100  cents  in  the 
markets  of  the  world ;  and  that  Congress  can,  by 
law,  make  the  two  equal  in  value.  Congress  can 
only  keep  silver  or  paper  money  at  par  with  gold  as 
long  as  it  is  willing  and  able  to  exchange  the  same 
for  gold  on  demand. 

True,  the  412^  grains  of  silver  have  at  times  been 
equal  in  value  to  25  grains  of  gold,  and  even  above 
it,  and  one  of  the  San  Francisco  papers  assures  us 
in  all  earnestness  it  "will  be  restored  to  its  old 
value  again."  If  that  well-posted  paper  had  kindly- 
gone  a  step  farther,  and  told  us  when  that  time 
would  come,  how  long  silver  will  remain  at  the  "old 
value"  when  it  gets  there,  and  what  that  "old 
value'"  is,  that  would  certainly  have  been  a  great 
help  in  settling  the  pending  question.  But  there 's 
the  rub ;  and  even  should  an  international  commis- 
sion undertake  to  settle  the  relative  value  of  the 
precious  metals,  it  would  have  to  adopt  one  of  the 
metals  as  a  standard  by  which  to  measure  the  other 


332 


Etc. 


[Sept. 


in  rearranging  this  proportion  from  time  to  time. 
Practically,  therefore,  we  will  never  have  more  than 
one  standard  at  a  time  in  any  country,  and  may  as 
well  make  up  our  minds  whether  we  prefer  the  gold 
or  the  silver  standard.  Eventually,  of  course,  trade 
and  wages  adapt  themselves  to  any  standard;  but  the 
first  effect  of  depreciating  the  standard  is  to  place 
the  laboring  and  salaried  classes  at  a  great  disadvan- 
tage, as  they  cannot  increase  their  daily  wages  or 
monthly  salaries  as  quickly  or  as  easily  as  the  mer- 
chant marks  up  the  price  of  his  goods  to  correspond 
with  the  lower  monetary  standard. 

And  now  comes  the  question :  Why  either  gold  or 
silver  standard  ?  Why  not  copper,  or  iron,  or  even 
wheat,  or  anything  else?  The  answer  is:  that  the 
best  standard  of  value  is  that  article  which  is  least 
subject  to  change  in  value  itself.  If  an  article  could 
be  found  absolutely  free  from  the  fluctuations  of  sup- 
ply and  demand,  that  article  would  be  the  ideal  stan- 
dard measure  of  values.  The  ideal  article  of  un- 
changeable value  not  existing,  the  most  steady  article 
known  at  different  times  to  different  people  was  se- 
lected as  standard.  In  early  days  we  find  the  sheep- 
skin as  standard  among  the  herder  nations,  and 
ornamental  shells  among  some  roving  tribes.  Later, 
metals  were  selected,  because  they  could  be  divided, 
united,  and  moulded  into  any  desired  weight  and 
shape  without  much  trouble  or  loss.  First,  iron  came 
into  use  (as  we  see  by  the  coins  of  antiquity),  at  a 
time  when  other  metals  were  too  scarce  to  be  con- 
sidered for  general  circulation.  When  iron  became 
more  abundant,  and  consequently  less  convenient 
and  less  steady,  copper  (or  bronze)  gradually  assumed 
the  duties  of  a  standard;  but  history  has  recorded  no 
outcry  of  the  iron  men  that  the  copper-bugs  were 
trying  to  ruin  the  country.  In  its  turn,  copper  had 
lo  make  room  for  silver,  as  being  the  steadiest  stan- 
dard known.  And  now  the  time  seems  to  have 
come  when  silver  is  gradually  yielding  to  gold  as  a 
standard,  for  the  same  reason  that  caused  the  change 
from  iron  to  copper,  and  from  copper  to  silver. 

The  highly  civilized  nations  of  Europe,  with  the 
most  intricate  and  extended  commercial  relations, 
were  the  first  to  recognize  these  facts,  and  have  ac- 
cordingly adopted  the  gold  standard.  Even  the  Latin 
Union,  after  vainly  struggling  for  a  double  standard, 
is  practically  falling  into  line.  The  semi-civilized 
nations  of  Asia,  with  a  less  complicated  system  of 
commerce,  are  still  clinging  to  a  silver  standard, 
while  the  United  States,  half-way  between  the  two, 
is  somewhat  in  the  position  of  our  friend  in  the  fable, 
between  the  two  bundles  of  hay.  The  silver  men 
(we  mean  the  honest  ones  who  go  in  for  a  silver 
standard,  and  not  the  double  standard  manipulators) 
contend,  firstly,  that  gold  is  not  yet  sufficiently 
abundant  to  serve  as  a  universal  standard,  and  would 
consequently  be  cornered  by  speculators,  to  the  great 
inconvenience  of  commerce ;  and,  secondly,  that  sil- 
ver has  been  less  subject  to  fluctuation  than  gold. 
These  are  their  only  two  sound  arguments,  and,  if 


proved  correct,  would  be  strong  reasons  for  adhering 
to  the  silver  standard  at  present.  But  proofs  are 
wanting.  The  gold-standard  countries  do  not  seem 
to  suffer  from  want  of  capital,  as  shown  by  low  inter- 
est, nor  have  they  been  subjected  lo  any  cornering  of 
gold,  which  would  show  itself  in  a  rapid  fall  of  prices 
generally,  as  compared  to  prices  in  silver-standard 
countries.  With  our  growing  international  commerce, 
the  larger  transactions  are  more  and  more  balanced 
by  checks,  drafts,  notes,  etc.,  through  the  banks  and 
clearing-houses,  requiring  much  less  of  the  precious 
metals  than  formerly;  while  the  smaller  bargains  of 
every-day  life  continue  to  be  transacted  in  silver  coins, 
showing  that  silver  is  not  "demonetized"  in  the 
gold-standard  countries  (as  the  silver  men  assert), 
but  only  "  destandardized, "  and  that  bimetallism  can 
and  does  coexist  with  a  single  standard.  The  other 
point — that  of  greater  steadiness  of  silver — is  hard  to 
prove.  The  only  way  to  do  this,  would  be  to  com- 
pare the  prices  of  some  staple  article  of  consumption 
in  gold  and  in  silver;  but  as  these  prices  have  rarely, 
if  ever,  been  quoted  in  both  standards  at  the  same 
period  and  in  the  same  country,  this  seems  an  im- 
possible task.  Until  these  two  points  are  settled, 
however,  the  United  States  should  adhere  to  its  gold 
standard,  under  which  it  has  grown  and  prospered 
without  parallel,  the  standard  of  our  European  neigh- 
bors, with  whom  we  are  in  constant  and  lively  com- 
mercial intercourse,  and  not  sink  back  again  to  the 
silver  standard  of  China  and  India. 

Let  us  now  look  at  the  second  function  of  the  pre- 
cious metals,  in  their  capacity  of  a  circulating  medium 
— money;  and  as  I  compared  the  standard  of  value  to 
other  standard  measures,  so  I  will  now  compare 
"money"  to  another  circulating  medium,  say,  for 
instance,  ' '  the  lubricating  oil  of  our  machinery. " 
The  oil  alone  can  create  no  power;  money  alone  can 
create  no  wealth  (who  does  not  remember  the  story 
of  the  ship-wrecked  sailor  dying  of  cold  and  starva- 
tion, surrounded  by  mountains  of  gold  and  silver 
on  the  desert  island  ?);  but  as  the  oil  helps  to  create 
power,  so  the  money  helps  to  create  wealth.  The 
machine  might  run  without  the  lubricator,  though 
probably  under  a  very  heavy  strain;  so  the  commer- 
cial machinery  might  run — in  fact,  has  run — without 
the  circulating  medium,  money,  for  many  years,  in 
the  days  of  barter  and  exchange;  but  it  worked 
clumsily  and  with  much  waste.  Too  much  oil,  on 
the  other  hand,  will  not  benefit  the  machine;  it  will 
run  to  waste  and  collect  in  pools  under  the  engine; 
and  just  so  will  the  money  run  to  waste  at  times 
where  too  abundant,  and  collect  in  banks  and  treas- 
uries, a  useless  pile  for  the  time  being,  until  extended 
commercial  machinery  calls  for  more  grease.  The 
rates  of  interest  and  exchange  are  the  gauges  that 
show  the  flow  of  money  and  regulate  it,  preventing 
too  large  an  accumulation  in  one  place,  too  great  a 
scarcity  in  another,  for  any  length  of  time.  The  ma- 
terial, size,  weight,  and  shape  of  the  money  should  be 
determined  by  public  convenience  alone,  as  well  as 


1885.] 


Etc. 


333 


the  number  of  the  different  pieces  to  be  struck  off. 
The  round,  flat  -disk  was  adopted  in  preference  to  the 
square,  oval,  or  octagon  shape,  solely  on  the  ground 
of  convenience  in  counting  and  handling  the  various 
pieces  of  metal.  Our  largest  coin  is  now  the  gold 
twenty  dollar  piece;  larger  pieces  (for  instance  the 
octagon  fifty  dollar  pieces,  coined  in  the  times  of  our 
pioneer  miners)  being  inconvenient  and  clumsy. 
Below  the  ten  cent  piece  the  coins  are  made  of  nickel 
and  copper,  because  in  silver  they  proved  to  be  so 
small  that  they  could  not  be  conveniently  handled, 
and  in  paper  the  fractional  currency  proved  equally 
inconvenient,  on  account  of  its  dirty  and  ragged  ap- 
pearance. And  this  same  public  convenience  it  was 
which,  to  fill  the  gap  between  the  fifty  cent  piece  and 
the  two  and  one-half  dollar  piece,  originally  called 
into  existence  the  silver  dollar.  The  gold  dollar  is 
entirely  too  small  for  convenient  handling,  and  the 
one  dollar  greenback  shares  the  objection  to  the 
fractional  paper  currency;  it  travels  too  fast  from 
hand  to  hand  to  preserve  its  neatness,  and  carries 
with  it  dirt  and  possibly  disease.  These  notes,  as 
well  as  the  two  dollar  notes,  should  be  called  in  and 
their  place  taken  by  the  silver  dollar.  Had  this  been 
done  at  the  time  the  silver  dollar  was  called  to  life 
again,  and  had  this  coin  been  placed  on  a  level  with 
all  the  other  coins,  in  regard  to  the  amount  to  be 
produced — that  is,  sufficient  to  supply  the  public  de- 
mand and  no  more — nobody  would  probably  have 
objected  to  the  silver  dollar,  which  would  have  dif- 
fered from  the  dollar  of  the  fathers  only  in  so  far  as 
the  latter  was  the  standard  of  .values,  while  the  pres- 
ent dollar  practically  served  as  subsidiary  coin.  Sil- 
ver having  in  the  mean  time  depreciated  (or  gold  ap- 
preciated) more  silver  might  have  been  put  into  this 
coin  to  bring  it  nearer  in  actual  value  to  the  gold  dol- 
lar; but  silver  might  at  any  time  rise  again  in  value 
as  compared  to  gold,  causing  a  silver  dollar  of  say 
four  hundred  and  fifty  or  four  hundred  and  eighty 
grains  to  possibly  rise  in  value  beyond  the  twenty-five 
and  four-fifths  grain  gold  dollar,  and  consequently 
disappear  from  circulation  (as  it  happened  on  a 
former  occasion);  and  in  the  absence  of  any  inter- 
national understanding  regarding  the  relation  of  the 
two  metals,  it  was  well  enough  to  adhere  to  the  old 
established  dollar. 

The  disturbing  element  in  the  silver  dollar  coinage 
is  the  fact  that  the  law  for  regulating  the  coinage  of 
silver  dollars  requires  no  less  than  two  million,  "nor 
more  than  four  million,  dollars  to  be  coined  per 
month,  thus  placing  this  coin  in  an  exceptional  posi- 
tion, not  controlled,  like  all  other  coins,  by  the  laws 
of  supply  and  demand.  Where  Congress  got  its  in- 
spiration as  to  the  exact  amount  of  silver  dollars 
needed  in  this  country  has  never  been  explained,  but 
we  know  that  whenever  the  laws  of  Congress  try  to 
counteract  the  laws  of  nature,  confusion  and  loss  will 
be  the  people's  punishment.  The  United  States 
Mint  is  nothing  but  a  factory  of  coin,  and  must 
be  governed  by  the  same  general  principles  that 


govern  other  factories.  To  adapt  the  illustration  of 
an  able  journal  :  What  would  be  said  of  the  Direc- 
tors of  the  Lubricating  Oil  Company,  who,  after 
selecting  the  different  brands  for  the  coming  year, 
ordered  each  brand  to  be  made  according  to  the  cus- 
tomer's demands,  except  one  brand,  say,  Number 
412^,  which  must  be  made  at  the  rate  of  not  less 
than  two  million  cans  per  month,  whether  they  be 
sold  or  not.  Suppose  that,  after  one  year,  the.  super- 
intendent reported  all  the  storerooms  full  of  brand 
Number  412^,  which  has  only  sold  at  the  rate  of, 
say,  two  hundred  thousand  cans  per  month,  and  re- 
quests that  this  special  brand  be  discontinued  for  a 
while;  to  which  the  directors  answer:  "No  sir  !  if 
you  have  not  room  enough,  build  more  storerooms  ; 
we  must  continue  to  produce  two  million  cans  per 
month,  for  only  by  forcing  this  brand  on  the  public 
can  we  hope  to  sustain  its  price."  Such  a  board 
of  directors,  we  fear,  would  not  be  considered  very 
wise  ;  yet  that  is  what  the  board  of  directors  of  our 
Mint  (i.  e.,  Congress)  has  said,  and  the  coinage  of  the 
silver  dollar  goes  on.  Those  fanatical  silver  men, 
who  seemed  to  have  a  vague  idea  that  an  over-pro- 
duction of  silver  coin  would  eventually  cause  an  over- 
flow into  everybody's  pocket,  and  make  them  all  rich 
and  happy,  must  have  seen  the  fallacy  of  their  sys- 
tem by  this  time.  Congressional  laws  on  standards 
or  coins  cannot  make  the  nation  richer  or  poorer  ;  a 
change  in  the  same  can  only  unsettle  existing  con- 
tracts for  the  time  being,  and  thus  make  some  citi- 
zens richer  at  the  expense  of  others.  The  United 
States  may  run  their  commercial  machine  on  first- 
rate  gold-oil  or  on  second-rate  silver  oil  ;  it  will  prob- 
ably run  in  either  case,  but  it  is  quite  unprogressive 
and  un-American  to  recommend  the  inferior  when 
the  superior  is  within  easy  reach,  and  the  highest 
priced  is  in  the  long  run  surely  the  cheapest. 

For  these  reasons  I  believe  that  public  convenience 
demands  at  present  in  the  United  States  a  single 
gold  standard  and  a  bimetallic  money  of  gold  and 
silver,  adjusted  as  nearly  as  reasonable  to  the  actual 
market  value  of  the  metals,  without  change  or  tink- 
ering for  many  years  to  come. 

Yours,  very  respectfully, 

y.  0.  Layman* 

Good  Advice. 

MR.  EDITOR  :  The  accompanying  letter,  written 
recently  by  a  literary  relative  of  mine,  seemed  to  me 
well  worthy  of  publication,  and  on  my  application,  a 
kindly  permission  was  granted.  Few  of  us  whose 
hair  is  silvering  but  can  count  a  number  of  promis- 
ing youths,  who  by  seductive  hallucinations  have 
been  diverted  from  the  prosy,  laborious  field,  which 
could  alone  soundly  ripen  their  faculties,  and  create 
for  them  a  strong  and  influential  manhood.  "  What 
has  been,  will  be."  The  youngster  to  whom  this 
letter  was  personally  addressed,  was  wise  enough  to 
be  guided  by  its  counsels.  Perhaps  another  as  well 
worth  saving  may,  through  your  kindness,  be  equally 


334 


Book  Reviews. 


[Sept. 


fortunate :  in  which  event  you  and  the  author  would 
have  ample  cause  for  congratulation. 

MY  DEAR  GRANDSON  : 

I  turn  from  work  which  I  cannot  postpone  with- 
out anxiety,  to  be  useful  to  you.  I  understand  you 
are  undergoing  a  cerebral  fermentation,  which  most 
intelligent  youths  undergo  at  your  age.  Its  symptom 
is  a  passion  to  read  and  write  poetry.  Now,  if  you 
are  indeed  a  poet,  all  who  love  you  have  reason  to 
rejoice.  But  the  probability  is  that  you  are  not,  be- 
cause, of  those  who  manifest  your  symptom,  scarcely 
one  in  ten  thousand  is  a  poet.  To  be  seduced  by 
the  symptom  from  the  pursuit  of  solid  learning,  with 
only  one  chance  in  ten  thousand  in  your  favor  as  re- 
gards success  in  the  poetic  line,  would  evince  a  silli- 
ness which  you  have  given  me  no  reason  to  impute 
to  you.  Moreover,  the  poet,  and  those  who  are 
dupes  of  the  conceit  that  they  are  poets,  begin  with 
froth,  and  when  they  become  men  have  to  look  back 
with  disgust  upon  their  frothy  lucubrations.  There 
are  two  reasons  why  the  lucubrations  are  froth  :  1st, 
the  brain  has  not  attained  adult  consistency  ;  2d,  it 
is  not  provided  with  adequate  knowledge.  You  know 
that  there  is  a  child  in  you,  which  prefers  to  have  you 
sport  with  your  younger  sister  rather  than  give  your- 


self to  manly  pursuits.  This  means  that  your  brain 
has  not  yet  acquired  adult  massiveness  and  vigor, 
and  in  such  a  state  it  could  originate  nothing  better 
than  froth.  Then  your  experience  of  the  human 
heart  is  merely  that  of  a  boy,  and  you  could  not 
write  for  the  hearts  of  men  until  you  have  had  a  man's 
experience.  You  do  not  care,  I  presume,  to  be  a 
poet  of  boys  and  girls — of  "sweet  sentimentality,  O, 
la  !  "  If  not,  spare  yourself  the  frothy  exudation 
and  the  mortification  of  looking  back  upon  it.  You 
belong  to  a  line  that  has  an  affection  for  self-mastery. 
You  have  already  manifested  the  affection.  A  new 
crisis  calls  on  you  for  another  effort.  Say  to  the  po- 
etic passion,  "If  you  are  sound  you  will  keep,  and 
the  better  you  bear  postponement,  the  more  probable 
that  you  are  a  genuine  inspiration."  If  you  have  it 
in  you  to  master  yourself  in  this  respect,  then  apply 
yourself  with  sturdy  self-denial  to  the  study  of  math- 
ematics— the  key  of  physical  science.  If  you  make 
yourself  master  of  physical  science,  you  will  have 
provided  magnificent  material  for  the  muse  as  well  as 
for  worldly  success.  Do  not  let  the  child  in  you  de- 
feat your  own  manhood.  In  the  name  of  Christ  be 
a  will,  and  suppress  the  child  in  you,  except  as  regards 
the  time  of  recreation.  Your  affectionate 

GRANDFATHER. 


BOOK   REVIEWS. 


Miss  Cleveland's  Essays.1 

WHETHER  by  her  own  fault  or  that  of  her  publish- 
ers, Miss  Cleveland's  essays  have  been  brought  out 
with  a  pretentiousness  that  has  done  them  injustice. 
It  has  not  been  pleasant  to  see  the  White  House  ap- 
parently used  to  advertise  a  book  (it  is  fair,  however, 
to  mention  that  it  is  authoritatively  said  the  book  was 
prepared  for  publication  before  Miss  Cleveland  ever 
thought  of  occupying  the  White  House);  it  was  not 
prepossessing  to  read  the  sort  of  advance  puffing 
that  was  given  the  book,  amounting  as  it  did,  euphe- 
misms stripped  away,  to  laudations  of  it  as  audacious 
and  flippant;  it  is  not  prepossessing  to  see  the  hand- 
some dress  in  which  this  maiden  volume  of  slight  es- 
says has  been  put,  as  if  it  were  a  favorite  classic — 
first  books  always  do  better  to  be  modest  in  garb, 
whatever  their  worthiness  of  luxurious  covers  may  turn 
out  to  be  later;  nor  is  the  reviewer  prepossessed  upon 
first  glancing  through  the  book,  by  rinding  it  often 
pretentious  in  tone,  as  in  occasion,  announcement, 
and  dress.  Upon  a  more  careful  reading,  this  prej- 
udice proves  to  be  largely  unjust;  the  essays  are 
worthy  of  less  loud  a  heralding,  less  handsome  a  bind- 
ing, and  less  Emersonian  a  manner.  If  one  is  look- 

1  George  Eliot's  Poetry,  and  Other  Studies.  By 
Rose  Elizabeth  Cleveland.  New  York  and  London : 
Funk  &  Wagnalls.  1885. 


ing  for  something  very  profound  and  original,  he  will 
not  find  it,  and  will  be  irritated  by  finding  many 
platitudes  announced  as  if  they  were  profound  and 
original.  But  if  he  will  read  these  as  ordinary,  un- 
pretending essays — imagine  them  delivered  as  ser- 
mons, for  instance,  from  some  liberal  pulpit,  in  a 
church  of  medium  size  and  reputation,  or  printed  as 
editorial  chat  in  some  good,  respectable  weekly*  he 
will  see  that  they  are  not  weak.  On  the  contrary, 
they  contain  much  that  is  both  wise  and  witty.  They 
suffer  from  bad  judgment  again,  in  having  the  essay 
on  George  Eliot's  poetry  placed  first;  for  it  is  about 
the  worst  of  all.  It  gives  the  conventional  criticism 
of  George  Eliot's  poetry,  viz:  that  it  is  not  poetry, 
because  it  does  not  run  and  ring  off  like  Swinburne's. 
Miss  Cleveland  adds  the  theory  that  the  reason  George 
Eliot  could  not  write  poetry  is,  that  she  was  an  agnos- 
tic, and  no  real  agnostic  can  write  poetry,  which  re- 
quires a  belief  in  sweet  illusions,  fond  out-reachings 
to  the  supernatural,  if  it  be  only  supernatural  evil; 
Heine  and  Byron  and  Swinburne  and  Shelley  were 
not  true  agnostics,  but  only  believers  turned  round 
into  disbelievers;  George  Eliot  was  a  true,  cold, 
clear,  mathematical,  unpoetic  agnostic.  There  is  no 
need  of  wasting  words  to  refute  the  reasons  any  one 
may  choose  to  propound  to  account  for  George 
Eliot's  being  no  poet;  because  no  one  whose  appre- 


1885.] 


Book  Renews. 


335 


elation  is  not  limited  to  certain  styles  of  poetry  has 
ever  denied  the  title  of  poet— and  poet  of  a  good  deal 
of  greatness,  too — to  the  author  of  "How  Lisa  Loved 
the  King,"  and  "  Oh,  may  I  join  the  choir  invisible," 
and  more  than  one  such  little  haunting  song  as 
"Ah  me,  ah  me,  what  frugal  cheer 

My  love  doth  feed  upon  !'' 

But  Miss  Cleveland  considers  Wordsworth's  Excur- 
sion also  no  poetry,  and  only  saved  from  oblivion  by 
the  popularity  of  the  Ode  on  the  Intimations  of 
Immortality.  And  she  is  thus  far  right:  that  "there 
is  no  such  thing  as  a  long  poem,"  and  no  one  can  be 
exactly  refuted  who  attempts  to  show  that  either 
The  Spanish  Gypsy,  or  The  Excursion,  or  Paradise 
Lost,  or  The  Iliad  is  not  a  poem. 

But  turning  to  others  of  these  essays,  we  find  in  all 
those  that  deal  with  simple  questions  of  daily  life  and 
human  relations,  a  really  high  spirit,  and  much  in- 
sight and  truth.  They  are  all  delivered  with  too  pro- 
found a  manner;  nevertheless,  individual  paragraphs 
and  sentences  are  often  very  happily  phrased  : 

"It  is  in  the  affections  that  we  make  our  best  and 
our  worst  bargains,  our  most  saving  and  most  ruinous 
exchanges.  In  the  fresh  young  years  of  our  lives 
there  is  a  facility  of  feeling,  a  readiness  of  devotion, 
a  reckless  expenditure  of  faith  and  love.  We  who 
have  forever  passed  beyond  those  years  of  glorious 
prodigality  may  well  expend  a  sigh  upon  their  loss, 
and  deem  the  calculating  wisdom  of  our  later  lives 
a  dubious  exchange.  Oh,  those  days  of  opulent 
bankruptcy,  when  we  were  rich  in  outlawed  debts  of 
friendship  —  those  wealthy  insolvencies,  when  we 
owed  everybody,  and  everybody  owed  us,  love,  and 
faith,  and  loyalty  !  How  quickly  did  our  broken 
banks  begin  again  their  reckless  discount !  How 
promptly  were  our  foreclosed  mortgages  of  heart  re- 
leased !  c 

"  Are  you  suffering,  and  do  you  attribute  your  suf- 
fering to  unreciprocated  affection  ?  Your  diagnosis 
is  wrong.  You  are  the  victim,  again,  of  a  delusion. 
Less  possible  than  absolute  independence,  than  origi- 
nal thought,  is  unreciprocated  affection.  I  do  not 
undertake  to  convince  you  of  this.  I  am  content  to 
state  it,  and  leave  its  demonstration  to  the  long  run. 
I  have  unbounded  faith  in  the  long  run.  Sydney 
Smith  said  that  in  order  to  preserve  contentment  we 
must  take  short  views  of  life.  I  think  in  order  to 
preserve  contentment  we  must  take  long  views,  very 
long  ones.  Your  affection  was  not  unrequited. 
Something  came  back  for  it,  if  it  was  genuine,  and 
something  that  was  quid  pro  quo.  I  never  condole 
with  the  person  of  '  blighted  affections,'  because  I 
know  that  to  true  affection  no  blight  is  possible.  Its 
argosies  are  out  at  sea;  they  have  not  made  their  de- 
sired haven,  but  they  will  cruise  around  to  come  back 
with  a  Golden  Fleece." 

This  is  wisdom,  and  a  high  wisdom,  too.  And 
there  are  many  paragraphs  as  wise,  and  of  as  fine  a 
spirit.  "  We  do  a  great  deal  of  shirking  in  this  life 
on  the  ground  of  not  being  geniuses.  .  .  .  Let  a  man 


or  a  woman  go  to  work  at  a  thing,  and  the  genius 
will  take  care  of  itself.  It  is  not  our  business  to  look 
at  the  masters  in  the  light  of  geniuses,  but  only  in 
the  light  of  workers.  It  is  their  duty  to  teach  us  and 
curs  to  learn  the  best  methods  of  work."  This  again 
is  no  isolated  bit  of  good  sense  and  good  writing. 
We  wish  for  the  sake  of  the  reputation  of  the  Ameri- 
can school-mistress  in  the  White  House,  that  such 
things  were  not  mixed  in  with  so  much  of  platitude. 

General  Gordon's   Journals    at   Kartoum.i 

General  Gordon's  journals  make  a  perplexing  and 
painful  book.  The  splendor  of  his  personal  charac- 
ter, which  no  one  can  fail  to  feel  in  reading,  his  perfect 
conscientiousness  and  immovable  devotion  to  what  he 
saw  to  be  right,  are  sharply  set  over  against  the  perplex- 
ity and  frustration  into  which  that  very  conscientious- 
ness and  devotion  dragged  the  government  which,  of 
all  others  that  recent  times  have  seen,  was  most  dis- 
posed to  postpone  expediency  to  right,  and  found  its 
efforts  to  do  what  was  in  the  long  run  best  amid 
conflicting  duties,  hopelessly  hampered  by  the  resolute 
insistence  with  which  Gordon  planted  himself  on  the 
immediate  simple  right  that  appealed  to  him,  and 
maintained  that  the  government  should  do  that,  what- 
ever became  of  other  duties.  The  government  should, 
in  honor,  he  held,  rescue  the  Egyptian  garrisons ; 
and  though  the  position  of  affairs  was  such  that  this 
could  scarcely  be  done  without  England's  taking  the 
Soudan  under  its  protection,  a  thing  inconsistent 
with  all  the  government's  pledges,  and  the  views  of 
duty  toward  the  English  people  to  which  it  was 
committed,  nevertheless,  it  seemed  to  Gordon  (though 
no  one  expressed  a  stronger  conviction  of  the  folly  of 
English  occupancy  of  the  Soudan)  a  simple  and  ob- 
vious duty  to  relieve  the  garrisons,  whatever  after 
complications  or  wrongs  it  produced.  Whether  he  act- 
ually exceeded  or  disobeyed  his  orders  can  hardly  be 
learned  from  his  own  journals  or  the  comments  of 
his  friends;  he  believed  and  they  believe  that  he  did 
not,  in  that  he  had  carte  blanche,  and  so  could  not 
possibly  exceed  his  powers.  That  he  went  beyond 
what  the  home  government  ever  expected,  or  sup- 
posed he  would  consider  himself  authorized  to  do, 
and  this  in  defiance  of  their  urgent  remonstrance,  no 
one  seems  to  question.  John  Bright,  in  an  address 
soon  after  Gordon's  death  (if  the  papers  reported  it 
correctly)  charged  him  with  disobedience  of  orders, 
which  had  brought  the  government  into  a  position  of 
extraordinary  embarrassment,  and  in  the  end  was  di- 
rectly responsible  for  his  death;  but  the  government's 
side  of  the  question  has  not  had  any  thorough  exposi- 
tion. The  whole  difficulty  evidently  began  in  the  lat- 
itude of  action  allowed  by  his  orders.  A  man  who  be- 
lieved so  completely  in  acting  out  his  own  conviction 
of  right,  and  so  little  in  the  claims  of  principalities 
and  powers  upon  his  conscience,  or  in  considering 

1  The  Journals  of  Major-General  C.  G.  Gordon,  C. 
B.,  at  Kartoum.  Introduction  and  Notes  by  A.  Eg- 
mont  Hake.  Boston:  Houghton,  Mifflin  &  Co.  1885. 
For  sale  in  San  Francisco  by  Chilion  Beach. 


336 


Book  Reviews. 


[Sept. 


ultimate  results  when  an  immediate  duty  seemed  to 
call,  is  likely  to  prove  an  embarrassing  man  in  a  del- 
icate military  mission,  where  implicit  subordination 
to  the  orders  of  a  superior  may  be  vitally  necessary. 
The  original  mistake  of  thus  sending  Gordon,  it 
should  be  remembered,  was  made  by  the  government 
under  heavy  popular  pressure.  In  fact,  the  whole 
miserable  Soudan  history  has  been  an  illustration  of 
the  evil  side  of  the  immediate  pressure  public  opin- 
ion is  able  to  bring,  under  the  English  system,  upon 
the  government.  It  has  its  good  side,  in  preventing 
the  growth  of  irresponsible  power,  with  the  attendant 
dangers  of  corruption;  but  it  has  the  great  disadvan- 
tage of  making  it  always  possible  for  ignorant  clamor 
to  interrupt  a  government  in  the  midst  of  a  difficult 
and  delicate  policy,  which  would  have  brought  things 
out  all  right  if  let  alone,  and  to  compel  action  which 
the  government  knows  to  be  rash,  under  penalty  of 
prompt  dismissal.  Under  our  system,  on  the  con- 
trary, the  government  cannot  be  dislodged  under 
four  years,  and  may  calmly  pursue  its  way  for  good 
or  ill,  counting  on  time  to  justify  its  good  or  to  dim 
the  memory  of  its  ill,  before  the  people  have  a  chance 
to  enforce  their  disapproval.  Under  newspaper 
"  working  up,"  requested  by  Gordon  himself,  the  cry 
of  "Gordon  to  the  rescue"  became  irresistible;  the 
blunder  was  made  of  not  defining  his  powers  precisely 
enough,  and  trusting  too  much  to  his  judgment  and 
amenability;  and  the  whole  miserable  tangle  was  be- 
gun. It  is  this  painful  conflict  between  good  men, 
working  for  good  ends  and  thwarting  each  other,  to 
th*e  embitterment  of  heart  of  a  whole  nation,  and  the 
waste  of  thousands  of  lives,  that  makes  this  book  of 
Gordon's  journals  unpleasant  reading,  and  spoils  the 
picture  of  a  splendid,  though  erratic  and  even  fanat- 
ical, character,  which  it  gives. 

Briefer  Notice. 

Birds  in  the  Bush)-  is  an  encouraging  book  :  for  it 
shows  how  much  a  man  beginning  comparatively 
late  in  life,  that  is,  after  the  habits  of  mind  are  formed 
and  business  cares  have  had  their  influence  upon  those 
habits,  can  yet  accomplish  by  using  his  eyes,  even  in 
the  dull  round  of  the  city,  and  in  the  brief  vacations 
of  business  life.  Mr.  Torrey  is  not  a  scientist,  though, 
perhaps,  he  may  be  given  more  credit  in  that  direc- 
tion than  his  modesty  allows  him  to  claim,  and  yet 
he  has  written  a  most  charming  book,  full  of  the  care- 
ful observation  that  bespeaks  the  true  scientific  spirit. 
Boston  Common,  it  would  seem,  is  rather  a  barren 
field  for  the  ornithologist,  and  yet  Mr.  Torrey  has 
seen  there  within  three  years  seventy  different  species 
of  birds,  and  writes  a  delightful  chapter  relating  his 
discoveries  in  that  much  frequented  place.  Of  course 
it  would  be  unfair  to  institute  a  comparison  between 
such  a  writer  and  a  man  like  John  Burroughs,  or  to 

1  Birds  in  the  Bush.  By  Bradford  Torrey.  Boston : 
Houghton,  Mifflin  &  Co.  1885.  For  sale  in  San  Fran- 
cisco by  Chilion  Beach. 


expect  the  same  unerring  insight  in  his  views  of  na- 
ture, but  herein  is  the  inspiration  to  be  gained  from 
the  book:  not  every  man  can  be  a  Burroughs,  but 
every  man  that  has  a  real  love  for  any  branch  of  nat- 
ural study,  and  will  make  the  most  of  even  slender 
opportunities,  can  achieve  a  large  amount  of  success 
in  his  studies,  and  find  as  much  of  marvel  and  de- 
light in  them  as  Mr.  Torrey  has  done.  Our  Califor- 
nia birds  and  flowers  have,  no  doubt,  been  duly  cata- 
logued and  described  in  the  proceedings  of  the  scien- 
tific societies,  but  it  remains  for  writers  of  Mr.  Tor- 
rey's  class  to  introduce  them  to  literature,  and  to 
clothe  them  with  the  warm  human  interest  that  fol- 
lows patient  and  loving  study. The  Philosophy  of 

Disenchantment'2'  is  an  exposition  of  modern  pessi- 
mism. It  is  mainly  devoted  to  Schopenhauer,  his 
history,  character,  and  doctrines.  This  is  followed 
by  a  brief  account  of  Hartmann,  and  his  version  of 
Schopenhauer's  doctrines,  and  by  the  author's  own 
summary  of  the  pessimistic  creed.  This  last  does 
not  in  all  respects  agree  with  that  of  his  authorities, 
which  is  that  life  is  essentially  and  necessarily  a 
burden,  happiness  an  illusion  incapable  of  realiza- 
tion, and  annihilation  the  only  possible  object  of  de- 
sire. As  suicide  removes  only  the  individual  from 
his  troubles,  Schopenhauer  proposes  the  voluntary 
extinction  of  the  race  by  one  generation's  observing 
absolute  celibacy — whereby  all  the  troubles  of  man- 
kind will  quietly  and  naturally  be  abolished  with- 
in a  generation.  Renan  goes  farther,  thinking  the 
world  should  be  abolished  too,  and  proposes  that 
science  find  some  explosive  powerful  enojugh  to 
shatter  it ;  while  Hartmann  thinks  misery  cannot 
really  cease  till  the  whole  Cosmos  is  wiped  out  of 
existence,  and  suggests  that  as  will  forms  the  life  of 
the  universe,  and  mankind  have  the  dominant  por- 
tion of  the  vyll  distributed  through  creation — a  con- 
trolling interest,  so  to  speak  —  they  shall  (in  the 
fullness  of  time,  when  they  have  become  more  nu- 
merous and  possessed  of  more  will),  agree  to  all  to- 
gether cease  to  will  life  any  longer,  and  so  become, 
with  the  whole  Cosmos,  nothingness,  by  the  with- 
drawal of  the  life  supporter,  will.  That  the  author 
of  The  Philosophy  of  Disenchantment  does  not  come 
up  to  the  orthodox  pessimistic  standard,  is  apparent 
from  his  last  words:  "The  question,  then,  as  to  wheth- 
er life  is  valuable,  valueless,  or  an  affliction,  can, 
with  regard  to  the  individual,  be  answered  only  after 
a  consideration  of  the  different  circumstances  attend- 
ant on  each  particular  case:  but  broadly  speaking, 
and  disregarding  its  necessary  exceptions,  life  may 
be  said  to  be  always  valuable  to  the  obtuse,  often 
valueless  to  the  sensitive;  while  to  him  who  commis- 
erates with  all  mankind,  and  sympathizes  with  every- 
thing that  is,  life  never  appears  otherwise  than  as  an 
immense  and  terrible  affliction." 

2  The  Philosophy  of  Disenchantment.  By  Edgar  Ev- 
ertson  Saltus.  Boston:  Houghton,  Mifflin  &  Co.  1885 
For  sale  in  San  Francisco  by  Chilion  Beach. 


THE 


OVERLAND  MONTHLY 


DEVOTED   TO 


THE  DEVELOPMENT  OF  THE   COUNTRY. 


VOL.  VI.  (SECOND  SERIES.)— OCTOBER,  1885.— No.  34. 


JUAN  BAUTISTA  ALVARADO,  GOVERNOR  OF  CALIFORNIA.— I. 


JUAN  BAUTISTA  ALVARADO  was  born  at 
Monterey  on  February  i4th,  1809.  He  was 
the  son  of  Jose"  Francisco  Alvarado,  a  young 
official  of  Spanish  blood  who  came  to  the 
country  about  the  time  of  Diego  de  Borica, 
and  Josefa,  his  wife,  a  sister  of  Mariano 
Guadalupe  Vallejo.  Before  he  was  a  year  old 
he  lost  his  father,  but  was  carefully  reared  by 
his  mother,  who,  after  a  widowhood  of  some 
years,  married  Jose  Ramon  Estrada.  As 
the  boy  grew  up,  he  displayed  unusual  thirst 
for  learning.  His  opportunities  were  scanty; 
but  he  managed  in  various  ways  to  pick  up 
crumbs  of  knowledge,  every  one  being  ready 
to  help  a  lad  who  was  so  anxious  to  help  him- 
self. His  zeal  attracted  the  attention,  among 
others,  of  Governor  Sola,  who  found  a  pleas- 
ure in  conversing  with  him,  and  encouraging 
his  desire  for  instruction. 

Their  first  meeting  appears  to  have  been 
at  the  school  for  white  children,  kept  at 
Monterey  by  Miguel  Archuleta,  an  old  ser- 
geant, who  had  received  such  learning  as  he 
possessed  from  the  missionaries.  It  did  not 
extend  beyond  a  little  reading  and  writing. 
Sola,  who  was  a  man  of  some  culture  and 
appreciated  the  value  of  education,  visited 
the  school,  and  asked  to  be  shown  the  books 
which  the  pupils  were  reading.  He  was 


handed  the  catechism,  the  worship  of  the  vir- 
gin, the  lives  of  a  couple  of  saints,  and  a 
few  other  religious  publications.  Archuleta 
boasted  that  he  had  two  scholars — pointing 
to  Alvarado  and  Vallejo — who  were  suffi- 
ciently advanced  to  sing  a  mass.  Sola  an- 
swered that  this  was  all  very  well,  but  that 
boys  who  were  smart  enough  to  sing  a  mass 
ought  to  be  taught  something  else.  He  then 
directed  Alvarado  to  come  to  his  house,  and 
there  placed  in  his  hands  a  copy  of  "Don 
Quixote,"  saying :  "  For  the  present,  read 
this  :  it  is  written  in  good  Castilian " ;  and 
so  long  after  that  as  Sola  remained  in  Cali- 
fornia, he  furnished  him  books,  and,  as  it 
were,  superintended  his  education.  They 
would  often  go  out  together,  walk  along 
the  beach,  or  on  the  hills,  or  under  the  huge 
trees,  and  talk  about  the  heroes  and  historic 
characters  of  former  times. 

There  were  very  few  "books  in  California, 
except  such  as  were  to  be  found  in  the  mis- 
sion libraries,  and  these  were  almost  exclu- 
sively of  a  religious  character.  Scattered 
among  the  dull  mass,  however,  there  were  a 
few  of  more  interesting  and  instructive  con- 
tents. At  San  Francisco,  the  nearest  approach 
to  these  were  a  geographical  dictionary,  the 
laws  of  the  Indies,  and  Chateaubriand.  At 


VOL.  VI.— 22.          (Copyright,  1885,  by  OVERLAND  MONTHLY  Co.     All  Rights  Reserved.) 


338 


Juan  Bautista  Alvarado,  Governor  of  California. 


[Oct. 


San  Juan  Bautista  there  was  a  copy  of  "  Gil 
Bias."  At  San  Luis  Obispo  there  were  twenty 
volumes  of  travels,  and  twenty  volumes  of 
Buffon's  natural  history.  At  San  Gabriel  there 
were  a  "  Life  of  Cicero,"  "  Lives  of  Celebrated 
Spaniards,"  Goldsmith's  "Greece,"  Venegas's 
"California,"  "Don  Quixote,"  "Exposure 
of  the  Private  Life  of  Napoleon,"  and  even 
Rousseau's  "  Julie."  And  so,  here  and  there, 
even  at  the  missions,  food  for  the  mind  was 
to  be  found.  The  missionaries,  however, 
did  not  look  with  favor  upon  any  reading 
except  that  of  a  strictly  orthodox  description. 
Alvarado,  on  one  occasion,  managed  to  get 
hold  of  a  copy  of  Fenelon's  "  Telemaque," 
but  was  excommunicated  for  reading  it.  Af- 
ter that,  he  revenged  himself  by  reading  in 
secret  everything  he  could  lay  his  hands  on. 
In  1834  a  doctor  named  Alva  brought  from 
Mexico  several  boxes  of  miscellaneous  and 
scientific  books.  But  the  missionaries  seized 
them  ;  had  them  turned  out  in  the  middle  of 
the  plaza,  and,  with  all  the  ceremonies  of 
the  church,  consigned  them  to  the  flames. 
But  though  it  was  difficult  to  follow  his  pur- 
suit of  such  knowledge  as  he  acquired,  he, 
by  degrees,  gathered  a  considerable  amount 
of  information.  His  mind  tended  towards 
politics  and  public  affairs;  and  among  his- 
toric characters  of  whom  he  had  heard  and 
read,  he  elected  Washington  as  most  worthy 
of  imitation,  and  chose  him  as  his  model. 

Alvarado's  first  important  office  was  that 
of  secretary  of  the  territorial  deputation, 
to  which  he  was  elected  at  the  age  of  eigh- 
teen, in  1827.  After  upwards  of  six.  years 
of  labor  in  that  employment,  he  asked  to 
be  allowed  to  retire,  and  was  relieved  by 
vote  on  June  26,  1834,  at  the  same  time 
receiving  the  thanks  of  the  deputation  for 
his  faithful  and  efficient  service.  In  the 
meantime  he  had  also,  since  1830,  filled  the 
office  of  an  accountant  in  the  Custom  House 
at  Monterey,  to  which  was  added  that  of 
treasurer  in  1834  ;  and  in  1835  ne  was  elect- 
ed, and  took  his  seat  as  fourth  member  of 
the  deputation.  As  a  member  of  the  legis- 
lative body,  he  was'the  most  active  and  in- 
fluential that  the  territory  had  ever  had.  In 
June,  1836,  Chico,fwho  was  then  Gover- 


nor of  California,  urged  upon  the  deputa 
tion  the  necessity  of  having  an  agent  at  the 
city  of  Mexico,  who  would  watch  over  and 
attend  to  the  interests  of  the  country  better 
than  any  of  the  delegates  to  Congress  had 
seemed  able  to  do ;  and  the  deputation,  ap- 
proving of  the  proposition,  named  Alvarado 
as  its  first  choice.  The  expulsion  of  Chico 
and  subsequent  disturbances,  which  finally 
resulted  in  the  declaration  of  the  Free  and 
Sovereign  State  of  Alta  California,  inter- 
vened ;  and  Alvarado,  who  was  the  soul  of 
the  movement,  from  leader  of  the  revolution 
became  governor  of  the  new  State  ;  and  the 
opportunity  of  finding  a  proper  field  for  his 
talents  at  the  center  of  the  Republic,  thus 
for  a  moment  opened,  was  again,  and  as  it 
proved,  forever  closed. 

The  new  governor,  being  by  the  act  of  his 
appointment  named  commander-in-chief  of 
the  military  forces  of  the  State,  was  advanced 
to  the  rank  of  colonel ;  and  the  previous  ap- 
pointment of  Vallejo  to  the  office  was  abro- 
gated. On  December  20,  1836,  Alvarado, 
having  taken  the  oath  and  been  installed  in- 
to office,  issued  his  first  State  paper,  under 
the  title  of  "The  citizen,  Juan  B.  Alvarado, 
colonel  of  the  civic  militia,  superior  political 
chief  of  the  first  canton,  and  governor  of  the 
Free  and  Sovereign  State  of  Alta  California." 
It  was  a  very  important  document.  It  gave 
notice  to  the  inhabitants  of  the  State,  that 
the  constituent  congress  had  just  vested  in 
him  extraordinary  powers  to  support  the  new 
system  by  any  and  all  possible  means.  In 
other  words,  Alvarado,  in  the  very  start  of 
his  gubernatorial  career,  was,  to  all  intents 
and  purposes,  a  dictator,  and  held  the  des- 
tinies of  the  State  entirely  in  his  own  hands. 

He  was,  however,  not  a  man  to  abuse  his 
authority  or  render  its  exercise  offensive  ;  nor 
is  it  likely  that  there  would  have  been  any 
opposition  to  his  rise,  if  it  had  not  been  for 
the  old  jealousy  entertained  by  Los  Angeles 
against  Monterey,  in  reference  to  the  question 
of  the  capital.  The  whole  country  from 
Sonoma  to  Santa  Barbara  cheerfully  acqui- 
esced in  the  action  at  Monterey,  and  accept- 
ed Alvarado  as  governor.  But  Los  Angeles, 
to  whom  probably  no  system  not  recognizing 


1885.] 


Juan  Bautista  Aluarado,   Governor  of  California. 


339 


it  as  the  capital,  and  no  governor  residing 
in  the  northern  part  of  the  country,  would 
have  been  acceptable,  was  dissatisfied  and 
refused  its  adherence.  Alvarado,  as  soon 
as  he  was  informed  of  the  stand  taken  by 
Los  Angeles,  sent  word  that  the  new  govern- 
ment was  under  the  absolute  necessity  of  re- 
quiring its  obedience,  and  possessed  the 
necessary  resources  for  waging  war,  if  it  should 
unfortunately  be  compelled  to  resort  to  force. 

There  was  some  interchange  of  correspond- 
ence, until  finally,  on  January  17,  1837,  the 
Los  Angeles  municipality,  by  its  ayunta- 
miento,  appointed  Jose  Sepulveda  and  An- 
tonio Maria  Osio  commissioners  to  carry  on 
further  negotiations  upon  its  part ;  and  at 
the  same  time  it  adopted  a  series  of  reso- 
lutions defining  its  position.  In  the  first 
place,  it  expressed  its  desire  to  avoid  the 
effusion  of  blood,  but  declared  its  determi- 
nation at  any  sacrifice  to  preserve  its  fidel- 
ity to  the  laws  and  its  obligation  to  its  sacred 
oaths.  In  the  next  place,  while  the  plan  of 
Monterey  assumed  to  declare  the  territory 
independent  of  Mexico,  Los  Angeles,  on  the 
contrary,  gave  notice  that  it  would  in  no  man- 
ner consent  to  such  independence,  though 
radically  opposed  to  the  centralist  or  any 
other  than  the  federal  system.  In  the  third 
place,  the  apostolic  Roman  Catholic  religion 
was  the  only  religion  recognized  at  Los  An- 
geles, and  justice  demanded  that,  as  hitherto, 
no  opinions  contrary  to  it  should  be  toler- 
ated. In  the  fourth  place,  no  individual  or 
authority  should  be  questioned  as  to  political 
doctrines  entertained  previous  to  any  ar- 
rangement that  might  be  made ;  and,  finally, 
any  arrangement  to  be  made  was  to  be  un- 
derstood to  be  merely  provisional,  subject  to 
the  future  action  of  the  supreme  government 
of  Mexico,  and  intended  on  the  part  of  Los 
Angeles  merely  to  prevent  the  shedding  of 
blood.  On  the  same  day,  Sepulveda  issued 
a  proclamation  designed  to  rally  the  popula- 
tion in  support  of  the  ayuntamiento,  and  es- 
pecially to  excite  their  prejudices  against 
the  Monterey  principles  of  religious  tolera- 
tion. 

Alvarado  had,  in  the  meanwhile,  marched 
southward  with  a  hastily  gathered  military 
force,  among  which  were  some  riflemen ;  and 


he  established  his  camp  within  sight  of  San 
Fernando.  What  he  desired  and  demanded 
was  the  submission  of  the  country  ;  but  he 
cared  very  little  about  the  words  in  which 
such  submission  was  couched.  So  far  as 
religious  prejudice  was  concerned,  he  was 
willing  to  leave  prejudice  to  prejudice.  .  If 
Los  Angeles  was  ready  to  accept  the  new 
system,  it  made  no  difference  that  it  talked 
against  it,  or  put  its  acceptance  on  the  ground 
of  a  desire  to  prevent  bloodshed.  It*- was 
the  substance,  not  the  appearance,  of  the 
thing  that  he  was  interested  in.  According- 
ly, an  arrangement  was  soon  effected ;  Los 
Angeles  submitted ;  Alvarado  was  satisfied, 
and  on  February  5  he  quietly  marched  with 
his  forces  into  the  capital  of  the  southern  can- 
ton. A  few  days  afterwards  he  dismissed 
his  riflemen,  posted  Lieutenant-Colonel  Jose' 
Castro  with  thirty  men  at  San  Gabriel,  and 
returned  northward. 

An  interesting  incident  is  said  to  have  oc- 
curred at  Los  Angeles  just  before  Alvarado 
left  there.  The  ayuntamiento,  previous  to 
the  amicable  arrangement  referred  to,  had 
collected  a  force  of  some  four  hundred  men, 
and,  for  the  purpose  of  meeting  expenses, 
had  raised  a  fund  of  two  thousand  dollars. 
When  the  arrangement  was  completed,  and 
the  Los  Angeles  force  disbanded,  Alvarado 
proposed  to  the  ayuntamiento  that,  if  any  of 
that  money  remained,  it  should  be  advanced 
as  a  loan  to  the  State.  This  was  assented  to ; 
and  the  treasurer  of  the  fund  was  sent  for, 
and  directed  to  pay  over  any  unexpended 
balance.  To  Alvarado's  utter  amazement, 
the  treasurer  handed  over  seventeen  hundred 
and  eighty-five  dollars.  Alvarado  asked  if 
it  were  possible  that  two  hundred  and  fifteen 
dollars  could  have  been  laid  out  for  the  ex- 
penses of  four  hundred  men.  The  treasurer 
answered  that  the  accompanying  accounts 
showed  exactly,  item  for  item,  that  such  had 
up  to  that  time  been  the  outlay,  and  added 
that  there  had  been  no  waste.  Alvarado 
replied,  that  if  the  treasurer  had  been  an  or- 
dinarily honest  man,  his  accounts  would 
have  shown  a  very  different  result ;  that  his 
conduct  in  office  richly  deserved  the  punish- 
ment about  to  be  inflicted  upon  him ;  and, 
that  in  view  of  all  the  circumstances,  he  was 


340 


Juan  Bautista  Alvarado,  Governor  of  California. 


[Oct. 


sentenced  to  proceed  at  once  to  Monterey 
and  take  charge  of  the  custom-house.  A 
man,  said  the  governor,  who  could  manage 
the  war  fund  of  Los  Angeles  in  that  manner, 
was  the  right  man  to  manage  the  finances  of 
the  State.  At  this  the  treasurer  was  as  much 
astonished  in  his  turn  as  Alvarado  had  been. 
Such  appreciation  he  had  never  before  met 
with.  But,  though  he  was  thankful  for  the 
honor  that  was  tendered,  he  replied  that  he 
could  not  possibly  accept  it.  Not  only  did 
his  private  business  absolutely  require  his 
presence  at  Los  Angeles,  but  he  had  no  de- 
sire to  hold  office  under  the  general  govern- 
ment. He'  had  often  observed  that  there 
was  little  or  no  thanks  for  honesty  in  public 
employment.  If  he  were  in  charge  of  the 
custom  house,  all  the  merits  in  the  world 
would  not  prevent  him  from  finding  himself 
at  any  time  superseded  by  an  unexpected 
dispatch  and  the  arrival  of  a  successor.  He 
was  much  obliged  for  the  compliment,  but 
he  did  not  want  public  employment,  either 
as  the  head  of  the  custom  house  or  in  any 
other  position. 

As  soon  as  Alvarado  got  back  to  Santa 
Barbara,  he  issued  a  call  for  a  meeting  of  the 
California  congress  at  that  place.  It  con- 
vened on  April  1 1.  There  were  present,  be- 
side himself,  Jose  Antonio  de  la  Guerra  y 
Noriega,  Antonio  Buelna,  Manuel  Jimeno 
Casarin,  Jose  Ramon  Estrada,  and  Francisco 
Xavier  Alvarado.  The  object  was  to  pass 
upon  the  late  transactions.  It  readily  ap- 
proved everything  that  had  been  done;  and, 
for  the  purpose  of  carrying  out  the  spirit  of 
the  treaty  or  arrangement  with  Los  Angeles, 
it  decreed  that  the  governor  should  prepare 
and  transmit  to  the  supreme  government  at 
Mexico  a  petition  for  the  reestablishment  of 
the  federal  system,  and  the  recognition  of 
California  as  a  sovereign  federal  State,  free 
to  administer  its  own  internal  concerns.  A 
few  days  afterwards,  Alvarado  addressed  the 
Los  Angeles  ayuntamiento,  announcing  the 
action  of  the  congress,  and  complimenting 
the  Los  Angeles  people  upon  the  interest 
manifested  by  them  in  the  cause  of  liberty, 
and  the  good  faith  shown  in  upholding  the 
terms  of  the  treaty  recently  agreed  upon. 


On  May  10  he  issued  a  general  address  to 
the  people  of  the  State,  informing  them  of 
the  action  that  had  been  taken,  congratula- 
ting them  upon  the  success  of  the  new  sys- 
tem, and  encouraging  them  to  look  forward 
upon  the  prosperity  of  California  as  assured. 
But  of  all  the  official  papers  emanating 
from  his  pen  during  this  period,  the  most  re- 
markable was  a  proclamation  issued  at  San- 
ta Barbara,  on  July  9.  In  it,  he  no  longer 
called  himself  governor  of  the  "  Free  and 
Sovereign  State  of  Alta  California,"  but  gov- 
ernor of  the  "Department  of  Alta  California." 
The  difference,  which  might  not,  at  first  sight, 
appear  of  any  importance,  was  very  great. 
It  was  much  more  than  a  difference  in 
mere  names ;  it  represented  a  difference  in 
things ;  it,  in  itself,  indicated  a  complete  revo- 
lution. There  can  be  no  doubt  that  Alvarado 
would  have  been  willing  to  become  the  sec- 
ond Washington  of  a  new,  free,  and  indepen- 
dent nation  on  the  Pacific.  But  he  was  not 
a  visionary.  He  soon  perceived  that  there 
was  a  very  great  difference  between  the  Cali- 
fornians  and  the  Anglo-Saxon  colonists  of 
the  Atlantic  side  of  the  continent.  He  saw 
that  what  was  practicable  for  the  latter, 
reared  as  they  had  been  in  a  school  of  free- 
dom and  inured  to  energetic  struggle,  was 
entirely  out  of  the  question  for  the  former. 
It  became  plain  to  him  that  the  only  chance 
of  preserving  California  for  the  people  of  his 
own  race  and  blood,  was  to  preserve  it  as  a 
part  of  the  Mexican  nation.  A  revolution 
had  taken  place  in  his  own  mind,  and  he 
made  it  a  revolution  in  the  country  by  a 
stroke  of  his  pen.  A  fitting  opportunity  had 
presented  itself  in  the  arrival  of  news  from 
Mexico,  that,  on  December  30,  1836,  the 
Mexican  congress,  in  dividing  the  national 
territory,  had  made  a  single  department  of  the 
two  Californias,  and  that  on  April  17,  1837, 
General  Anastasio  Bustamante,  after  the  cap- 
ture of  Santa  Anna  by  the  Texans,  had  be- 
come constitutional  president  of  the  republic. 
Alvarado  had  already  opened  communication 
with  the  central  government,  by  transmitting 
the  proceedings  of  the  congress  at  Santa 
Barbara  ;  and  he  now  seized  the  opportunity 
of  wheeling  California  again  into  line  under 


1885.] 


Juan  Bautista  Alvarado,   Governor  of  California. 


341 


the  Mexican  flag  and  sovereignty,  by  quietly 
dropping  the  name  of  "  Free  and  Sovereign 
State,"  and  adopting  that  of  "  Department." 

It  is  rare  to  find,  among  the  proclamations 
and  pronunciamientos  either  of  Mexico  or 
California,  anything  worth  preservation  on  its 
own  account ;  only  here  and  there,  as  a  gen- 
eral rule,  can  a  word  or  a  sentence,  or  some- 
times a  paragraph,  be  found,  that  is  of  suf- 
ficient interest  to  transcribe;  and  then,  chiefly 
on  account  of  its  extravagance.  But  Alva- 
rado's  paper,  besides  its  historic  value  as  a 
political  document,  was  remarkable  as  the 
work  of  a  native  Californian,  only  twenty- 
eight  years  of  age,  who  had  substantially  edu- 
cated himself,  and,  so  far  as  everything  that 
was  liberal  was  concerned,  had  educated  him- 
self in  secret.  Styling,  himself  the  citizen 
Juan  B.  Alvarado,  Governor  of  the  Depart- 
ment of  Alta  California,  and  addressing  all 
its  inhabitants  as  his  fellow  citizens  "  com- 
patriots," he  said :  "  Liberty,  peace,  and 
union  are  the  triune  intelligence  by  which 
our  destiny  is  to  be  governed.  Our  arms 
have  given  us  the  first ;  a  wise  Congress  will 
secure  to  us  the  second  ;  and  upon  ourselves 
alone  depends  the  third.  But,  without  union, 
there  can  be  no  permanent  liberty  or  peace. 
Let  us,  therefore,  preserve  indissolubly  this 
union — the  sacred  ark  in  which  lies  enshrined 
our  political  redemption.  War  only  against 
the  tyrant !  Peace  among  ourselves ! 

"  The  solidity  of  a  building  consists  in  the 
union  of  its  parts.  A  single  stone  displaced 
from  one  of  its  arches  causes  the  columns  to 
topple,  and  precipitates  into  ruin  a  fabric, 
which,  if  the  materials  composing  it  remained 
united,  might  mark  the  age  of  time.  Such 
is  the  effect  of  disunion  upon  a  physical  edi- 
fice ;  it  is  in  no  respect  different  in  its  ruin- 
ous effect  upon  the  moral  edifice  of  society. 

"  The  territory  of  Alta  California  is  im- 
mense in  extent.  Its  coasts  are  bathed  by 
the  great  ocean,  which,  by  placing  it  in  com- 
munication with  the  nations  of  the  world, 
gives  encouragement  to  our  industry  and 
commerce,  the  fountains  of  wealth  and  abun- 
dance. The  benignity  of  our  climate,  the 
fertility  of  our  soil,  and,  I  may  be  permitted 
to  add,  your  suavity  of  manners  and  excel- 


lence of  character,  are  all  so  many  privileges 
with  which  the  Omnipotent,  in  the  distribu- 
tion of  his  gifts,  has  preferred  it.  What 
country  can  enumerate  so  many  conjoined 
advantages  as  ours  ?  Let  us  see  that  it  oc- 
cupies as  distinguished  a  place  in  history  as 
it  occupies  upon  the  map. 

"The  constitutional  laws  of  the  year  '36 
guarantee  the  inviolability  of  our  rights,  and 
even  extend  them  beyond  our  moderate  de- 
sires. The  august  chamber  of  the  nation's 
representatives  is  ready  to  listen  to  any  legis- 
lative proposition  we  may  present  to  it,  cal- 
culated to  promote  our  well-being  and  pros- 
perity. Our  votes  may  avail  in  favor  of  the 
deserving  citizen  whom  we  may  deem  worthy 
to  fill  the  supreme  national  magistracy.  And1 
what  more  can  you  wish  ?  The  same  laws 
assure  us  that  we  will  not  again  become  the 
spoil  of  the  despotism  and  ambition  of  an- 
other tyrant  like  Don  Mariano  Chico.  The 
Department  of  Aha  California  can  henceforth 
be  governed  only  by  a  son  of  its  soil,  or  one 
of  its  own  citizens. 

"  Yes,  my  friends,  the  enthusiasm  and  joy- 
caused  in  you  by  the  promising  outlook  is 
entirely  just.  I,  myself,  feel  the  same  emo- 
tions of  pleasure.  There  is  no  need  any 
longer  to  do  yourselves  the  violence  of  re- 
straining your  rejoicing.  Let  it  have  scope, 
and  join  with  me  in  exclaiming  :  Long  live 
the  nation  !  Long  live  the  constitution  of 
the  year  '36  !  Long  live  the  Congress  which 
sanctioned  it !  Long  live  liberty  !  Long  live 
union  ! " 

The  halcyon  day  of  peace,  tranquillity,, 
hope,  and  prospective  reconciliation  with  the 
central  government,  thus  pictured  by  the  new 
governor,  lasted  only  from  July  until  the  end 
of  October.  During  this  time,  Alvarado  was 
gradually  drawing  the  people  nearer  and 
nearer  together,  and  closer  and  closer  to  the 
administration  at  Mexico.  Suddenly,  and  as 
unexpectedly  as  thunder  from  a  clear  sky, 
came  word  that  Carlos  Antonio  Carrillo  had 
been  appointed  governor  of  California  in  his 
place.  In  other  words,  notwithstanding  the 
ability  he  had  displayed  in  rising  to  promi- 
nence, the  disposition  he  manifested  to  pre- 
serve the  country  for  the  republic,  and  the 


342 


Juan  Bautista  Alvarado,  Governor  of  California. 


[Oct. 


general  popularity  he  enjoyed  amongst  all 
classes  of  the  people,  he  was  unceremoni- 
ously and  without  notice  set  aside  for  an 
untried  man,  whose  only  recommendation, 
so  far  as  was  known,  consisted  in  being  the 
brother  of  Jose"  Antonio  Carrillo,  late  dele- 
gate to  the  Mexican  congress.  When  Alva- 
rado heard  of  it,  he  was,  doubtless,  forcibly 
reminded  of  the  conversation  he  had  had 
with  the  treasurer  of  Los  Angeles,  and  fully 
appreciated  how  much  truth  was  mixed  up 
in  the  asperity  of  that  philosopher's  remarks 
on  the  subject  of  public  office-holding. 

The  news  of  Carrillo's  appointment  was 
contained  in  a  letter  from  the  late  delegate, 
Jose"  Antonio  Carillo.  It  was  dated  at  La 
Paz,  in  Lower  California,  on  August  20,  1837. 
The  late  delegate  had  reached  that  point  on 
his  way  homeward  with  his  'brother's  ap- 
pointment in  his  pocket,  when  his  wife,  who 
accompanied  him,  fell  sick  of  a  malarial 
fever,  called  the  tepie,  or  San  Bias  tertian ; 
and,  finding  that  he  would  be  unavoidably 
detained  for  some  time,  he  wrote  to  Alvara- 
do, as  well  as  to  his  brother  Carlos,  the  in- 
formation which  he  had  expected  to  deliver 
in  person.  In  his  letter  to  Alvarado,  he  as- 
sumed a  patronizing  air,  and  addressed  him 
as  "  my  esteemed  Bautista."  He  reminded 
him  of  their  old  friendship,  hitherto  never 
interrupted,  and  then  launched  out  into  a 
discussion  of  the  subject  which  he  had  at 
heart.  He  had  seen  in  Mexico,  he  said,  the 
pronunciamiento  of  Monterey  and  the  vari- 
ous proclamations  that  had  been  since  issued, 
and  was  therefore  aware  of  the  unpremedi- 
tated revolution  that  had  taken  place.  He 
would  not  deny  or  dispute  the  good  faith  of 
its  authors,  and  much  less  that  they  had 
weighty  reasons  to  be  provoked  and  disgust- 
ed with  the  government  ever  since  the  death 
of  Figueroa  ;  nor  would  he  deny  or  dispute 
the  indifference  and  neglect  with  which  the 
supreme  government  had  treated  California, 
even  almost  to  its  utter  ruin.  But  all  this 
was  as  nothing,  compared  with  the  evils  that 
must  necessarily  result  from  the  revolution 
which  had  been  started,  and  which  was  no 
less  inconsiderate  and  unwise  than  impracti- 
cable and  impossible  of  eventual  success. 


This  was  especially  the  case,  in  view  of  the 
fact — and  he  assured  Alvarado  that  it  was  a 
fact — that  the  Mexican  government  had  re- 
sources in  abundance,  and  was  prepared  to 
send  a  force  of  a  thousand  armed  men  to  re: 
duce  California  to  obedience. 

And  what,  he  exclaimed,  would  become  of 
California,  even  supposing  it  could  accom- 
plish its  independence  ?  Could  Alvarado, 
and  the  gentlemen  who  were  associated  with 
him,  suppose  that  it  could  exist  without  a 
union  with  some  other  power  ?  A  moment's 
reflection  would  suggest  the  answer,  No. 
Under  such  circumstances,  were  not  the  Cali- 
fornians,  with  their  revolution,  exposing  them- 
selves to  ridicule  ?  There  were  many  other 
reflections  connected  with  the  subject,  he 
went  on  to  say,  which  he  might  make  ;  but 
he  did  not  deem  it  proper  to  commit  them 
to  paper,  and  would  reserve  them  until  he 
should  have  the  pleasure  of  embracing  him. 
In  the  meanwhile,  he  would  repeat  that  the 
supreme  government  had  prepared  an  expe- 
dition of  a  thousand  soldiers,  which  it  was 
ready  to  pour  into  California,  and  that, 
though  its  special  object  would  be  the  seiz- 
ure of  the  persons  of  the  chief  movers  of  the 
revolution,  the  whole  country  would  griev- 
ously suffer.  Such  a  soldiery,  without  inter- 
ests in  the  land,  was  like  a  swarm  of  locusts, 
and  would  leave  nothing  untouched.  He 
had,  however,  exerted  himself,  and  succeeded 
in  obtaining  for  the  present  a  suspension  of 
the  enterprise.  He  had  done  so  by  means 
of  a  compact,  entered  into  on  his  part  with 
the  government,  that  an  hijo  del  pais,  or 
citizen  of  the  country,  should  become  gov- 
ernor in  the  person  of  his  brother,  Carlos 
Antonio  Carrillo  (a  copy  of  whose  appoint- 
ment he  had  the  satisfaction  of  transmitting) 
and  that  the  new  governor  should,  without 
the  necessity  of  arms  or  force  from  the  capi- 
tal, restore  the  department  to  its  normal  con- 
dition of  law  and  obedience. 

It  would  thus  be  seen,  he  continued,  how 
much  he  had  done,  not  only  for  the  country, 
but  also  for  the  chief  movers  of  the  revolu- 
tion. It  was  plain  that  their  best  course  of 
action  was  to  accept  without  hesitation  the 
invitation  that  would  be  made  them  by  the 


1885.] 


Juan  Bautista  Alvarado,   Governor  of  California. 


343 


new  governor ;  or,  still  better,  to  voluntarily 
make  the  first  advance,  trusting  to  the  gener- 
osity of  the  Mexican  government,  which  was 
incapable  of  acting  contrary  to  what  was  de- 
corous, and  in  accordance  with  the  spirit  of 
the  arrangement  he  had  effected.  If,  how- 
ever, the  further  interposition  of  his  own 
friendly  influence  should  be  required,  he 
pledged  his  solemn  word  to  return  to  Mexi- 
co, and  obtain  from  the  government  all  the 
necessary  guarantees  in  favor  of  their  per- 
sons, their  property,  and  their  employments. 
And  in  the  confidence  that  upon  his  arrival 
in  Alta  California  the  whole  business  would 
be  satisfactorily  concluded  as  he  proposed, 
he  requested  an  answer  to  his  communica- 
tion. 

'Accompanying  the  foregoing  letter  was 
one  from  Carlos  Antonio  Carrillo  himself, 
dated  San  Buenaventura,  October  25,  1837. 
He  addressed  Alvarado  as  "  my  dear  nephew, 
Juanito."  He  protested  that  he  had  not 
sought  the  position  of  governor  ;  that  his  ap- 
pointment was  due  entirely  to  the  favor  and 
good  will  of  President  Bustamantej  and  that, 
recognizing  his  own  unfitness  for  the  office, 
he  would,  in  his  administration,  have  to  rely 
upon  the  counsel  and  advice  of  his  relatives 
and  friends.  He  was  happy  to  state  that, 
owing  to  the  intervention  of  friendly  powers, 
there  was  no  longer  any  danger  of  war  with 
the  United  States ;  and  that,  owing  to  the 
good  offices  of  his  brother,  Jose  Antonio,  at 
Mexico,  no  armed  force,  for  the  time  being 
at  least,  would  be  sent  to  California. 

Alvarado,  upon  receiving  information  of 
the  appointment  of  Carrillo,  was  disposed  to 
relinquish  the  government  into  his  hands  ; 
but,  under  the  circumstances  in  which  he 
was  placed,  and  in  view  of  the  great  change 
in  the  position  of  affairs  which  had  recently 
taken  place,  he  asked  a  sufficient  delay  to 
receive  advice  from  Mexico,  in  answer  to  his 
last  communications.  But  this  Carrillo  would 
by  no  means  consent  to.  He  demanded  an 
immediate  delivery  of  the  administration,  and 
hinted  that  disobedience  would  be  very  sure 
to  lead  to  discord  and  difficulty.  It  was  very 
evident,  from  the  tone  of  peremptoriness  he 
now  assumed,  that  his  feelings  in  regard  to  the 


governorship  must  have  materially  changed 
since  his  first  letter  to  Alvarado.  He  had 
then  been  indifferent.  The  office,  as  he 
claimed,  had  been  thrust  upon  him  ;  now, 
he  was  not  only  willing,  but  anxious,  to  fill 
the  chair  of  State,  and  be  addressed  by  the 
title  of  Excellency.  But  the  "  amado — be- 
loved," the  "  estimado — esteemed,"  the  "  que- 
rido — cherished,"  nephew — for  all  these  en- 
dearing epithets  were  used — was  not  to  be 
moved  either  by  threats  or  cajolery ;  and  it 
soon  became  plain,  that,  if  Carrillo  was  going 
to  become  governor  in  fact,  before  Alvarado 
was  willing  to  relinquish  the  office,  he  would 
have  to  fight  for  it. 

In  January,  1838,  Jose"  Antonio  Carrillo, 
having  reached  Alta  California  and  found 
that  his  scheme  of  making  his  brother  gov- 
ernor had  not  succeeded  any  better  than  his 
previous  scheme  of  making  Los  Angeles  the 
capital,  thought  of  trying  the  effect  of  diplo- 
macy, and  invited  Alvarado  to  a  conference, 
with  a  view  to  an  accommodation  and  com- 
promise. At  the  same  time,  he  made  ad- 
vances to  Alvarado's  principal  friends  and 
supporters,  Castro  and  Vallejo.  But  strategy 
and  intrigue  were  of  no  more  avail  than  ca- 
jolery and  threats.  Nothing  now  remained 
for  the  Carrillos,  if  they  expected  to  accom- 
plish their  object,  but  an  appeal  to  arms. 
They  and  their  adherents  accordingly  began 
marshaling  their  forces.  Juan  Bandini,  ex- 
delegate  to  congress,  Captain  Pablo  de  la 
Portilla,  Ensign  Macedonia  Gonzales,  and  al- 
most all  the  men  of  prominence  in  the  south- 
ern part  of  the  country,  made  themselves  busy. 
Sectional  feelings  were  stirred  up.  It  was  a 
fight  of  the  South  against  the  North ;  and 
every  southern  man,  without  reference  to 
what  he  may  have  thought  of  the  merits  of 
the  quarrel,  was  obliged  by  his  social  ties  and 
virtues,  if  for  no  other  reason,  to  take  part 
with  his  neighbors  and  friends.  In  a  very 
short  time,  numbers  of  troops  gathered  at 
different  points  ;  and  hostilities  commenced. 

No  sooner  had  the  Carrillos  thus  thrown 
down  the  gage  of  war,  than  Alvarado  unhesi- 
tatingly accepted  it.  He  immediately  gath- 
ered a  body  of  troops,  whom  he  hastily  dis- 
patched southward  under  the  command  of 


344 


Juan  Bautista  Alvarado,   Governor  of  California. 


[Oct. 


Jos£  Castro,  and  soon  afterwards  himself 
followed  with  another  body.  His  plan  of 
campaign  was,  by  activity  and  celerity,  to 
crush  the  insurrection,  before  it  could  make 
headway.  In  accordance  with  his  instruc- 
tions, Castro  hastened  by  rapid  and  forced 
marches,  resting  only  at  night,  and  then  only 
for  a  few  hours,  until  he  reached  and  seized 
the  Rincon,  a  narrow  pass  where  the  high 
range  of  mountains  eastward  of  Santa  Bar- 
bara strikes  down  to,  and,  so  to  speak,  juts 
over  the  ocean,  leaving  the  only  practicable 
road  for  miles  along  the  sands  of  the  beach 
at  the  foot  of  the  cliffs.  In  topographical 
position  the  place  was  a  sort  of  Thermopylas. 
A  small  force  there  could  prevent  a  northern 
army  from  passing  south,  or  a  southern  army 
from  passing  north.  It  was  the  key  of  the 
situation. 

The  Rincon  was  but  a  short  distance 
north  of  San  Buenaventura,  which  was  the 
headquarters  of  Carrillo's  forces  and  was 
then  occupied  by  a  large  portion  of  his  troops 
under  command  of  Juan  de  Castaneda. 
They  reposed  there  in  fancied  security,  sup- 
posing their  enemies  far  enough  away,  and 
intending,  when  the  rest  of  the  southern 
troops  had  joined  them,  to  march  north  and 
fight  their  battles  on  northern  soil.  When, 
however,  Castro  found  the  Rincon  unoccu- 
pied, not  even  a  sentinel  being  in  sight,  he 
posted  a  few  men  there,  and  then  pressed  on 
with  his  main  body  and  an  eight-pounder  can- 
non to  San  Buenaventura.  The  dawn  of 
the  next  morning  found  him  entrenched  on  a 
hill  overlooking  Castaneda's  camp.  Nothing 
could  have  exceeded  the  latter's  astonish- 
ment and  mortification,  to  thus  find  himself 
completely  surprised  and  entrapped.  Cas- 
tro demanded  an  unconditional  surrender. 
Castaneda  answered  that  he  had  been  or- 
dered to  hold  the  place,  and  he  was  unwilling 
to  evacuate  unless  granted  all  the  honors  of 
war.  Castro  replied  that  he  would  open 
fire.  Castaneda  rejoined  that  he  should  act 
as  he  thought  best. 

The  battle  of  San  Buenaventura,  if  battle 
it  can  be  called,  which  followed  this  inter- 
change of  missives,  was  extraordinary  in  the 
length  of  time  it  lasted  and  the  little  damage 


that  was  done.  It  resembled  a  mock  battle 
with  blank  cartridges.  Each  party  wanted  to 
frighten  his  adversary,  but  seemed  unwilling 
to  hurt  him.  Castro  finally  succeded  in  run- 
ning Castaneda  off.  In  his  report  to  Alvar- 
ado, written  on  March  28th,  the  third  day 
after  the  fight  commenced,  Castro  wrote  : 
"  I  have  the  pleasure  of  informing  your  Ex- 
cellency that  after  two  days  of  continuous 
firing,  and  with  the  loss  of  only  one  man  on 
our  part,"  (and,  he  might  have  added,  none 
on  the  other),  "  I  have  routed  the  enemy, 
and  by  favor,  of  the  night,  they  have  fled  in 
all  directions."  He  went  on  to  say  that  he 
was  then  occupying  the  field  of  battle  with 
his  artillery,  and  that  he  intended  to  send  a 
company  of  mounted  infantry  and  another 
of  cavalry  lancers  in  pursuit  of  the  runaways. 
The  next  day  he  wrote  that  he  had  captured 
most  of  the  fugitives,  taken  away  their  arms, 
and  with  the  exception  of  the  leaders,  set 
them  at  liberty. 

Among  the  captured  leaders  were  Jose" 
Antonio  Carrillo,  the  prime  mover  of  the 
insurrection,  Andres  Pico,  Ignacio  del  Valle, 
Jose  Ramirez,  Ignacio  Palomares,  and  Rob- 
erto and  Gil  Ybarra.  These  persons  Castro 
sent  under  a  guard  to  Santa  Inez,  where 
they  were  placed  at  the  disposition  of  Alvar- 
ado, who  arrived  the  same  night  from  the 
north.  He,  on  his  part,  ordered  them  to  be 
conducted  to  Sonoma,  thus  removing  them 
out  of  his  way,  and  at  the  same  time  avoiding 
exciting  the  desperate  feeling  of  opposition 
among  their  friends,  which  would  have  been 
the  sure  result  of  any  extreme  measures. 
Meanwhile  Castro,  after  the  rout  of  San 
Buenaventura,  marched  to  and  established 
his  camp  at  San  Fernando.  On  April  ist, 
he  wrote  to  Alvarado  that  a  number  of  the 
citizens  of  Los  Angeles  were  desirous  of  hav- 
ing a  conference,  with  the  object  of  putting 
a  stop  to  the  war,  and  if  possible,  closing  the 
door  to  the  ruinous  evils  which  threatened 
the  country  ;  and  he  added,  that  his  own 
breast  was  animated  with  the  same  senti- 
ments. On  April  8th,  he  wrote  again,  but 
in  a  more  warlike  spirit.  He  said  he  had 
offered  terms  of  pacification  to  the  enemy, 
but  they  were  deaf  to  anything  like  reason 


1885.] 


Juan  Bautista  Alcarado,  Governor  of  California. 


345 


and  insisted  upon  the  same  claims  that  had 
induced  them  to  take  up  arms.  He,  there- 
fore, was  only  waiting  for  reinforcements,  to 
advance  ;  and  he  had  no  fear  but  that  the 
success  of  his  arms  in  the  blow  that  remained 
to  be  struck  would  be  no  less  glorious  than 
under  Providence  it  had  hitherto  been. 

A  week  later,  Alvarado,  who  had  marched 
to  San  Fernando,  addressed  a  letter  to  Car- 
los Antonio  Carrillo,  in  which,  after  speak- 
ing of  the  acts  of  hostility  committed  by  his 
armed  crowd  of  vagabonds,  he  adjured  him 
to  separate  from  the  canaille  and  join  him 
and  his  friends  in  a  lasting  union  for  the  se- 
curity of  the  country.  But  Carrillo  had  gone 
to  San  Diego,  for  the  purpose  of  recuperating 
from  the  defeat  of  San  Buenaventura.  News 
soon  came  that  he  proposed  making  a  stand 
at  the  Indian  pueblo  of  Las  Flores,  near  San 
Juan  Capistrano.  Alvarado  marched  thither 
immediately,  and,  as  Castro  had  done  at  San 
Buenaventura,  planted  himself  on  a  hill  over- 
looking the  place.  He  lost  no  time,  howev- 
er, in  any  interchange  of  missives,  but  opened 
fire  at  once  with  his  cannon.  A  few  shots 
drove  Carrillo  from  the  Indian  huts  of  the 
town  into  a  cattle  corral;  but,  finding  his 
position  there  still  more  exposed  than  in  the 
town,  he  stole  away,  and  made  his  escape. 
As  his  departure  left  his  troops  without  a 
head,  and,  in  fact,  without  an  object  to  fight 
for,  they  soon  surrendered  ;  whereupon  Alva- 
rado told  them  to  return  to  their  homes,  and 
cautioned  them  to  beware  of  insurrection  for 
the  future,  or  they  might  fare  worse. 

The  affair  at  Las  Flores  finished  the  war. 
Alvarado  returned  to  Santa  Barbara,  where, 
on  May  27,  he  issued  a  proclamation  an- 
nouncing the  termination  of  hostilities.  He 
also  announced  the  receipt  of  recent  news 
from  Mexico,  that,  in  the  conflict  that  was 
going  on  there  between  federalism  and  cen- 
tralism, federalism  was  making  rapid  strides. 
This  was  especially  the  case  in  Sonora,  which, 
under  General  Jos6  Urrea,  had  established 
its  old  federal  State  sovereignty.  At  the 
same  time,  he  addressed  a  communication  to 
the  authorities  of  Los  Angeles,  that,  until 
farther  advices  from  the  supreme  govern- 
ment, he  would  expect  of  them  the  obedi- 


ience  that  was  due  to  his  government.  He 
seems  to  have  supposed,  and  with  good  rea- 
son, that  a  simple  reminder  of  their  duty 
from  a  governor  who  had  exhibited  such 
vigor  and  had  so  signally  triumphed,  would 
be  sufficient.  But  he  said  nothing  of  the 
kind ;  nor,  though  he  lived  in  an  element  of 
boasting  and  braggadocio,  is  there  to  be 
found  in  his  letters  and  papers  anything  like 
vainglory  in  reference  to  himself  or  his  ex- 
ploits, or  any  abuse  of  his  enemies.  In 
speaking  of  Carrillo,  especially,  he  was  uni- 
formly kind  and  courteous. 

That  unfortunate  gentleman  found  his. 
way  to  his  home,  not  far  distant  from  San 
Buenaventura.  He  was  allowed  to  remain 
there,  under  the  guard  and  surveillance,  so 
to  speak,  of  his  wife.  He  was  not  exactly  a 
prisoner ;  but  the  lady  became  surety  for  his 
good  behavior,  and  he,  on  his  part,  under- 
took that  he  would  not  again  disturb  the  pub- 
lic peace.  He  had  not  been  there  long,  how- 
ever, before  a  foolish  report  reached  him  that 
he  was  liable  to  be  shot.  Though  he  wrote 
to  Alvarado  and  Castro  that  he  could  not  be- 
lieve the  report,  it  evidently  rendered  him 
very  nervous  ;  and  about  the  middle  of  Au- 
gust, seizing  an  opportunity  which  was  fur- 
nished by  his  son-in-law,  William  G.  Dana, 
he  managed  to  escape  in  a  launch  used  for 
sea-otter  hunting,  and  sailed  for  Lower  Cali- 
fornia. 

Meanwhile,  the  prisoners,  Jose  Antonio 
Carrillo  and  others,  who  had  been  sent  to 
Sonoma,  reached  that  place,  and  were  turned 
over  to  Vallejo,  who  occupied  the  position  of 
comandante-general.  Though  Vallejo  had 
refused  to  join  Alvarado  at  the  beginning  of 
the  revolution,  he  no  sooner  heard  of  his  suc- 
cess than  he  became  a  strong  adherent;  and 
Alvarado,  upon  rising  to  power,  advanced 
him  to  high  position.  In  the  subsequent 
military  operations,  Vallejo  took  no  active 
part ;  but  when  he  heard  of  the  battle  of  San 
Buenaventura,  he  exulted  in  what  he  called 
the  glorious  action  and  heroic  valor  of  the 
North-Californians.  Afterwards,  when  the 
prisoners  were  sent  to  him,  he  still  further 
exhibited  his  partisanship  by  refusing  to 
speak  to  them.  It  is  even  said  that  he  would 


346 


Juan  Bautista  Alvarado,   Governor  of  California. 


[Oct. 


give  them  no  food,  except  such  as  only  ex- 
cessive hunger  could  compel  human  beings 
to  eat.  It  is  related  that  on  one  occasion,  a 
compassionate  woman  of  Sonoma,  who  had 
noticed  their  sufferings,  sent  a  boy  with  a 
couple  of  melons,  but  that  the  comandante 
ran  up  and  smashed  them  on  the  ground,  at 
the  same  time  ordering  the  sentinel  to  admit 
no  food,  except  such  as  he  himself  saw  proper 
to  allow.  Antonio  Maria  Osio,  who  vouches 
for  the  truth  of  these  incidents,  introduces  his 
account  of  them  by  stating  that  when  Alvara- 
dosent  the  prisoners  to  Sonoma,  he  remarked, 
that  if  he  sent  them  to  the  devil  they  would 
not  get  what  they  deserved,  and  he  therefore 
sent  them  to  Vallejo  !  And  he  concludes 
his  observations  upon  the  subject,  by  saying 
that  Alvarado  knew  whereof  he  spoke,  and 
did  not  equivocate. 

It  is  possible  that  these  accounts  of  Valle- 
jo's  action  toward  the  prisoners  are  exagger- 
ated; but  it  is  certain  that  he  counseled 
exiling  them  from  the  country.  He  charged 
that  their  object  in  trying  to  get  hold  of  the 
government  was  to  rob  the  mission  proper- 
ties ;  and  he  argued  that,  on  account  of  their 
high  position  and  consequent  great  influence, 
it  was  dangerous  to  allow  them  to  remain  in 
the  territory.  However  this  may  have  been, 
Alvarado  had  no  idea  of  proceeding  to  ex- 
tremities ;  and  after  a  few  months  of  confine- 
ment, he  allowed  them  to  be  released. 

Among  the  persons  who  figured  in  the 
troubles  preceding  AlVarado's  rise,  was  An- 
dres Castillero,  afterwards  noted  as  the  dis- 
coverer of  the  New  Almaden  quicksilver 
mine.  He  was  an  adventurer,  who  had 
come  to  the  country  with  Governor  Chico. 
Having  a  little  smattering  of  medical  knowl- 
edge, he  found  employment  as  an  army 
physician  ;  but  without  confining  himself  to 
any  regular  business,  he  held  himself  ready 
for  any  new  enterprise,  and  mixed  in  all  the 
political  agitations  that  were-  going  on.  Be- 
ing a  man  of  bright  perceptive  faculties, 
when  the  controversy  between  Alvarado  and 
his  enemies  arose,  he  was  not  long  in  decid- 
ing upon  the  side  which  he  would  espouse. 
He  sought  an  interview  with  Alvarado,  and 
proposed  to  go  as  an  agent  on  his  behalf  to 


Mexico,  and  use  his  endeavors  to  make  an 
arrangement  in  his  favor  with  the  central 
government.  Alvarado,  who  was  as  quick 
in  recognizing  talents  as  Castillero  had  been, 
immediately  closed  with  the  proposition,  and 
on  the  first  opportunity  Castillero  was  sent  off, 
duly  accredited. 

At  Mexico  it  seemed  to  make  very  little 
difference  who  was  governor  of  California, 
so  long  as  the  country  retained  its  allegiance 
to  the  republic.  The  President  had  the 
power  to  name  anyone  ;  but  in  June,  1838, 
he  announced  that  he  was  willing  to  appoint 
whomsoever  the  people  desired,  and  suggest- 
ed that  some  expression  of  preference  should 
be  made  by  the  junta,  or  deputation  of  the 
department.  Castillero,  who  had  been  instru- 
mental in  procuring  this  concession,  soon 
afterwards  procured  a  still  further  one,  in  the 
formal  appointment  of  Alvarado  as  politi- 
cal chief  or  gobernador  interino,  and  was 
himself  appointed  a  commissioner,  and  di- 
rected to  return  to  California  and  see  the 
orders  of  the  government  carried  out.  He 
reached  Santa  Barbara  on  his  return  about 
the  middle  of  November,  bringing  not  only 
Alvarado's  commission,  but  an  appointment 
of  Vallejo  as  comandante-general,  thus  le- 
gally confirming  both  in  the  offices  they  had 
hitherto  held  only  by  revolutionary  title.  He 
also  brought  a  general  amnesty  for  political 
offenses  of  all  kinds  committed  in  California, 
and  thereby  effectually  closed  the  door  to 
further  troubles  on  account  of  what  was 
past. 

Alvarado,  being  now  Governor  by  indis- 
putable right,  issued  a  new  proclamation, 
dated  Santa  Barbara,  Nov.  21, 1838,  in  which, 
after  complimenting  Castillero,  he  briefly 
announced  the  action  of  the  supreme  gov- 
ernment, and  pledged  himself,  in  the  per- 
formance of  the  duties  devolved  upon  him 
by  his  new  appointment,  to  omit  no  care 
and  to  shrink  from  no  sacrifice  that  might  be 
necessary  for  the  welfare  of  the  department. 
On  December  10,  he  issued  another  proc- 
lamation, calling  upon  the  people,  in  view  of 
the  approaching  elections  for  officers  of  the 
department,  to  bury  in  oblivion  every  kind 
of  personal  resentment,  and  keep  singly  in 


1885.] 


Juan  Bautista  Alvarado,   Governor  of  California. 


347 


view  the  future  peace  and  advancement  of 
the  country.  On  January  17,  1839,  ne  is~ 
sued  a  third  proclamation,  calling  for  an 
election  in  accordance  with  the  law  of  No- 
vember 30,  1836.  This  law,  which  had 
hitherto  had  no  effect  in  California,  was  in- 
tended to  carry  out  the  new  system  of  gov- 
ernment adopted  by  the  Mexican  constitu- 
tion of  1836,  and  provided  for  the  election 
in  each  of  the  departments  into  which  the 
Republic  had  been  divided,  of  a  new  legis- 
lative body,  to  be  known  as  a  departmental 
junta,  as  well  as  a  representative  to  the  na- 
tional Congress.  As  has  already  been  stated, 
the  two  Californias  under  that-  system  had 
been,  in  December,  1836,  erected  into  a  de- 
partment; and  in  June,  1838,  when  a  new 
division  of  the  republic  into  twenty-four  great 
departments  was  made,  they  were  again  de- 
clared to  constitute  one  of  them,  to  be  known 
as  the  "  Department  of  the  Californias."  It 
was  for  this  reason  that  when  Alvarado  re- 
ceived his  appointment  of  Governor  from 
the  supreme  government,  he  became  Gov- 
ernor not  of  Alta  California  alone,  but  also 
of  Baja  California,  or  in  other  words,  of  the 
Department  of  the  Californias. 

The  proclamation  of  January  17,  1839,  or- 
dered the  election,  in  March  following,  of  an 
electoral  college,  to  meet  at  Monterey  in  May; 
and  directed  that  San  Francisco,  San  Jose, 
Branciforte,  Monterey,  Santa  Barbara,  Los 
Angeles,  and  San  Diego,  each  should  elect  one 
member.  It  also  provided  for  a  representative 
from  Baja  California;  and  soon  afterwards 
Alvarado  addressed  a  communication  to  the 
acting  political  chief  of  that  portion  of  the 
department  to  take  the  proper  measures  for 
an  election  there.  At  the  same  time,  while 
thus  busying  himself  with  providing  for  the 
future,  he  had  the  satisfaction  of  receiving 
and  publishing  two  interesting  documents  re- 
lating to  the  past.  One  was  from  Jose"  An- 
tonio Carrillo,  and  the  other  from  Carlos  An- 
tonio Carrillo,  his  late  rival,  who  had  re- 
turned to  Alta  California.  Both  referred 
to  the  recent  political  convulsions,  and  the 
orders  brought  by  Castillero  from  the  su- 
preme government,  putting  an  end  to  them. 
Both  expressed  themselves  satisfied  with  Al- 


varado's  appointment,  and  both  tendered 
their  unreserved  adherence  and  obedience 
to  him  as  legitimate  governor. 

All  the  disturbances  that  had  agitated  the 
country  having  thus  at  length  been  quieted, 
and  disaffection  not  only  disarmed  but  even 
reconciled,  Alvarado  turned  his  attention  to 
his  civil  office,  and  soon  put  it  in  working 
order.  He  rose  at  four  o'clock  in  the  moyi 
ing,  and  labored  by  himself  until  seven,  when 
he  breakfasted.  After  breakfast  his  secretary 
arrived,  and  the  two  continued  to  work  until 
the  business  of  the  day  was  completely  fin- 
ished, the  governor  carefully  reading  and 
supervising  everything  that  was  done.  He 
exhibited  in  the  cabinet  the  same  energy  that 
he  had  displayed  in  the  war  council  and  on 
the  field.  Osio,  who  was  not  disposed  to  be 
over  laudatory,  summed  up  his  merits  in  this 
respect  by  saying  that,  in  point  of  activity  and 
sedulous  attention  to  the  duties  of  his  office, 
criticism  itself  could  never  justly  find  fault. 

To  give  complete  effect  to  the  orders  re- 
ceived by  the  hands  of  Castillero  from  Mex- 
ico, and,  by  a  strict  compliance  with  all  their 
provisions,  to  restore  California  to  its  old 
position  as  an  integral  and  loyal  part  of  the 
Mexican  republic,  Alvarado,  as  soon  as  cir- 
cumstances^ would  allow,  called  an  extraor- 
dinary session  of  the  old  territorial  deputa- 
tion. This  body,  though  about  to  be  super- 
seded by  the  new  departmental  junta,  was 
still  the  only  legislative  authority  of  the 
country.  It  was  the'  same  territorial  depu- 
tation which,  at  the  end  of  1836,  upon  the 
expulsion  of  Gutierrez  and  the  proclamation 
of  the  free  and  sovereign  State  of  Alta  Cal- 
ifornia, had  resolved  itself  into  the  constitu- 
ent congress  of  the  new  State;  but  after- 
wards, when  Alvarado  made  up  his  mind 
that  the  only  safety  of  the  country  was  to  re- 
main a  part  of  the  Mexican  nation,  and  the 
name  of  "free  and  sovereign  State"  was 
dropped,  the  name  of  "  constituent  con- 
gress "  was  also  dropped,  and  the  old  name 
of  deputation  readopted.  The  body  met  at 
Monterey  on  January  25,  1839.  There  were 
present,  besides  the  governor  himself,  An- 
tonio Buelna,  Jose"  Antonio  d*  la  Guerra  y 
Noriega,  Jos6  Ramon  Estrada,  and  Antonio 


348 


Juan  Bautista  Aloarado,    Governor  of  California, 


[Oct. 


Maria  Osio.  Manuel  Jimeno  Casarin  came 
a  few  days  afterwards.  Pio  Pico  was  de- 
tained at  San  Luis  Rey  by  sickness.  Alva- 
rado  opened  the  sessions  with  an  address, 
in  which  he  stated  the  objects  to  be :  first, 
the  nomination  of  a  terna  or  list  of  candi- 
dates for  the  office  of  gobernador  propie- 
tario  of  the  department  of  the  Californias ; 
secondly,  the  division  of  the  department 
into  districts,  and  of  the  districts  into  par- 
tidos  or  sub-districts ;  thirdly,  the  determin- 
ation of  the  number  of  justices  of  the  peace  ; 
fourthly,  the  fixing  of  the  salaries  of  the 
prefects,  and,  lastly,  the  regulation  of  the 
approaching  elections.  The  next  day  he 
called  attention  to  the  urgent  necessity  of 
proceeding  at  once  to  the  division  of  the 
department  into  districts  and  sub-districts, 
and  the  appointment  of  prefects  and  sub- 
prefects  over  them  ;  and  at  the  same  time  he 
presented  a  plan  of  division  which  was  im- 
mediately referred  to  a  committee,  and  the 
next  day  reported  back  with  approval  and 
adopted.  The  department  was  thereby  di- 
vided into  three  districts  ;  the  first  extending 
from  the  frontier  of  Sonoma  to  the  ex-mission 
of  San  Luis  Obispo  inclusive,  with  the  pue- 
blo of  San  Juan  de  Castro,  as  the  ex-mission 
of  San  Juan  Bautista  was  then  galled,  as  its 
capital;  the  second  extending  from  San 
Luis  Obispo  to  San  Domingo,  south  of  San 
Diego  inclusive,  with  the  ciudad  or  city  of 
Los  Angeles  as  its  capital ;  and  the  third  ex- 
tending from  San  Domingo  to  San  Jos^  del 
Cabo  inclusive,  with  La  Paz  as  its  capital. 
The  northern  and  central  districts  were  each 
divided  into  two  sub-districts,  the  first  at  the 
rancho  de  Las  Llagas,  near  the  present  town 
of  Gilroy,  with  San  Juan  de  Castro  as  capi- 
tal of  the  first  or  southern  sub-district,  and 
the  "  Establishment  of  Dolores  "  as  capital 
of  the  second  or  northern  one  ;  and  the  sec- 
ond divided  at  San  Fernando,  with  Santa 
Barbara  as  capital  of  the  first  or  northern 
sub-district,  and  Los  Angeles  of  the  second 
or  southern  one.  The  third  district  was  left 
undivided,  until  further  information  should 
be  obtained  as  to  what  arrangement  would 
best  suit  that  part  of  the  country. 

In  the  foregoing  plan,  Alvarado  had  fixed 


upon  the  "  Establishment  of  Dolores"  as  the 
capital  of  the  most  northerly  of  the  sub-dis- 
tricts. This  "  Establishment  "  was  the  ex- 
mission  of  Dolores,  sometimes  called  the 
"  Pueblo  of  Dolores,"  and  sometimes  the 
"  Pueblo  of  San  Francisco."  The  mission 
had,  in  point  of  law,  been  converted  into  an 
Indian  pueblo,  the  same  as  the  other  mis- 
sions of  the  country;  but  in  point  of  fact,  no 
organization  as  such  pueblo  had  ever  taken 
place.  Still,  being  ordinarily  spoken  of  and 
regarded  as  a  pueblo,  it  was  named  as  the 
capital,  much  to  the  dissatisfaction  of  the 
old  and  regularly  organized  pueblo  of  San 
Jos6.  The'latter,  in  compliment  to  the  new 
governor,  had  adopted  his  name,  and  was 
then  generally  known  as  "  San  Jose  de  Al- 
varado " ;  but  this,  as  it  appears,  was  not 
regarded  by  him  as  a  sufficient  reason  to  pre- 
fer it  to  the  more  central  location  of  Dolores. 
However  this  may  have  been,  the  people  of 
San  Jose"  protested  against  Dolores,  and  pre- 
sented a  formal  demand  of  the  honor  of 
being  made  the  capital  of  their  own  pueblo. 
Alvarado  declined  to  make  any  change,  but 
reserved  the  subject  as  a  proper  matter  of 
consideration  for  the  action  of  the  next  de- 
partmental junta. 

The  principal  object  of  this  division  of  the 
department  into  districts  and  sub-districts  was 
for  judicial  and  police  purposes.  Under  the 
Mexican  law  of  December  29th,  1836,  each 
district  was  to  have  a  prefect,  nominated  by 
the  governor  and  confirmed  by  the  general 
government,  who  was  to  hold  office  for  four 
years,  and  whose  duty  it  was  to  be  to  main- 
tain public  tranquillity  in  subjection  to  the 
governor ;  execute  departmental  orders ;  su- 
pervise ayuntamientos,  and  regulate  every- 
thing pertaining  to  police;  and  each  sub-dis- 
trict was  to  have  a  sub-prefect,  nominated  by 
the  prefect  and  approved  by  the  governor, 
whose  duties  should  be  similar  to  those  of 
the  prefect,  and  who  was  to  act  in  subjection 
to  him.  There  were  to  be  ayuntamientos  in 
the  capital  of  the  department,  in  every  place 
where  there  had  been  such  in  r8o8 ;  in  sea- 
ports having  a  population  of  four  thousand, 
and  in  every  pueblo  having  a  population  of 
eight  thousand  inhabitants.  These  ayunta- 


1885.] 


Juan  Bautista  Alvarado,  Governor  of  California. 


349 


mientos  were  to  consist  of  alcaldes,  or  magis- 
trates, regidores,  or  councilmen,  and  sindicos, 
or  collectors,  elected  by  the  people;  the  num- 
ber to  be  determined  by  the  departmental 
junta,  but  not  to  exceed  six  alcaldes,  twelve 
councilmen  and  two  collectors,  for  any  one 
ayuntamiento.  The  ayuntamientos  were  to 
watch  over  the  public  health,  prisons,  hos- 
pitals, public  benevolent  institutions  and 
schools  ;  over  roads,  highways,  and  bridges  ; 
over  the  administration  of  public  moneys 
raised  by  taxes,  licenses,  and  rents  of  munici- 
pal property;  also  to  promote  agriculture, 
industry,  and  commerce,  and  to  assist  in  the 
preservation  of  public  order.  The  alcaldes 
were  to  have  judicial  jurisdiction  in  what 
were  known  to  the  civil  law  as  cases  of  con- 
ciliation, in  oral  litigations,  in  preliminary 
proceedings  both  civil  and  criminal,  and  in 
such  cases  as  might  be  intrusted  to  them  by 
the  superior  tribunals.  In  places  not  large 
enough  for  ayuntamientos,  there  were  to  be 
justices  of  the  peace,  proposed  by  the  sub- 
prefects,  nominated  by  the  prefects  and  ap- 
proved by  the  governor,  the  number  to  be 
determined  by  the  departmental  junta  ;  and 
their  duties  and  jurisdiction  were  to  be  sim- 
ilar to  those  of  the  alcaldes  and  ayuntamien- 
tos in  the  larger  places. 

The  next  business  taken  up  by  the  depu- 
tation was  the  nomination  of  candidates 
for  the  office  of  gobernador  propietario,  or 
what  had  then  begun  to  be  called  that  of 
constitutional  governor.  In  accordance  with 
the  law  upon  this  subject,  three  persons  were 
to  be  named,  out  of  whom  the  president  of 
the  republic  was  to  choose  that  officer.  The 
vote  was  taken  on  March  6,  and  resulted 
in  the  choice  of  Juan  Bautista  Alvarado  for 
the  first  place,  Jose  Castro  for  the  second, 
and  Pio  Pico  for  the  third.  The  terna  or 
list  containing  these  names,  and  in  the  order 
indicated,  was  immediately  transmitted  to 
Mexico  ;  and,  after  some  further  business  of 
less  general  interest,  the  junta  adjourned. 
As  soon  as  it  had  done  so,  Alvarado,  to  com- 
ply promptly  with  the  duty  devolved  upon 
him  of  nominating  prefects,  named  Jose" 
Castro  for  the  first  district,  Cosme  Pena  for 
the  second,  and  Luis  Castillo  Negrete  for 


the  third,  and  sent  the  nominations  to  Mex- 
ico with  those  for  governor. 

It  does  not  appear  that  Alvarado  indulged 
in  anyremarks  upon  his  nomination.  Though 
he  had  managed  public  affairs  with  skill  and 
success,  guided  the  revolution  to  a  safe  issue, 
not  only  disarmed  but  reconciled  his  ene- 
mies, and  brought  discordant  elements  into 
harmony,  he  had  nothing  to  say.  But  his 
silence  did  not  prevent  his  friends  from  con- 
gratulating him  and  themselves  upon  the 
happy  effects  of  his  policy.  Jose  Castro,  in 
particular,  upon  taking  possession  of  his  of- 
fice of  prefect,  was  profuse  in  his  expression 
of  satisfaction.  He  rejoiced  in  the  reestab- 
lishment  of  order  ;  the  consummation  of  his 
desires  in  seeing  a  son  of  the  soil  wielding 
the  destinies  of  the  country;  the  respectwhich 
the  general  government  had  been  induced  to 
manifest  for  California,  and  the  prospect  of 
a  prosperous  future,  which  the  prudence, 
ability,  and  patriotism  of  the  new  governor 
rendered  so  flattering. 

Of  the  prominent  friends  of  Alvarado, 
there  was  one,  however,  who  had  or  soon 
found  much  to  complain  about.  This  was 
Vallejo.  He  was  comandante-militar,  or  mili- 
tary commandant  of  Alta  California,  and  had 
been  confirmed  as  such  by  the-  general  gov- 
ernment. .  There  can  be  no  doubt  that  he 
owed  his  position  more  to  Alvarado  than 
to  any  special  service  he  had  performed; 
but  this  did  not  prevent  him  from  feeling 
and  expressing  very  great  dissatisfaction  with 
various  things  that  Alvarado  did  or  omitted 
to  do.  On  one  of  these  occasions  the  gov- 
ernor had  found  it  advisable  to  discharge 
certain  officers  and  soldiers  from  the  military 
service,  and  he  did  so  without  asking  Valle- 
jo's  advice.  This  roused  the  comandante's 
ire,  and  he  protested  loudly.  On  another 
occasion,  not  long  afterwards,  a  soldier  at 
Santa  Barbara  was  tried  and  punished  for 
some  offense  by  a  civil  magistrate  ;  and  this 
again  touched  the  comandante's  dignity.  He 
claimed  that  the  jurisdiction  over  soldiers  be- 
longed only  to  his  department ;  and  he  char- 
acterized the  whole  proceeding  as  an  outrage 
upon  what  he  called  the  "  divine  right  of  the 
military."  But  most  of  all  was  the  comand- 


350 


Juan  Bautista  Alvarado,  Governor  of  California. 


[Oct. 


ante's  spirit  fired  by  the  apathy  of  Alvarado 
under  the  taunts  of  France.  In  1839,  news 
came  that  France  had  declared  war  against 
Mexico  and  bombarded  Vera  Cruz ;  and 
the  French  newspapers  boasted  that  the 
French  flag  would  soon  flutter  from  the 
southernmost  Mexican  seas  to  the  northern- 
most ends  of  the  Californias.  Whatever 
Alvarado  may  have  thought,  he  did  not 
deem  it  necessary  to  make  any  reply  to  these 
boasts,  but  remained  silent.  Vallejo,  on  the 
other  hand,  finding  that  the  government  had 
nothing  to  say,  determined  to  show  that  he, 
at  least,  was  not  disposed  to  submit  tamely 
to  such  insults.  He  accordingly,  on  June 
12,  1839,  from  his  headquarters  at  Sonoma, 
issued  a  furious  proclamation  against  the 
French  government,  charging  it  with  attempt- 
ing to  tarnish  the  glories,  outrage  the  rights, 
and  imperil  the  liberties  of  the  Mexican  na- 
tion. He  therefore  called  upon  his  fellow 
citizens  to  unite  with  him  and  march  to  the 
defense  of  the  country ;  and  he  promised 
them  a  glorious  victory  over  the  haughty 
invader,  who  had  so  impudently  sought  to 
overwhelm  them  with  opprobrium.  But, 
unfortunately  for  the  prospect  thus  held  out 
of  giving  France  a  thorough  drubbing,  the 
ink  with  which  this  vengeful  proclamation 
was  printed  was  scarcely  dry  when  further 
news  arrived  that  an  honorable  peace  had 
been  concluded  between  Mexico  and  the 
king  of  the  French. 

Whether  it  was  the  project  of  chastising 
France,  as  indicated  in  his  proclamation,  or 
whether  it  was  the  feeling  not  entirely  want- 
ing to  epaulet-wearing  gentry  in  general, 
which  regards  the  military  as  the  most  de- 
serving branch  of  the  public  service,  it  is  un- 
important to  inquire ;  but  it  is  certain  that 
Vallejo,  in  his  zeal  to  magnify  his  own  de- 
partment and  subordinate  every  other  inter- 
est of  the  country  to  its  advancement,  an- 
noyed Alvarado  a  great  deal  with  ill-timed 
and  exorbitant  demands.  He  had  previously 
urged  the  foundation  of  a  military  establish- 
ment at  Santa  Rosa,  and  had  taken  some 
steps  towards  founding  it ;  but  he.  now  in- 
sisted upon  attracting  the  undivided  atten- 
tion of  the  government  to  military  affairs,  and 


rendering  the  whole  country  tributary,  so  to 
speak,  to  the  comandancia-general.  Finding 
that  Alvarado  was  not  disposed  to  yield  to 
his  demands  from  Sonoma,  he  went  to  Mon- 
terey and  procured  an  interview  ;  but  he  was 
no  more  successful  in  face-to-face  solicitations 
than  by  letter.  He  returned  to  Sonoma  in 
high  dudgeon ;  talked  of  carrying  his  com- 
plaints to  the  capital  at  Mexico ;  insisted 
that  the  country  was  on  the  swift  road  to 
ruin  ;  and  pronounced  the  peace  and  tran- 
quillity of  the  department  delusive,  and  des- 
tined to  be  of  short  duration. 

Meanwhile,  the  terna,  or  list  of  nomi- 
nations for  governor,  together  with  other 
communications  from  Alvarado,  reached  the 
general  government  at  Mexico.  They  proved 
entirely  satisfactory  to  the  administration 
there.  On  August  6,  the  minister  of  the  in- 
terior announced  the  termination  of  the  revo- 
lution in  California  as  due  to  the  efforts  of 
Alvarado  and  Castillero ;  and  the  next  day, 
in  further  recognition  of  Alvarado's  services, 
and  in  approval  of  the  choice  of  the  people, 
President  Bustamante  appointed  him  gob- 
ernador  propietario,  or  constitutional  gov- 
ernor of  the  department,  or,  in  other  words, 
of  the  two  Californias.  News  of  the  ap- 
pointment reached  Monterey  in  September. 
There  was  general  satisfaction  with  the  ap- 
pointment throughout  the  country,  and  Los 
Angeles  was  especially  loud  in  its  demonstra- 
tions. The  ayuntamiento  of  that  place  ap- 
pointed a  day  of  jubilee  in  honor  of  the  event; 
and  when  the  name  of  the  new  constitutional 
governor  was  formally  announced,  it  was 
greeted  with  cheers  and  hurrahs  from  the 
entire  population.  A  salute  of  thirty-three 
guns  was  fired  ;  and  there  was  a  grand  illu- 
mination at  night.  Alvarado  himself,  how- 
ever, was  unable  to  take  part  in  any  of  the 
festivities.  He  had  begun  to  suffer  from  a 
series  of  attacks  of  illness,  which  frequently 
obliged  him  to  relinquish  business  ;  and  on 
this  occasion,  one  of  them  not  only  kept  him 
confined  to  his  house,  but  prevented  him 
from  taking  possession  of  the  government 
under  the  new  appointment  until  November 
24,  1839,  on  which  day  he  was  sworn  in  and 
resumed  labor. 


1885.] 


Juan  Bautista  Alvarado,  Governor  of  California. 


351 


At  the  same  time  with  news  of  Alvarado's 
appointment  as  constitutional  governor,  came 
also  news  of  the  confirmation  of  Jose"  Castro 
as  prefect  of  the  first  district,  and  Luis  Cas- 
tillo Negrete  as  prefect  of  the  third.  The 
nomination  of  Cosrne  Pena,  who  had  been 
named  prefect  of  the  second,  was  not  ap- 
proved. This,  however,  may  have  been  be- 
cause of  Pena's  bad  health,  on  which  account 
he  had,  soon  after  his  nomination,  transferred 
the  office  to  Jose  Tiburcio  Tapia,  first  alcalde 
of  Los  Angeles,  who  exercised  it  in  his  place. 
Among  the  functions  of  the  office  of  prefect, 
one  of  the  most  important  was  the  supervis- 
ion over  alcaldes  and  justices  of  the  peace, 
who  exercised  in  substance  all  the  judicial 
power  of  the  country,  and  some  of  whom 
acted  as  judges  of  first  instance.  Castro, 
however,  being  essentially  a  military  man, 
devoted  his  attention  almost  exclusively  to 
military  affairs,  and  soon  after  his  appoint- 
ment as  prefect,  busied  himself  with  a  pro- 
posed campaign  to  quell  Indian  disturbances 
on  the  southern  frontier.  Negrete  and  Tapia, 
on  the  other  hand,  attended  more  especially 
to  their  supervisory  duties;  and  Tapia  in  par- 
ticular is  entitled  to  the  credit  of  not  flinch- 
ing in  this  delicate  kind  of  business.  Find- 
ing that  one  of  the  alcaldes  of  Los  Angeles 
winked  at  infringements  of  the  laws  of  that 
place  against  selling  liquor  on  Sunday,  he 
promptly  arraigned  and  punished  him  by  a 
sound  fine  for  his  neglect  of  duty.  In  this, 
however,  he  but  followed  the  example  of  Al- 
varado,  who  had  treated  the  justices  of  the 
peace  at  Monterey  in  the  same  manner  for 
a  similar  neglect  of  duty  a  short  time  previ- 
ously. 

In  March,  1839,  the  primary  elections  of 
that  year  were  held  in  accordance  with  the 
proclamation  of  the  governor.  The  electoral 
college,  then  chosen,  met  at  Monterey  on 
May  i,  and  elected  Andres  Castillero  dele- 
gate to  the  Mexican  Congress,  and  Antonio 
Maria  Osio  substitute.  Two  days  afterwards, 
it  elected,  as  members  of  the  new  depart- 
mental junta,  Manuel  Jimeno  Casarin,  Jose* 
Tiburcio  Castro,  Anastasio  Carrillo,  Rafael 
Gonzalez,  Pio  Pico,  Santiago  Arguello,  and 
Manuel  Requena,  with  Jos^  Castro,  Jose 


Ramon  Estrada,  Ignacio  del  Valle,  Carlos 
Castro,  Ignacio  Martinez,  Jose  de  Jesus  Val- 
lejo,  and  Antonio  Maria  Pico  as  substitutes. 
The  junta,  thus  elected,  met  at  Monterey  on 
February  16,  1840.  Alvarado  presented  a 
long  and  interesting  message,  in  which  he 
sketched  the  condition  of  the  country,  and 
pointed  out  the  various  branches  of  public 
affairs  that  needed  legislative  attention. 
Among  these  he  specified  general  police  reg- 
ulations; the  demarkation  of  municipal  lands, 
it  appearing  that  Monterey  alone  had  its  com- 
mons marked  out;  regulations  concerning 
justices  of  the  peace  and  ayuntamientos  ;  the 
encouragement  of  agriculture  and  commerce, 
and  particularly  of  public  education  ;  the  or- 
ganization of  a  superior  tribunal  of  justice, 
and  the  arrangement  of  a  proper  system  of 
public  finances.  The  junta  proceeded  to 
consider  the  recommendations  of  the  gov- 
ernor, and,  as  a  matter  of  prime  importance, 
elected  Juan  Malarin,  Jose  Antonio  Carrillo, 
Jos£  Antonio  Estudillo,  and  Antonio  Maria 
Osio,  ministers  of  justice,  and  Juan  Bandini, 
fiscal.  There  was,  however,  much  delay  in 
completing  arrangements  for  the  court  which 
they  were  to  constitute ;  and  it  was  not  fully 
organized  until  some  time  afterwards. 

Towards  the  end  of  March,  Pio  Pico  dis- 
turbed the  general  harmony  by  introducing 
his  pet  proposition  to  change  the  capital 
from  Monterey  to  Los  Angeles.  It  was  a 
subject  which  had  already  caused  much  con- 
tention, and  was  destined  to  cause  much 
more.  He  claimed  that  the  supreme  gov- 
ernment, in  1835,  had  ordered  the  city  of 
Los  Angeles  to  be  the  capital,  and  demanded 
that  its  decree  should  be  complied  with. 
Jimeno  Casarin  replied  that  a  later  decree 
had  authorized  the  executive  of  the  depart- 
ment to  locate  the  capital  where  it  thought 
proper ;  that  the  executive,  by  refusing  to 
make  any  change,  had  virtually  fixed  it  at 
Monterey,  and  that  the  supreme  government, 
by  directing  all  its  communications  to  that 
place,  had  very  plainly  recognized  it  as  the 
capital.  After  much  discussion,  and  on  a 
close  vote,  Pico's  proposition  was  rejected, 
and  ordered  returned  to  its  author.  This 
action  was  exceedingly  distasteful  to  that  in- 


352 


Juan  Bautista  Alvarado,   Governor  of  California. 


[Oct. 


dividual;  he  became  disrespectful  and  ob- 
streperous, and  when  called  to  order,  with- 
drew in  disgust  and  declared  that  he  would 
not  return. 

This  conduct  on  the  part  of  Pio  Pico,  and 
certain  recent  action  on  the  part  of  Mariano 
Guadalupe  Vallejo,  who,  on  account  of  his 
disgusts,  already  referred  to,  was  scheming 
against  the  admininistration,  and  similar  ac- 
tion on  the  part  of  Jos^  Antonio  Carrillo, 
who,  though  just  named  second  minister  of 
justice,  was  entirely  dissatisfied,  and  took 
occasion  to  publicly  abuse  the  government, 
induced  Alvarado  to  call  an  extraordinary 
and  secret  session  of  the  junta,  on  April  i, 
for  the  purpose  of  settling  accounts  with 
those  persons.  When  it  convened,  he  made 
a  statement  of  what  had  occurred,  and  re- 
marked that,  though  the  government  regard- 
ed the  schemes  of  its  enemies  as  of  small 
importance,  yet  it  might  be  prudent  to  take 
some  measures  of  precaution  against  them; 
and  that,  at  all  events,  it  was  due  to  the 
junta  to  vindicate  its  dignity  against  their 
insults. 

The  subject  being  referred  to  a  committee, 
consisting  of  Casarin  and  Arguello,  they  re- 
ported that  Vallejo  was  evilly  disposed  but 
afraid  of  taking  responsibilities ;  that  Carrillo, 
when  appointed  minister  of  justice,  was  sup- 
posed to  be  an  adherent  of  the  government, 
as  he  had  publicly  professed,  but  if  he  were 
unwilling  to  perform  his  duties  as  a  good  cit- 
izen, he  ought  to  be  punished  as  a  bad  one ; 
and  that  as  to  Pico's  contemptuous  conduct, 
it  should  be  left  to  the  discretion  of  the  Gov- 
ernor to  apply  such  fine  and  other  correction 
as  he  thought  proper.  They  further  reported 
and  recommended,  and  the  junta  ordered, 
that,  in  view  of  possible  disturbances  by  Val- 
lejo or  the  others,  the  Governor  might  at  any 
time  call  for  such  armed  force  and  take  such 
other  measures  as  he  should  find  necessary 
to  sustain  the  honor  and  dignity  of  the  gov- 
ernment, at  the  same  time  providing  for  the 

[  TO    BE 


equipment  and  pay  of  any  such  force   as 
might  be  raised. 

The  prompt  action  of  the  junta  accom- 
plished the  object  designed.  Vallejo,  the 
first  offender,  immediately  changed  his  tone. 
Though  he  complained  that  his  services  as 
comandante,  on  account  of  the  want  of 
forces,  were  useless  to  California,  he  protest- 
ed that  he  was  ready  with  his  single  sword 
to  augment  the  ranks  of  the  country's  defend- 
ers, and  that  the  junta  and  the  government 
could  always  count  upon  him  to  defend 
their  honor  and  integrity.  Pico,  the  next 
offender,  was,  at  the  suggestion  of  the  Gov- 
ernor, summoned  before  the  junta  in  such  a 
manner  that  he  did  not  deem  it  safe  to  re- 
sist ;  and,  upon  his  submission  and  apologiz- 
ing for  his  conduct,  the  fine  and  punishment, 
which  would  have  otherwise  have  been  im- 
posed, were  withheld.  Carrillo,  the  third  of- 
fender, was  subsequently  arrested  at  Los 
Angeles  for  alleged  conspiracy,  the  specific 
charge  being  that  he  had  incited  rebellion 
against  the  departmental  government  in  fa- 
vor of  his  brother  Carlos,  and  in  connection 
with  Ensign  Macedonio  Gonzalez,  of  Lower 
California.  There  was  a  great  noise  made 
over  the  affair,  and  many  official  papers  writ- 
ten in  regard  to  it.  He  indignantly  denied 
the  charge,  and  insisted  that  his  accuser  was 
none  other  than  a  low  and  despicable  for- 
eigner, by  the  name  of  Joaquin  Pereira,  a 
Portuguese  doctor,  who  was  entirely  unwor- 
thy of  credit.  Though  his  friends  offered 
bail  for  his  appearance,  he  was  kept  under  a* 
strict  guard  until  an  investigation  could  be 
had.  It  then  appeared  that  his  characteriza- 
tion of  his  accuser  was  substantially  correct. 
The  government  was,  at  any  rate,  not  dis- 
posed to  be  severe,  and  soon  allowed  him 
his  personal  liberty;  and  a  year  or  two  af- 
terwards, when  the  troubles  that  gave  rise  to 
his  arrest  were  almost  forgotten,  it  not  only 
acquitted  but  expressly  restored  him  to  his 
former  good  name,  fame,  and  reputation. 
Theodore  H.  Hittell. 

CONTINUED  J 


1885.] 


My  first    Wedding. 


353 


MY  FIRST  WEDDING. 


ONE  morning,  in  the  early  summer,  as  I 
sat  in  my  study,  my  thoughts  gradually  drift- 
ed from  my  book  to  the  trials  and  tribula- 
tions of  life;  and,  more  particularly,  to  the 
peculiar  trials  of  bachelor  life.  Perhaps  the 
confusion  by  which  I  was  surrounded  led  me 
to  take  this  morbid  turn — though  disorder 
and  confusion  were  not  new  to  me ;  yet  on 
this  particular  morning,  the  sunlight  came 
prying  through  the  half-drawn  curtains  in  the 
most  obtrusive  manner.  It  lingered  play- 
fully upon  the  threadbare  carpet,  and  point- 
ed out  with  startling  emphasis  the  litter  of 
books  and  magazines  around  my  chair ;  it 
cast  faint  reflections  under  the  bookcase,  and 
glanced  into  the  gloom  behind  the  curtains, 
as  though  it  were  resolved  no  bit  of  dust  or 
disorder  should  escape.  And  all  this  light 
served  but  to  darken  my  thoughts.  I  real- 
ized my  helplessness,  and  plainly  saw  that  a 
governing  hand  was  needed  in  my  affairs. 

This  was  my  first  appointment.  I  had  re- 
cently graduated  from  the  Theological  Sem- 
inary, and  now,  for  the  first  time,  was  brought 
face  to  face  with  the  real  duties  of  my  calling. 
My  transition  from  the  dreamy  life  of  a  stu- 
dent to  the  very  practical  one  of  a  country 
minister  had  been  rather  sudden,  and  I  had 
not  yet  become  thoroughly  accustomed  to 
my  new  position. 

The  people  by  whom  I  was  surrounded, 
in  their  way,  left  nothing  to  be  desired.  Yet, 
in  spite  of  the  fact  that  I  "  boarded  out,"  the 
duty  of  taking  care  of  my  personal  apartments 
devolved  upon  me;  which,  as  you  may  imag- 
ine, was  somewhat  irksome  to  a  man  of  mind. 
It  was  not  absolutely  necessary,  perhaps,  that 
I  should  descend  to  manual  labor;  but 'the 
uncertain  nature  of  my  salary  made  this 
course  seem  most  commendable.  By  the 
way,  this  very  uncertainty  that  attached  itself 
to  my  pecuniary  affairs  was  at  times  a  source 
'of  infinite  gratification  to  me,  for  I  remem- 
bered that  the  great  early  teacher  of  the  gos- 
pel often  had  not  where  to  lay  his  head. 
VOL.  VI.— 23. 


My  revery  was  interrupted  by  the  door-bell. 
Hastily  pushing  some  of  the  debris  under  the 
table,  I  hastened  to  the  door.  My  callers 
proved  to  be  none  other  than  Mrs.  Baxter 
and  Miss  Hermione  Smith,  whom  I  ushered 
in  with  due  form  and  courtesy. 

After  disposing  her  ample  person  in  my 
easy  chair,  and  carefully  arranging  her  feet 
on  some  choice  manuscript,  Mrs.  Baxter  pro- 
ceeded to  explain  that  the  "Endless  Work- 
ers" had  delegated  her  to  confer  with  me  in 
regard  to  the  next  "  social." 

The  society  above  referred  to  was  one 
that  existed  among  the  ladies  of  the  church; 
its  members  usually  met  once  a  week,  and  did 
charitable  sewing,  and  discussed  local  topics. 

Mrs.  Baxter's  business  was  speedily  set- 
tled; for,  after  listening  deferentially  to  all 
she  had  to  say,  I  left  the  entire  matter  to  her 
"own  excellent  judgment,"  as  I  expressed  it 
at  the  time. 

During  this  part  of  the  interview,  Miss 
Hermione  had  preserved  a  becoming  silence. 
She  now  smiled  blandly  on  me,  and  said: 
"  Now  that  you  have  settled  your  business 
affairs,  I  want  you  to  listen  to  a  plan  of  mine. 
We  are  organizing  a  party  to  go  on  a  camp- 
ing trip,  and  we  should  be  ever  so  glad  if  you 
would  go  with  us.  Besides,  it  would  be  good 
for  your  health,  you  know." 

Miss  Hermione  was  not  a  lady  that  I  had 
ever  admired.  There  was  a  lightness  in  her 
manner,  and  a  lack  of  seriousness  in  her  at- 
titude toward  the  great  problems  of  life  that 
did  not  please  me;  but,  on  this  occasion,  I 
thought  her  almost  lovable.  It  is  needless 
to  say  I  accepted  her  kind  invitation  with 
many  thanks  ;  for  I  was  only  too  glad  to  get 
away  from  my  present  troubles. 

While  we  had  been  speaking,  Mrs.  Baxter 
had  been  looking  around  the  room  with  a 
critical,  half-amused  air.  She  now  made 
some  flippant  remarks  on  my  skill  as  a  house- 
keeper, and  suggested  that  a  helper  might  be 
an  advantage  to  me. 


354 


My  First  Wedding. 


[Oct. 


Miss  Hermione  laughed,  immoderately,  I 
thought,  at  this  sally,  and  said  she  had  a 
friend  who  would  "just  suit"  me;  and  forth- 
with expressed  her  determination  to  invite 
the  unknown  lady  to  be  one  of  the  camping 
party.  . 

I  received  all  this  with  the  greatest  indif- 
ference, although,  in  the  conversation  which 
followed,  I  managed  to  learn  that  the  lady's 
name  was  Karen  Storey,  and  that  she  lived 
at  Lotus,  a  small  station  some  distance  from 
our  village. 

After  some  small  talk  on  various  subjects, 
the  ladies  took  their  leave — to  my  great  relief, 
I  am  compelled  to  say. 

Scarce  had  I  closed  the  door,  when  my 
former  gloom  took  possession  of  me.  Like 
most  students,  I  was  subject  to  hours  of  mel- 
ancholy; but  I  generally  mastered  my  de- 
spondency by  increased  attention  to  my 
books.  At  this  time,  I  was  a  close  student 
of  language,  and  my  most  pleasant  moments 
were  those  devoted  to  linguistic  studies. 
Rhetoric  was  an  especial  favorite,  and  I  had 
read  and  carefully  compared  all  the  treatises 
in  the  dead  languages,  together  with  many 
modern  works  on  the  subject.  The  profi- 
ciency I  had  attained  in  these  studies,  with 
my  natural  ability,  was  a  source  of  great  sat- 
isfaction to  me.  But  now  it  all  seemed  to 
go  for  naught :  my  mind  continually  recurred 
to  the  thoughts  of  the  morning. 

A  sudden  fancy  came  to  me.  Was  it  not 
a  strange  coincidence  that  I  should  hear  this 
new  name  on  the  very  morning  my  loneli- 
ness first  became  oppressive?  Might  this 
not  augur  that  she  was  the  one  I  longed  for? 
I  repeated  her  name — "Karen  Storey";  it 
seemed  strangely  sweet;  and,  though  I  was 
quite  certain  I  had  never  seen  it  before,  it 
had  a  familiar  sound. 

I  had  often  thought  my  procrastinating 
manner  and  aimlessness  of  character  grew 
out  of  the  fact  that  I  had  no  immediate  ob- 
ject for  which  to  labor.  A  young  and  ar- 
dent nature  like  mine,  I  reflected,  desires  to 
make  sacrifices  for  others ;  it  is  not  satisfied 
with,  nor  can  it  endure,  the  labor  that  leads 
only  to  its  individual  advancement.  I  now 
plainly  saw  that  my  laxness  of  purpose  was 


due  to  my  very  unselfishness.  And  it  oc- 
curred to  me,  to  be  more  particular,  that  I 
should  like  very  much  to  make  sacrifices  for 
Miss  Storey.  At  any  rate,  I  should  soon  see 
her. 

This  latter  thought  gave  me  some  uneasi 
ness  as  to  my  personal  appearance,  and  I 
glanced  into  the  mirror.  My  hair  seemed 
rather  light  in  color,  and  my  features  were 
not  particularly  fine;  yet  the  image  I  saw 
was  not  unpleasing  to  me.  In  spite  of  the 
fact  that  my  shoulders  had  an  undeniable 
stoop,  I  thought  my  appearance  somewhat 
prepossessing,  not  to  say  striking. 

Life  now  put  on  a  more  cheerful  aspect, 
and  I  went  about  my  small  duties  with  a 
lightness  of  heart  I  had  never  felt  before. 
I  did  not  complain,  however  petty  the  task ; 
for  I  had  resolved  to  bear  many  things  for 
her  sake.  And  in  all  I  did  I  felt  the  benefit 
of  her  sustaining  influence.  It  was  at  this 
time  that  I  wrote  and  published  my  paper, 
entitled  "The  Use  of  As  as  a  Relative," 
which,  perhaps,  is  my  most  successful  liter- 
ary effort. 

The  time  of  our  departure  had  been  set 
for  the  first  of  June,  which  left  two  weeks  for 
preparation.  I  spent  the  time,  the  happiest 
of  my  life,  in  sounding  all  the  depths  of 
spiritual  love.  I  allowed  this  passion  to 
take  full  possession  of  me.  She  occupied 
my  every  thought.  I  framed  imaginary  con- 
versations with  her,  and  decked  her  with 
every  grace  of  womanhood — though  my  hap- 
piness was  always  tainted  by  a  dread  lest  the 
reality  should  differ  from  the  dream. 

The  looked-for  day  at  last  came,  and  with 
it  a  telegram,  saying  that  Miss  Storey  had 
been  suddenly  taken  ill,  and  could  not  go. 
I  shall  not  attempt  to  describe  my  disap- 
pointment. I  had  looked  forward  to  the 
trip  with  the  brightest  anticipations.  I  had 
dreamed  of  the  long  hours  we  should  spend 
together,  and  in  fancy  seen  myself  walking 
with  her  in  quiet,  shady  places. 

I  wished  that  I  had  not  agreed  to  go,  but 
I  could  not  cancel  my  engagement  now.  It 
seemed  selfish  in  me  to  be  off  on  a  pleasure 
trip  while  she  was  tossing  with  fever.  This 
thought  added  not  a  little  to  my  misery  ;  so 


1885.] 


My  First  Wedding. 


355 


I  resolved,  by  way  of  penance,  to  take  no 
part  in  the  pleasures  of  the  others.  I  ad- 
hered to  this  plan  so  faithfully  that  my  friends 
became  seriously  alarmed  at  my  condition. 
I  rejected  all  proffered  remedies  for  dyspep- 
sia and  loss  of  appetite,  though  I  longed  to 
make  a  confidant  of  some  one,  but  did  not 
see  how  I  could. 

At  last  we  returned  home,  to  my  great  re- 
lief. The  morning  after  our  arrival  my  old 
friend  Boggs  called  upon  me.  He  had  been 
away  for  some  time,  and  I  was  overjoyed  at 
meeting  him  again.  In  the  course  of  our 
conversation,  he  mentioned  that  his  business 
had  called  him  to  Lotus,  where  he  had  seen 
Miss  Storey,  who  had  told  him  all  about  our 
camping  trip.  He  remarked  that  Miss  Sto- 
rey was  a  very  interesting  person,  one  whom 
I  should  know,  and  kindly  promised  to  give 
me  an  introduction,  if  the  opportunity  ever 
offered. 

I  was  pained  to  hear  him  speak  as  though 
she  were  a  stranger  to  me,  and  was  on  the 
point  of  explaining  our  true  relations,  but  re- 
flected that  he  would  not  be  likely  to  com- 
prehend me,  as  he  was  a  very  matter-of-fact 
person.  I  also  saw  that  he  evidently  intend- 
ed no  harm  ;  still,  I  felt  hurt  by  his  thought- 
lessness. 

Some  days  after  Boggs's  visit  I  received  a 
letter  from  a  lady  friend,  who,  in  the  course 
of  her  communications,  informed  me  that 
Miss  Storey  had  mentioned  my  name,  "and 
spoke  quite  highly  of  you,  too,"  she  added. 
I  at  once  saw  that  I  owed  this  to  Boggs,  and 
this  pleased  me  much ;  for  I  knew  his  nat- 
ural candor  would  prevent  him  from  placing 
my  qualities  in  any  unfavorable  light. 

I  was  again  supremely  happy  ;  I  redoubled 
my  literary  labors,  and  my  next  sermon, 
which  was  devoted  to  pointing  out  the  spir- 
itual benefits  of  self-renunciation,  was  very 
well  received. 

On  the  following  Monday,  Miss  Hermtone 
Smith  accosted  me  on  the  street,  and,  with 
her  usual  volubility,  informed  me  that  she 
had  been  "  looking  everywhere "  for  me. 
Miss  Storey  had  been  staying  a  week  with 
her,  and  had  expressed  a  desire  to  meet  me. 
She  (Miss  Smith)  had  thought  of  giving  a 


dinner  for  the  express  purpose  of  bringing 
us  together ;  but  Miss  Storey  had  been  un- 
expectedly called  away  before  she  could 
make  the  necessary  arrangements. 

This  was  a  crushing  blow.  I  returned 
home  immediately,  and  gave  way  to  dismal 
forebodings.  She  had  been  in  the  town  for 
a  week.  Perhaps  I  had  passed  her  on  the 
street.  Perhaps  she  had  heard  my  sermon 
on  resignation,  and  stilLI  had  not  seen  her. 
I  could  not  bring  myself  to  think  that  I 
could  see  her  and  not  know  her.  It  seemed 
to  me  that  all  was  over,  and  I  gave  way  to 
despair. 

While  in  this  mood  a  thought  came  to  me 
that  filled  me  with  new  life.  Why  should  I 
yield  without  a  struggle  ?  Why  not  address 
her  in  a  letter  ?  The  more  I  thought  of  it, 
the  more  feasible  the  plan  seemed.  So  I 
sat  down  and  wrote  as  follows  : 

PLEASANT  VALE,  June  i8th,  '75. 

Dear  Miss  Storey :  It  may  give  you  some  sur- 
prise to  receive  a  letter  from  one  whom  you  have 
never  met.  I  admit  my  action  would  be  considered 
irregular  by  some,  yet,  if  you  will  hear  me  to  the 
close,  I  think  I  can  show  I  have  reason  on  my  side. 

First,  we  were  to  go  on  the  camping  trip;  second- 
ly, we  have  heard  so  much  of  each  other  from  com- 
mon friends,  that  we  cannot  be  considered  entire 
strangers  ;  thirdly,  I  have  heard  that  you  expressed  a 
desire  to  meet  me  when  you  were  in  our  town.  On 
each  and  all  of  these  occasions  we  should  and  would 
have  met,  had  it  not  been  for  a  malignant  fate. 

As  we  both  have  desired  each  other's  acquaintance, 
have  we  not  met  in  the  spirit  already  ? 

Such  reasons  might  not  strike  the  common  mind 
with  any  great  force;  but  for  me  they  are  all-sufficient. 
I  have  heard  that  you  have  literary  tastes,  and  trust 
the  breadth  of  view  such  tastes  imply  will  prevent 
you  from  misjudging  my  motives,  and  cause  you  to 
overlook  this  slight  violation  of  conventional  custom. 
At  any  rate,  I,  at  least,  have  not  thought  it  right  to 
allow  a  mere  point  of  etiquette  to  debar  me  from 
communion  with  a  kindred  soul.  Hoping  that  you 
will  think  as  I  do,  I  am, 

Very  truly  yours, 

AARON  JAMES. 

I  passed  the  next  few  days  in  feverish  anx- 
iety. On  the  fourth  day  a  letter  came.  It 
was  a  dainty,  gilt-edged  epistle,  written  with 
rare  delicacy  and  tact.  The  critical  ability 
displayed  was  of  a  high  order,  though  at  times 
her  feelings  allowed  her  to  indulge  in  a  fervid 


356 


My  First  Wedding. 


[Oct. 


warmth  of  expression.  On  this  account  my 
modesty  prevents  me  from  reproducing  the 
letter  in  full.  I  will  say,  however,  that  she 
appreciated  the  truth  of  my  reasoning ;  and 
it  was  in  reference  to  this  that  her  discern- 
ment and  critical  skill  were  shown.  Best  of 
all,  she  agreed  to  correspond  with  me. 

I  was  again  supremely  happy.  I  saw  that 
intelligent  and  well  directed  effort  always  has 
its  reward. 

During  the  weeks 'that  followed  I  wrote 
to  her  regularly,  and  as  regularly  received 
her  answers.  My  attachment  broadened  and 
deepened.  I  was  often  on  the  point  of  mak- 
ing my  affection  known,  but  always  found 
some  reason  for  cherishing  it  in  silence  a 
little  longer. 

At  last,  it  became  necessary  for  me  to  go 
to  the  city  to  attend  the  yearly  conference. 
I  resolved  to  "  stay  over  "  a  day  in  the  village 
where  she  resided.  I  thought  I  would  not 
inform  her  of  my  intentions,  but  would  make 
my  visit  and  my  mission  alike  a  surprise. 

I  now  lived  in  dreams.  I  tried  to  picture 
the  meeting — her  warm  glances,  yet  tempered 
by  maidenly  modesty,  and  in  accordance 
with  the  strictest  decorum.  I  wondered  what 
she  would  say,  and  how  I  could  lead  our 
conversation  to  affairs  of  the  heart,  so  that 
my  announcement  might  not  seem  too  sud- 
den. 

When  the  day  of  departure  arrived,  I  was 
somewhat  nervous,  but  bravely  boarded  the 
train,  and  in  a  few  hours  had  reached  my 
destination.  The  greater  portion  of  the  day 
was  still  before  me,  so  I  resolved  to  go  to  a 
hotel  and  wait  till  evening ;  for  I  had  decided 
that  would  be  the  only  proper  time  to  make 
rny  call. 

The  day  proved  long  and  dreary.  It 
seemed  as  though  the  lagging  sun  would 
never  set.  I  had  providentially  provided 
myself  with  several  novels,  against  such  an 
emergency  as  the  present,  and  I  now  sought 
these  for  diversion  ;  but  in  vain.  Their  im- 
aginary woes  and  simulated  passion  seemed 
tame,  when  compared  with  the  living  drama 
in  which  I  was  an  actor.  My  thoughts  con- 
tinually dwelt  upon  the  future,  and  I  devoted 
the  greater  portion  of  the  day  to  rehearsing 


my  conversation  for  the  evening.  I  wished 
I  could  walk  about  the  town,  but  dared  not 
make  the  attempt,  for  fear  of  disclosing  my- 
self prematurely. 

Towards  evening  the  dinner-bell  rang.  I 
went  down  to  the  dining-room,  and  called 
for  a  cup  of  coffee.  There  were  several 
persons  already  there  when  I  went  in,  and, 
as  my  appetite  was  not  very  good,  I  had 
plenty  of  time  to  observe  them.  Just  across 
the  room  sat  an  elderly  gentleman  in  slip- 
pers ;  at  his  right  was  a  woman  with  fluffy 
gray  hair,  coquettishly  arranged  in  ringlets 
around  her  forehead.  The  lady  occasionally 
spoke  to  her  companion,  though  she  devoted 
the  greater  portion  of  her  time  to  selecting 
choice  morsels  for  a  fat  poodle  which  sat  by 
her  chair.  They  were  evidently  man  and 
wife.  The  sight  gave  my  thoughts  a  strange 
turn.  I  wondered  if  Karen  —  for  I  now 
thought  of  her  by  this  name — would  ever 
treat  me  thus.  My  thoughts  were  interrupted 
by  a  young  lady  who  came  in  at  this  moment, 
and  placed  herself  at  the  table  where  I  was 
seated. 

There  were  two  gentlemen  at  the  lower, 
end  of  the  room,  whom  I  had  taken  to  be 
commercial  travelers.  One  of  them  now 
glanced  toward  me,  and  made  some  remark 
to  his  friend,  whereat  they  both  laughed.  I 
had  often  heard  experienced  ministers  say 
that  they  could  tell  at  a  glance  a  man  who 
had  come  to  be  married.  Might  it  not  be 
that  these  vulgar  commercial  men,  who  were 
much  more  experienced  than  ministers,  could 
recognize  a  man  who  was  about  to  propose  ? 
The  thought  made  me  wince;  and  to  add  to 
my  confusion,  the  young  lady  glanced  at  me 
critically.  This  was  more  than  I  could  stand. 
I  now  feared  that  they  had  divined  my  se- 
cret. 

After  hastily  swallowing  my  coffee,  I  got 
my  hat  and  cane,  and  started  down  the  street. 
I  had  not  gone  far,  when  I  remembered  that 
I  did  not  know  in  what  part  of  the  town  she 
lived.  I  expected  some  trouble  on  this  ac- 
count ;  but,  fortunately,  I  met  a  small  boy, 
who,  in  answer  to  my  inquiries,  volunteered 
to  conduct  me  to  the  place. 

We  walked  for  some  distance  along  a  dusty 


1885.] 


My  First  Wedding. 


357 


street,  and  then  turned  at  right  angles  into 
another,  equally  dusty,  but  beautiful  with 
overhanging  boughs.  As  I  was  noting  the 
luxuriance  of  the  tall  locusts  that  bordered 
our  way,  my  guide  suddenly  stopped,  and 
pointing  to  a  house  near  at  hand,  explained 
that  that  was  the  place.  I  halted  somewhat 
abruptly,  and  glanced  .in  the  direction  indi- 
cated ;  as  I  did  so,  I  noticed  a  lace  curtain 
drop  at  one  of  the  windows.  Some  one  had 
evidently  been  looking  out,  and  had  retired 
at  our  approach. 

At  this  moment  it  occurred  to  me  that  it 
was  too  early  for  my  call.  After  paying  the 
boy  for  his  trouble,  I  hastily  retired,  to  his 
evident  astonishment.  This  incident  cost 
me  my  self-control;  I  became* more  and 
more  agitated  as  I  walked  away.  I  also 
feared  that  the  boy  might  think  my  actions 
strange,  and  take  it  upon  himself  to  mention 
his  suspicions.  This  caused  me  considerable 
alarm,  and  it  was  with  some  difficulty  that  I 
regained  my  usual  composure.  However,  I 
walked  on  rapidly  for  some  time,  scarce  not- 
ing whither.  It  was  near  sunset  when  I 
stopped,  and,  as  I  turned  to  retrace  my  steps, 
I  found  I  was  at  quite  a  distance  from  the 
village.  As  I  approached  the  town,  my  ner- 
vousness, which  had  somewhat  abated,  again 
returned.  I  walked  on,  notwithstanding,  and 
in  a  little  while  again  reached  the  house.  I 
saw,  as  I  stopped  a  moment  at  the  gate,  that 
my  shoes  were  quite  dusty.  But  there  was 
no  time  to  clean  them  now,  so  without  fur- 
ther delay  I  started  for  the  house. 

As  I  moved  slowly  up  the  walk,  I  noticed 
the  small  flower-beds  laid  off  in  geometrical 
forms,  the  lines  of  division  being  made  out 
with  small  shells,  pebbles,  and  inverted  bot- 
tles. I  admired  the  thrift  that  could  turn 
small  things  to  uses  so  beautiful :  things  that 
in  most  households  encumber  the  ash-heaps, 
and  are  a  "  weariness  to  the  flesh."  By  .this 
time  I  had  reached  the  house,  and,  in  spite 
of  my  nervousness,  immediately  rang  the  bell. 

A  small,  keen-visaged  woman,  dressed  in 
black,  came  to  the  door. 

I  hesitated  a  moment,  and  then  made 
some  aimless  remarks  on  the  beauty  of  the 
evening. 


The  lady,  who  had  been  eyeing  me  rather 
dubiously,  now  asked  me  to  come  in ; 
"  though  I  don't  know  as  we  want  any 
books,"  she  added,  as  she  slightly  enlarged 
the  opening  in  the  door-way,  and  made  room 
for  me  to  enter. 

I  bowed  very  stiffly,  and  begged  leave  to 
inform  her  that  I  was  not  a  book  agent,  but 
a  minister  of  the  gospel  from  Pleasant  Vale ; 
and  that  I  had  come  to  pay  my  respects  to 
her  daughter,  with  whom  I  was  quite  well 
acquainted. 

Her  manner  now  changed ;  her  apologies 
were  profuse;  she  was  "  sorry  "  she  had  made 
so  great  a  blunder ;  "  sorry  "  that  Karen  was 
not  at  home,  "  for,"  she  said,  "  I  know  she 
would  be  so  glad  to  see  you.  But  she  and 
Mary  went  away  yesterday,  and  they  won't 
be  back  till  the  last  of  the  week.  Won't  you 
come  in  anyhow,  and  rest  a  while  ?  You 
must  be  tired ;  you  look  as  though  you  had 
walked  a  good  ways.  I  ain't  such  good  com- 
pany as  the  girls  ;  they've  had  more  schoolin' 
than  me,"  she  added,  rather  sadly  ;  "  but  if 
you  will  come  in,  I'll  get  you  a  cup  of  tea, 
and  make  you  as  comfortable  as  I  can." 

I  declined  her  invitation,  and  bidding  her 
good  night,  walked  quickly  down  the  path. 

I  felt  hurt ;  my  feelings  had  received  a  se- 
vere shock.  It  was  enough  that  she  was  not 
at  home ;  but  to  be  taken  for  a  book  agent, 
and  by  her  mother,  was  past  endurance.  Be- 
sides, the  woman  evidently  thought  I  had 
walked  from  Pleasant  Vale  to  see  her  daugh- 
ter. 

I  went  back  to  the  hotel  in  no  pleasant 
mood.  I  could  not  control  my  thoughts.  It 
was  impossible  for  me  to  read.  So  I  imme- 
diately prepared  to  retire.  As  I  took  my 
coat  off,  I  saw  that  my  pockets  were  stuffed 
with  the  novels  I  had  had  in  the  afternoon. 
In  my  agitation,  I  had  forgotten  to  leave  them 
behind.  This  seemed  to  furnish  some  excuse 
for  the  old  lady's  blunder.  Still,  I  could  not 
forgive  her :  it  seemed  to  me  that  a  person 
of  even  ordinary  intelligence  should  not  so 
err  in  reading  character. 

1  passed  a  sleepless  night.  On  the  follow- 
ing morning  I  continued  my  journey,  arriv- 
ing at  San  Francisco  in  the  evening.  After 


358 


My  First  Wedding. 


[Oct. 


attending   the   conference,  which   lasted  a 
week,  I  returned  home  by  another  route. 

On  my  arrival,  there  were  several  letters 
awaiting  me,  and  among  them,  one  in  her 
then  familiar  hand.  I  hastily  tore  it  open. 
It  expressed  her  deepest  regrets  at  her  ab- 
sence, and,  withal,  was  so  tender  in  tone,  so 
exquisite  in  sentiment,  that  I  felt  ready  to 
forgive  the  whole  world,  if  necessary.  I  con- 
fined myself,  however,  to  forgiving  her  moth- 
er. 

I  now  felt  that  my  failure  to  see  her  had 
but  added  to  my  affection.  And,  acting  upon 
the  encouragement  given  in  her  letter,  I  wrote 
and  told  her  of  my  love. 

In  every  life  there  are  secrets  that  are  sa- 
cred, sacred  only  as  long  as  they  are  secret. 
Therefore,  I  shall  not  draw  aside  the  veil, 
and  let  in  the  light  of  common  day  upon  the 
thoughts  and  happenings  of  those  few  weeks. 
It  is  enough  to  say  that  I  was  accepted,  and 
my  life  seemed  complete. 

Our  intercourse  now,  naturally,  became 
more  intimate.  I  shared  her  every  thought. 
I  lived  the  complete  intellectual  life.  Yet, 
in  spite  of  the  spiritual  calm  this  gave  me,  I 
longed  to  meet  her.  She  also  was  anxious 
to  see  me,  and  expressed  herself  to  that  ef- 
fect several  times.  I  made  excuses  for  my 
delay,  but  promised  to  be  with  her  before 
the  end  of  the  month.  In  reality,  I  was  en- 
gaged upon  a  long  descriptive  poem.  I 
wished  to  finish  this,  and  carry  it  to  her  as 
the  first  offering  of  my  love. 

About  this  time  my  lady  wrote  me  that 
she  had  just  finished  a  story,  on  which  she 
had  been  engaged  for  some  months.  She 
said  she  felt  some  pride  in  the  result  of  her 
efforts,  and  had  great  hopes  of  its  success. 

I  immediately  wrote,  asking  to  be  allowed 
to  read  the  production.  She  complied  with 
my  request,  and  I  received  the  manuscript 
by  the  next  mail. 

On  looking  into  the  story,  I  found  many 
slips  and  inaccuracies  that  even  my  affection 
could  not  keep  me  from  seeing.  I  felt  it  was 
my  duty  to  write  to  her  on  the  subject,  which 
I  did  without  delay.  I  endeavored  to  make 
my  letter  mild  and  dispassionate.  I  pointed 
out  that,  although  the  story  was  cleverly 


told,  and  interesting  from  beginning  to  end, 
it  contained  blemishes  my  grammatical  sense 
would  not  allow  me  to  pass  unnoticed.  The 
use  of  "  as  "  as  a  relative,  and  the  continual 
occurrence  of  "that"  in  a  non-restrictive 
sense,  were  particularly  objectionable.  I  ad- 
mitted that  some  might  overlook  these  er- 
rors; still,  no  scholar  would  tolerate  them. 
The  letter  was  very  delicate  in  its  wording, 
but  I  took  good  care  that  the  principles  upon 
which  I  made  my  points  should  be  very  evi- 
dent. 

In  the  course  of  a  few  days  I  received  an 
answer,  in  which,  among  other  things,  she 
said  she  could  not  see  why  I  "  made  so  much 
of  things  so  small,"  and  that  it  looked  to 
her  as  though  I  wished  to  "  quarrel "  with 
her. 

I  have  never  been  one  of  those  who  submit 
to  palliations  and  compromises.  For  me, 
there  are  no  intermediate  shades  between 
absolute  right  and  absolute  wrong.  And  it 
is  a  source  of  gratification  to  me  that  I  am 
able  to  say,  at  no  time  when  I  have  once 
taken  my  position  upon  a  subject,  has  force  or 
persuasion  sufficed  to  move  me.  Nor  did  I 
flinch  from  duty  in  the  present  instance.  I 
immediately  replied,  strengthening  my  argu- 
ments, and  saying  that  these  things  were  not 
small  matters  to  me;  they  involved  ques- 
tions of  principle  which,  to  me,  was  never 
small. 

I  waited  anxiously  for  her  answer.  It  was 
characteristically  feminine.  She  said  if  I 
persisted  in  clinging  to  these  "  trifles,"  she 
must  ask  to  be  released  from  her  engage- 
ment. If  in  the  first  flush  of  affection  I 
could  be  so  intolerant,  she  feared  for  the  fu- 
ture when  love  had  cooled. 

Though  racked  with  grief,  I  did  not  wa- 
ver. I  at  once  wrote  to  her,  reiterating  my  for- 
mer utterances.  I  pointed  out  what  seemed 
to  me  the  path  of  duty.  And,  in  conclu- 
sion, seeing  that  she  desired  it,  I  told  her 
that  henceforth  I  should  consider  our  en- 
gagement at  an  end:  my  position  as  a  min- 
ister of  the  gospel  did  not  allow  me  to  sac- 
rifice principle  even  for  love. 

Summer  passed  into  autumn,  and  autumn 
faded  into  winter,  and  my  grief  was  still 


1885.] 


Sehnsucht. 


359 


alive  within  me.  I  gave  all  my  time  to  study, 
hoping  thus  to  forget  my  loss. 

One  day  a  man  came  to  me,  and  asked 
me  if  I  would  read  the  marriage  service  at  a 
wedding  in  the  country.  Hardly  noticing 
him,  for  I  was  deeply  engrossed  in  my  books, 
I  assented,  and  he  promised  to  call  for  me 
with  a  conveyance.  It  had  been  raining  all 
day.  Towards  night  the  man  came  for  me 
with  a  close  carriage,  and  we  set  out  in  the 
storm.  I  had  not  even  taken  the  trouble  to 
ask  where  we  were  going,  and  as  we  rolled 
along,  I  lay  back  on  the  cushions,  and  reflected 
as  to  what  would  be  the  probable  effect  that 
the  study  of  Coptic  would  have  upon  future 
civilization.  This  was  a  favorite  subject  of 
mine,  and  one  to  which  I  had  devoted  con- 
siderable tirne.^ 

In  a  few  hours  we  reached  our  journey's 
end.  As  I  stepped  from  the  carriage  I  was 
taken  in  hand  by  several  ladies,  who  con- 
ducted me  to  a  room  where  I  could  make 
my  toilet.  Having  divested  myself  of  my 


wraps,  and  made  all  necessary  preparations, 
I  emerged  from  the  room.  At  the  head  of 
the  stairs  I  was  met  by  a  gentleman,  who  in- 
troduced himself  as  Mr.  Evans,  and  by  him 
I  was  presented  to  many  of  the  wedding 
guests. 

After  we  had  waited  for  some  time,  the 
bride  came  into  the  room,  accompanied  by 
several  ladies.  The  ceremony  was  performed 
at  once.  As  this  was  my  first  experience,  I 
felt  somewhat  nervous.  In  my  trepidation 
I  forgot  to  ask  if  they  had  a  license.  The 
bride  also  lost  her  self-possession,  and  made 
several  blunders  in  the  responses,  at  which 
I  heard  some  half-suppressed  laughter. 

When  all  was  done,  and  the  couple  were 
united,  Mr.  Evans  led  me  up  to  the  confused 
bride,  and  presented  me  to  Mrs.  Henry 
Smith,  formerly  Miss  Karen  Storey.  It  was 
some  moments  before  I  realized  my  situa- 
tion. Then  I  saw  it  all  at  a  glance.  I  had 
officiated  at  the  wedding  of  the  only  wom- 
an I  had  ever  loved. 

G.  M.  Upton. 


SEHNSUCHT. 

HEAVY,  heavy  heart  of  mine  ! — 

Their  sunny  ways  a-winging, 
Hear  the  birds,  in  flight  divine, 

Up  to  heaven  singing. 
Thro'  the  soft  air's  tender  hush 
Throbs  the  love  song  of  the  thrush  ; 
Would  the  birds'  glad  song  were  thine, 
Heavy,  heavy  heart  "of  mine  ! 

Heavy,  heavy  heart  of  mine ! 

By  twos  the  birds  are  flying. 
Such  happy  love  is  never  thine, 

So  stay  thou  still  a-sighing. 
The  thrush  will  build  his  little  nest, 
Where  love  secure  and  glad  may  rest. 
Love  makes  the  home  :  love  is  not  thine, 
Heavy,  heavy  heart  of  mine  ! 

M.  F.  Rowntree. 


360 


A  Brave  Life. 


[Oct. 


A  BRAVE  LIFE. 


IN  the  preface  to  that  exquisite  little  bio- 
graphical sketch,  "  The  Story  of  Ida,"  John 
Ruskin  says  : 

"  I  have  been  asking  every  good  writer  whom  I 
know  to  write  some  part  of  what  was  exactly  true  in 
the  greatest  of  sciences — Humanity.  The  lives  we 
need  to  have  written  for  us  are  of  the  people  whom 
the  world  has  not  thought  of,  far  less  known  of,  who 
are  yet  doing  the  most  of  its  work,  and  of  whom  we 
may  learn  how  it  can  best  be  done." 

Such  a  life  has  recently  been  ended  here 
in  California.  It  is  well  worth  our  while  to 
study  its  simple  but  sublime  annals. 

On  the  1 5th  of  April,  1816,  in  a  farm- 
house in  Washington  County,  New  York, 
not  far  from  Whitehall,  a  little  woman-child 
was  born,  and  named  by  her  parents  the 
sweet  scriptural  name  Mary.  The  home  into 
which  the  child  came  was  one  of  poverty  and 
toil,  unvaried  by  any  remarkable  experiences. 
Here,  among  brothers  and  sisters,  she  grew 
and  thrived,  and  was  well  trained  in  all 
homely  virtues.  The  father,  Mr.  Day,  was 
a  farmer  and  blacksmith,  honest,  thrifty,  and 
independent.  After  a  little  time,  he  had  the 
usual  western  impulse  of  enterprising  men, 
and  removed  his  family  to  Meadville,  Penn- 
sylvania. 

In  this  frontier  town  the  little  maiden 
Mary  grew  to  a  tall,  slender  girl  of  sixteen, 
full  of  womanly  wisdom  and  gentleness,  but 
with  unusual  firmness  and  strength,  physical 
and  mental.  Here  and  now  there  came  to 
woo  her  a  grave,  plain  man,  a  widower  with 
five  young  children.  He  bore  the  common 
name  of  John  Brown,  and  had  but  scanty 
wealth  or  personal  charm,  save  such  as  lies 
in  manliness,  evident  uprightness,  and  a  re- 
served tenderness.  However,  he  asked  this 
plain  young  woman  to  become  his  wife,  to 
go  with  him  to  his  humble  home  in  Rich- 
mond, Pennsylvania,  to  share  his  joys  and 
sorrows,  and  be  a  mother  to  his  motherless 
children  ;  and  she  put  her  firm  young  hand 
in  his,  and  followed  him  thereafter  through 


evil  and  through  good  report,  even  to  prison 
and  the  scaffold — for  this  man  is  immortal 
in  our  history  as  John  Brown,  of  Ossawato- 
mie. 

Long  years  afterward,  her  husband  wrote 
to  her  in  his  quaint  fashion : 

Dear  Mary :  It  is  the  Sabbath  evening,  and  noth- 
ing so  much  accords  with  my  feelings  as  to  spend  a 
portion  of  it  conversing  with  the  partner  of  my  own 
choice,  and  the  sharer  of  my  poverty,  trials,  discredit, 
and  sore  afflictions.  I  do  not  forget  the  firm  attach- 
ment of  her  who  has  remained  my  fast  and  faithful 
affectionate  friend  when  others  said  of  me  :  '  Now 
that  he  lieth,  he  shall  rise  up  no  more. '  " 

Looking  back  at  that  wedding  of  fifty  years 
ago,  it  seems  incredible  that  a  girl  of  sixteen 
could  have  undertaken  such  responsibilities 
with  any  adequate  comprehension  of  them  ; 
but  the  uniform  testimony  in  regard  to  this 
child-wife  and  mother  is  that  she  was  a  cheer- 
ful and  capable  burden-bearer.  Her  cour- 
age and  devotion  were  simply  heroic,  for 
John  Brown  was  not  the  man  to  woo  a  girl 
with  honeyed  phrases,  or  to  gloze  over  the 
hardships  and  self-sacrifices  which  she  must 
endure.  Perhaps,  with  womanly  discern- 
ment, she  saw  in  him  those  traits  which  have 
made  all  women  love  him — single  hearted 
devotion  to  truth  and  duty,  self-abnegation, 
even  unto  death ;  and,  doubtless,  he  saw  in 
that  plain  young  girl  "a  perfect  woman,  no- 
bly planned." 

In  the  new  home  she  found  the  eldest  boy 
only  four  years  younger  than  herself,  while 
the  four  younger  children's  ages  ranged  down- 
ward to  babyhood.  What  skill  and  tact, 
what  kindliness  and  true  motherliness,  must 
have  been  hers  ;  for,  to  her  dying  day,  these 
children,  grown  to  be  gray-haired  men  and 
women,  still  called  her  with  tender  dutiful- 
ness,  "  Mother." 

The  years  came  and  went,  bringing  only 
fresh  occupants  for  the  old  red  cradle,  added 
care  and  toil  to  John  and  Mary  Brown.  But 
these  were  comparatively  old  times,  and  this 


1885.] 


A  Brave  Life. 


361 


was  a  home  of  primitive  piety.  The  babies 
were  ever  taken  as  gifts  from  God,  and  were 
made  welcome,  clothed  and  fed  in  simple 
fashion,  educated  to  be  useful  rather  than 
accomplished,  and  above  all,  to  fear  God  and 
keep  his  commandments.  It  was  a  home  of 
peace  and  love,  of  thrift  and  intelligence,  and 
of  world  wide  sympathy  with  every  good 
cause,  especially  with  the  cause  of  the  down- 
trodden and  oppressed.  To  such  a  home 
there  could  come  no  experience  which  was 
not  borne  with  cheerful  submission,  as  being 
of  divine  ordinance.  When  the  mother  was 
laid  aside  by  her  frequent  woman's  burden 
(she  bore  thirteen  children  in  twenty  years), 
her  husband  was,  as  she  testified  in  old  age, 
her  best,  and  often  her  only,  nurse,  many  a 
time  sitting  up  all  night,  after  a  day  of  hard 
work,  to  keep  the  fire  burning  lest  she  should 
be  chilled,  and  always  refusing  any  rest  if  he 
thought  she  needed  his  loving  ministry. 

The  Browns  were  given  to  moving  from 
one  town  to  another,  which  must  have  added 
materially  to  the  cares  and  labors  of  the 
house-mother;  but  the  reason  of  these 
changes  seems  to  have  been  that  John  Brown 
was  energetic  and  enterprising,  eager  to  ex- 
tend his  business  as  tanner,  stock-dealer,  and 
wool-merchant,  and  so  to  do  the  best  possible 
things  for  those  dependent  upon  him. 

The  usual  chances  and  changes  of  life 
came  to  them.  Sickness  and  death  invaded 
the  household  again  and  again.  Once  a 
little  child  met  its  death  by  a  shocking  ac- 
cident ;  once  a  lovely  little  girl  faded  slowly 
away,  from  some  hidden  disease ;  and  once 
the  destroyer  came,  not  to  take  a  single  lamb 
from  the  flock,  but  in  a  devastating  pesti- 
lence. Three  little  children  were  buried  in 
one  wide  grave,  and  another  followed  in  less 
than  a  week.  Picture  the  desolation  of  that 
home !  One  cannot  speak  of  such  grief  save 
with  awe  ;  yet  the  time  came  to  these  trust- 
ful souls,  when  such  tender  and  sacred  be- 
reavements seemed  but  as  light  afflictions, 
compared  with  the  tragic  depths  of  sorrow 
yet  to  be  endured. 

Amid  all  these  toils  and  griefs,  John  and 
Mary  Brown  found  room  to  think  of  others. 
Each  had  "a  heart  at  leisure  from  itself," 


and  full  of  sympathy  for  the  poor  slave. 
With  John  Brown  it  grew  to  be  a  consuming 
passion.  It  was  the  subject  of  his  thoughts, 
of  his  conversation,  of  his  prayers.  To  the 
cause  of  emancipation  he  consecrated,  at 
length,  all  his  tremendous  energies;  and  this 
singleness  of  purpose. lifted  him  from  the 
common  ranks  of  men  into  the  high  compa- 
ny of  heroes. 

He  carried  all  his  family  with  him  in  this 
enthusiastic  devotion.  They  moved  up  into 
the  wilds  of  the  Adirondack  region,  because 
there  they  thought  they  could  best  teach  and 
help  the  poor  fugitives  from  slavery ;  and 
here  they  became  missionaries,  as  genuine 
and  devoted  as  any  who  ever  went  to  Africa. 
The  young  men  of  the  family  went  to  Kan- 
sas, because  the  cause  of  freedom  seemed  to 
need  strong  supporters  there  ;  and  when,  as 
the  result,  they  encountered  persecution  and 
loss  of  all  things,  the  gray-headed  father 
could  see  but  one  line  of  duty  for  himself — 
to  join  his  sons,  and  fight,  if  need  be  die,  for 
the  good  cause.  The  mother  was  left  at 
home  in  the  little  cabin,  penniless,  and  sur- 
rounded by  little  children  who  must  be 
clothed,  and  fed,  and  kept  warm,  through  an 
almost  arctic  winter.  But  John  Brown  had 
an  helpmeet,  indeed— 

"  No  timid  dove  of  storms  afeared, 

She  shared  his  life's  distress; 
A  singing  Miriam  alway, 
In  God's  poor  wilderness." 

With  a  true  woman's  resource  she  saved, 
and  planned,  and  toiled,  and  made  the  ends 
meet,  enduring  the  loneliness  and  privation 
with  fortitude  and  even  good  cheer,  remem- 
bering her  husband's  words  of  parting  :  "  If 
it  is  so  dreadful  for  us  to  part,  with  the  hope 
of  meeting  again,  how  dreadful  must  be  the 
separation  for  life  of  hundreds  of  poor  slaves." 
Her  courage  and  zeal  scarcely -needed  the 
stimulus  of  his  written  words  :  "  Mary,  let  us 
try  and  maintain  a  cheerful  self  composure 
while  we  are  tossing  up  and  down,  and  let 
our  motto  be  '  Action,  action,  for  we  have 
but  one  life  to  live.'  " 

The  record  of  the  family  for  the  next  four 
years  was  one  of  loss,  hardship,  self-sacrifice, 
and  on  the  part  of  the  women,  patient  en- 


362 


A  Brave  Life. 


[Oct. 


durance  and  long  suspense — a  far  heavier 
burden  than  that  borne  by  the  men.  John 
Brown  became  the  world-renowned  hero  of 
Ossawatomie  ;  his  son  Frederick  was  cruelly 
murdered;  but  the  women  could  only  sit  at 
home  watching,  weeping,  praying.  At  length, 
John  Brown  formed  his  desperate  resolve. 
It  culminated  in  the  mad  attempt  at  Harper's 
Ferry,  in  utter  failure,  in  the  terrible  tragedy. 

After  sentence  of  death  had  been  pro- 
nounced upon  the  conspirator,  and  the  whole 
world  was  looking  on  with  bated  breath 
at  the  spectacle,  a  faithful  friend  and  sym- 
pathizer, Col.  T.  W.  Higginson,  of  Boston, 
went  at  once  to  visit  the  stricken  house- 
hold, his  object  being  to  convey  Mrs.  Brown 
to  Virginia,  that  she  might  be  with  her  hus- 
band, and,  if  possible,  induce  him  to  consent 
to  an  attempt  at  rescue,  a  thing  which  he 
had  at  first  refused. 

Colonel  Higginson's  description  of  his 
journey  to  the  remote  and  inaccessible  home, 
of  its  poverty  and  desolation,  of  the  sacred 
grief,  and  yet  the  lofty  resignation  and  trust 
of  its  inmates,  forms  a  chapter  of  immortal 
beauty  in  the  annals  of  earth's  heroes  and 
saints.  A  little  of  it  must  be  quoted  to  com- 
plete this  sketch  : 

"  Here  was  a  family,  out  of  which  four 
noble  young  men  had  within  a  fortnight  been 
killed  (two  sons  and  two  sons-in-law):  I  say 
nothing  of  a  father  under  sentence  of  death, 
and  a  brother  fleeing  for  life,  but  only  speak 
of  those  killed — no  sad,  unavailing  kisses,  no 
tender  funeral  rites.  In  speaking  of  them, 
they  used  the  word  '  killed' — to  them  it 
meant  died — one  gate  into  heaven,  and  that 
one  a  good  deal  frequented  by  their  family 
— that  is  all.  There  was  no  hardness  about 
this,  no  stoicism  of  will — only  God  had  in- 
ured them  to  the  realities  of  things.  They 
asked  but  one  question,  '  Does  it  seem  as  if 
the  cause  of  freedom  were  to  gain  or  lose  by 
this  ? '  That  was  all.  This  family  work  for 
a  higher  prize  than  fame — it  is  always  duty. 
Principle  is  the  word  I  brought  away  with 
me,  as  the  one  most  familiar  in  their  vocabu- 
lary." 

Mrs.  Brown  told  Colonel  Higginson  "  her 
husband  always  believed  that  he  was  to  be 


an  instrument  in  the  hand  of  Providence, 
and  she  believed  it,  too.  This  plan  had  oc- 
cupied his  thoughts  and  prayers  for  twenty 
years.  Many  a  night  he  had  lain  awake  and 
prayed  concerning  it.  Even  now  she  did 
not  doubt  he  felt  satisfied,  because  he  thought 
it  would  be  overruled  by  Providence  for  the 
best.  For  herself,  she  had  always  prayed 
that  her  husband  might  be  killed  in  fight, 
rather  than  fall  alive  into  the  hands  of  slave- 
holders, but  she  could  not  regret  it  now,  in 
view  of  the  noble  words  for  freedom  which  it 
had  been  his  privilege  to  utter" 

Colonel  Higginson  goes  on  to  say,  "When, 
the  next  day  on  the  railway,  I  was  compelled 
to  put  into  her  hands  the  newspaper  contain- 
ing the  death  warrant  of  her  husband,  I  felt 
no  fear  of  her  exposing  herself  to  observation 
by  any  undue  excitement.  She  read  it,  and 
then  the  tall,  strong  woman  bent  her  head 
for  a  few  moments  on  the  seat  before  us  ; 
then  she  raised  it,  and  spoke  as  calmly  as  be- 
fore." 

Mrs.  Brown  went  with  Colonel  Higginson, 
intending  to  go  to  her  husband ;  but  receiving 
from  him  a  tender  and  urgent  letter  advising 
her  not  to  come,  she  turned  aside  and  stayed 
for  a  few  days  with  friends  at  Eagleswood, 
New  Jersey.  Here  Theodore  Tilton  visited 
her,  and  wrote  to  a  New  York  paper  :  "  She 
is  a  woman  worthy  to  be  the  wife  of  such  a 
man.  Her  face  is  grave  and  thoughtful, 
serious  rather  than  sad,  quiet  and  retiring  in 
manner;  but  her  natural  simplicity  and  mod- 
esty cannot  hide  her  force  of  character." 
At  Eagleswood  she  busied  herself  packing 
a  box  of  clothing  and  little  comforts  for  her 
wounded  and  imprisoned  husband.  Only 
once  she  broke  down  utterly,  sobbing  bitter- 
ly over  the  thought  of  how  little  she  could 
do  for  him,  and  for  how  little  while  she  could 
do  even  that. 

From  Eagleswood  she  went  to  Philadel- 
phia, to  be  the  guest  -of  Lucretia  Mott  and 
other  kind  friends,  who  vied  with  each  other 
in  their  kindness  to  her  and  their  unavailing 
efforts  to  save  her  husband.  Here  another 
friend  (Mr.  McKim,  of  the  "Anti-Slavery 
Standard  ")  testified  of  her :  "  She  is  just  the 
woman  to  be  the  wife  of  the  hero  of  Har- 


1885.] 


A  Brave  Life. 


363 


per's  Ferry.  Stalwart  of  frame  and  strong  in 
native  intellect,  she  is  imbued  with  the  same 
religious  faith  and  her  heart  overflows  with 
the  same  sympathies.  Her  bearing  in  her 
present  distress  is  admirable.  She  is  brave 
without  insensibility,  tender  without  weak- 
ness, and  though  overwhelmed  by  the  deep- 
est sorrow,  her  sorrow,  is  not  as  one  having 
no  hope — not  for  her  husband's  reprieve,  but 
that  it  all  may  advance  the  cause  for  which 
he  is  to  die.  Her  demeanor  is  marked  by 
unaffected  propriety  and  natural  dignity. 
She  is  disappointed  at  not  going  to  her  hus- 
band, but  is  content  to  do  his  bidding.  She 
reads  with  avidity  every  item  in  the  papers 
concerning  her  husband,  especially  his  let- 
ters. She  usually  maintains  her  composure; 
but  when  listening  to  a  letter  from  him  to 
Reverend  Mr.  Vaill,  the  reader  came  to  the 
words,  '  I  have  lost  my  two  noble  boys,'  she 
dropped  her  head  as  if  pierced  with  an  ar- 
row." 

While  in  Philadelphia,  she  received  per- 
mission from  the  Virginia  authorities  to  have 
the  bodies  of  her  husband  and  sons.  It 
swept  away  her  last  hope  in  regard  to  her 
husband's  life,  and  she  seemed  for  a  time 
overwhelmed  with  sorrow  ;  but  she  would 
not  listen  for  a  moment  to  the  suggestion 
of  some  friends,  who  wished  her  to  testify 
that  her  husband  was  insane.  "  It  would  be 
untrue,  and  therefore  impossible,"  she  sim- 
ply said. 

At  last  she  received  a  reluctant  permission 
from  her  husband  to  come  and  visit  him, 
and  went  to  Harper's  Ferry  on  December  ist, 
the  day  before  his  execution.  Only  the 
kind  jailer  was  present  at  that  tragical  but 
sublime  meeting  and  parting.  The  interview 
lasted  two  hours  ;  but  an  eternity  of  faithful 
love  and  of  holy  trust  in  God  was  in  it. 

The  last  good-by  was  said,  and  the  strick- 
en woman  was  hurried  away  by  kind  friends 
to  Philadelphia.  One  who  accompanied  her 
on  this  journey  testifies:  "  In  Baltimore,  on 
the  railway,  at  Harper's  Ferry,  wherever  she 
went,  Southern  men  treated  her  with  respect, 
and  comforted  her  by  stories  of  her  husband 
and  children,  illustrative  of  their  bravery  and 
consistency." 


The  gentleman  at  whose  house  she  stayed 
during  the  closing  hours  of  her  husband's 
life,  bears  witness  to  her  wonderful  self-con- 
trol. She  came  down  to  breakfast  as  usual 
on  the  2nd  of  December,  and  appeared 
calm  and  sustained  until  the  fatal  hour  ar- 
rived, when  she  knew  her  husband  was.  to 
suffer  ignominious  death;  then  for  a  little 
while  she  seemed  bowed  beneath  her  awful 
burden,  but  soon  regained  her  composure, 
and  was  ready  on  the  morrow  for  the  dreary 
return  to  North  Elba,  with  all  that  was  mor- 
tal of  her  noble  husband.  He  had  written 
her  one  more  brief  letter :  "  Dear  wife,  I 
bid  you  another  farewell.  Be  of  good  cheer, 
and  God  Almighty  bless,  save,  comfort,  guide 
and  keep  you  to  the  end."  And  she  was, 
then  and  afterward,  of  good  cheer,  so  far  as 
lay  in  the  power  of  a  mortal  being,  ever 
walking  as  one  who  sees  the  invisible. 

Devoted  friends,  among  them  Wendell 
Phillips,  accompanied  her  homeward.  It 
was  an  historic  procession, 

"  As  grand  a  funeral 
As  ever  passed  on  earth." 

Through  the  bitter  December  weather  they 
pushed  their  way  to  the  little  frozen  hamlet 
of  North  Elba.  It  was  after  dark  when 
they  arrived  near  the  old  home,  where  they 
were  met  by  neighbors  coming  out  to  seek 
for  them  with  lanterns.  At  last  home  was 
reached.  The  meeting  between  the  mother 
and  her  orphaned  children  and  widowed 
daughters-in-law  was  inexpressibly  pathetic. 
"It  is  God's  will ;  it  must  be  all  for  the  best." 
With  such  words  they  comforted  each  other 
then  and  forever  after. 

John  Brown's  body,  amid  prayers  and 
tears,  and  lofty  words  of  cheer,  was  laid  away 
to  await  the  resurrection  morning  in  the 
shadow  of  a  great  rock"  near  his  house,  just 
as  he  directed,  and  over  him  was  set  up  the 
mossy  tombstone  which  once  marked  the 
resting  place  of  Captain  John  Brown  of 
Revolutionary  times,  but  which  had  been 
brought  from  Massachusetts  by  his  great- 
grandson  and  namesake,  John  Brown,  of 
Ossawatomie,  and  kept  for  many  years 
leaning  against  the  side  of  his  house,  wait- 
ing for  the  time  when  it  could  be  placed 


364 


A  Brave  Life. 


[Oct. 


over  himself.  Did  he  dimly  foresee  what 
manner  of  inscription  his  own  would  be? 
It  is  not  at  all  impossible.  But  it  is  far  more 
than  possible  that  one  with  such  high  trust 
in  God  as  he  possessed,  knew  that  his  mar- 
tyrdom would  not  be  in  vain.  He  bade 
them  sing  at  his  funeral  that  ringing,  martial 
hymn,  "  Blow  ye  the  trumpet,  blow  ! "  That 
was  in  December,  '59.  In  '62,  great  armies 
of  northern  men  were  marching  to  the  rescue 
of  the  slave,  unwittingly  indeed,  but  inevi- 
tably, and  the  song  they  sang  was: 
"John  Brown's  body  lies  a-mouldering  in  the  grave, 
But  his  soul  goes  marching  on  !" 

How  this  battle  cry  must  have  reverberated 
among  those  Adirondack  hills  !  What  won- 
drous fulfillment  was  then  seen  of  promise 
and  prophesy  !  What  tremendous  proof  of 
a  God  in  history  !  Even  those  widowed  wo- 
men must  have  at  last  joined  in  that  trium- 
phant refrain  :  "  Glory,  glory,  hallelujah." 

And  then  the  family  dropped  into  obscur- 
ity. They  courted  privacy.  They  did  not 
seek  either  fame  or  money.  They  were  hardy 
and  inured  to  poverty.  Their  whole  training 
had  been  such  as  to  make  them  proudly  inde- 
pendent and  self-reliant.  When  Colonel  Hig- 
ginson  visited  them,  he  found  them  so  poor 
that  they  had  not  even  money  to  pay  post- 
age, save  as  the  little  girls  earned  it  by  picking 
berries.  They  were  oppressed  with  anxiety 
about  the  payment  of  ten  dollars  for  taxes. 
The  money  had  once  been  laid  aside,  but 
had  been  given  to  a  poor  suffering  negro  wo- 
man by  the  mother,  who  was  always  ready 
to  share  her  last  crust  with  one  poorer  than 
herself.  It  is  a  wonderful  story  for  the  luxu- 
rious, self-indulgent  world  to  hear  ! 

So  they  lived  on  in  their  simple,  dutiful 
fashion,  and  the  world  heard  of  them  no 
more  for  many  years.  In  1862,  Salmon 
Brown,  who  stood  at  the  head  of  the  family 
after  his  father's  death,  made  up  his  mind  to 
go  west,  and  the  mother,  with  her  three 
young  daughters,  accompanied  him.  After 
living  for  a  short  time  in  Iowa,  they  decided 
to  go  still  further  west,  and  in  1864  they  emi- 
grated to  California.  They  settled  in  Red 
Bluff,  Tehama  County,  where  they  remained 
six  years,  and  then,  again,  moved  to  Hum- 


boldt  County,  and  lived  there  for  ten  years. 
Here,  two  of  the  daughters  were  married. 
The  mother  led  her  old,  quiet,  busy  life 
— a  daily  round  of  homely  tasks,  all  faith- 
fully done,  "  as  unto  the  Lord."  She  did 
not  dwell  upon  the  past.  Her  one  thought 
was  to  do  the  duty  which  lay  nearest  to  her. 

In  1 88 1  the  familymade  one  more  migra- 
tion. Santa  Clara  Valley,  with  its  wealth 
of  fruits  and  flowers,  and  its  delightful 
climate,  had  been  described  to  them.  By 
chance,  an  advertisement  of  a  tract  of  land, 
lying  on  a  high  ridge  of  the  Santa  Cruz 
mountains,  fell  under  the  eye  of  one  of  the 
daughters,  and  she  came  to  Santa  Clara  to 
investigate  the  desirability  of  its  purchase. 
It  was  decided  upon,  and  the  investment 
made.  The  family  was  now  made  up  of 
Mrs.  Brown,  an  unmarried  daughter,  and  a 
married  daughter  with  her  husband  and 
children.  The  son  with  his  family  remained 
in  Humboldt  County.  They  combined  their 
slender  purses  to  buy  this  new  home,  and 
soon  came  to  live  in  it ;  but  they  could  only 
partially  pay  for  it,  and  there  was  still  a  heavy 
debt  secured  by  mortgage  on  the  place.  It 
was  a  wild,  romantic  spot,  a  thousand  feet 
above  the  little  village  of  Saratoga..  For  a 
background  they  had  another  steep  hill-side. 
The  foreground  was  the  whole  beautiful  San- 
ta Clara  valley — the  loveliest  valley  in  the 
world.  A  king  might  have  envied  them 
their  outlook.  Now,  as  usual,  they  all  went 
to  work.  The  mountain  "  ranch  "  taxed  all 
the  energies  of  the  son-in-law — indeed,  of  the 
whole  family.  The  married  daughter's  heart 
and  life  were  full  with  the  care  of  four  little 
children,  while  the  mother's  busy  hands 
helped  on  every  side.  "  She  did  everything 
for  me,"  testified  the  young  mother,  weeping 
over  the  folded,  toil-worn  hands.  "  It  seems 
as  if  I  could  not  live  without  her.  She  cut 
and  planned  everything  the  children  wore. 
I  just  depended  on  her  more  than  words  can 
tell." 

But  it  would  be  months  before  the  pro- 
ducts of  the  farm  could  be  turned  into  money, 
and  the  unmarried  daughter  sought  employ- 
ment elsewhere.  Then,  for  the  first  time, 
the  community  about  them  became  aware 


1885.] 


A  Brave  Life. 


365 


of  the  fact  that  the  family  of  old  John  Brown 
had  come  to  live  among  them,  and  were  in 
straitened  circumstances.  The  story  ran 
through  neighboring  towns,  crept  into  the 
newspapers,  and  stirred  every  heart ;  for  this 
Santa  Clara  valley  is  full  of  New  England 
people,  and  of  men  who  had  "  served  during 
the  war,"  and  the  name  of  John  Brown 
struck  resounding  chords.  Scores  of  people 
climbed  the  rugged  hill-sides,  to  touch  the 
hands  of  the  widow  and  children  of  John 
Brown.  Mrs.  Brown  shrank  from  publicity; 
so  did  they  all ;  but  they  could  not  repel 
such  a  flood-tide  of  sympathy  and  gratitude. 
Over  and  over  again,  they  all  asserted  that 
they  claimed  nothing,  wished  nothing,  only 
an  opportunity  to  help  themselves  ;  but  they 
could  not  coldly  turn  away  from  loving  hands 
and  eyes  filled  with  tears ;  neither  could  the 
warm  glow  of  popular  feeling  be  checked. 
Little  by  little  the  family  yielded  to  the  pres- 
sure, and  allowed  the  dear  old  mother  to  re- 
ceive the  gifts  of  overflowing  hearts. 

The  editor  of  the  "  San  Jose  Mercury," 
always  enthusiastic  in  a  good  cause,  called  for 
a  subscription  in  behalf  of  Mrs.  Brown,  to 
which  the  public  promptly  responded.  San 
Francisco  took  it  up,  and  the  "San  Francisco 
Chronicle  "  proposed  also  to  receive  tribute 
money.  The  people  were  determined  that 
John  Brown's  widow  should  never  again  feel 
the  pressure  of  debt  and  poverty.  The  story 
reached  New  England,  and  waked  a  response 
there.  The  end  was,  that  the  debt  was  paid, 
the  mortgage  cancelled,  and  a  fund  invested 
for  a  little  permanent  income. 

Mrs.  Brown  received  these  attentions  un- 
der protest,  but  with  the  good  sense  and  judg- 
ment which  were  her  marked  characteristics. 
When  reporters  from  the  various  papers  "  in- 
terviewed "  her,  she  met  them  with  simple 
courtesy  and  dignity.  To  all  visitors  she  was 
affable  and  considerate.  Every  one  was  im- 
pressed with  her  strength  and  self-possession. 
The  neighbors  and  more  intimate  friends  bear 
uniform  witness  to  her  quiet,  impressive  man- 
ners, her  perfect  self-control,  the  calm,  re- 
pressed way  in  which  she  would  tell  the  story 
of  the  great  crisis  of  her  life,  and  above  all, 
the  grand  religious  faith  which  cheered  and 
upheld  her. 


She  had  now  been  separated  from  her 
Eastern  friends  nearly  twenty  years,  and  she 
decided  to  visit  them.  She  went  East  in  the 
fall  of  1882,  visiting  many  of  her  children 
and  relatives.  Everywhere  she  was  received 
with  abounding  kindness  and  honor.  In 
many  places  they  gave  her  public  receptions, 
and  in  every  way  she  was  made  to  feel  that 
she  was  unforgotten.  One  of  the  remark- 
able incidents  of  this  journey  was  the  recov- 
ery and  burial  of  her  son  Watson's  body. 
He  was  one  of  the  killed  at  Harper's  Ferry, 
and  his  body  had  been  taken  to  a  South- 
ern medical  college  for  anatomical  purposes; 
but  a  surgeon  in  the  Northern  army  had  res- 
cued it,  and  sent  it  to  an  Indiana  college. 
Its  identity  had  been  preserved  beyond  ques- 
tion, and  now,  after  the  lapse  of  more  than 
twenty  years,  the  aged  mother  was  permitted 
to  take  these  remnants  of  her  first-born,  and 
with  other  loved  ones  make  one  more  sorrow- 
ful pilgrimage  to  North  Elba.  They  made 
another  grave  in  the  shadow  of  the  great 
rock,  and  turned  away  once  more,  sorrowing 
but  rejoicing. 

Mrs.  Brown's  eastern  journey  occupied 
but  two  months.  She  returned  in  safety,  and 
greatly  comforted  by  the  love  and  kindness 
which  she  had  experienced.  In  the  fall  of 
'83  she  made  a  little  trip  to  visit  her  children 
in  Humboldt  County,  and  then  returned  to 
home  and  its  ever  pleasant  duties,  having 
now  seen  all  her  dear  ones  face  to  face  once 
more.  It  seemed  as  if  the  promised  "  light 
at  even  time  "  had  come  to  this  trusting  soul. 
But  as  so  often  befalls  in  this  life,  just  now 
came  the  warning,  "This  is  not  your  rest." 
A  fatal  disease  began  to  undermine  her  still 
powerful  constitution. 

Little  by  little  the  strong  tower  tottered  to 
its  fall.  She  had  the  attendance  of  a  skilled 
and  faithful  physician,  and  as  her  attacks  of 
acute  suffering  became  more  frequent  and 
intense,  it  often  became  necessary  for  the 
doctor  to  climb  the  almost  impassable  moun- 
tain road  by  night  and  in  stormy  weather. 
She  finally,  therefore,  decided  to  abandon 
the  eyrie  of  her  choice,  and  come  down  into 
the  valley  for  another  and  more  convenient 
home.  Her  friends  and  family  approved  the 
decision,  and  a  neat  little  house  near  the  vil- 


366 


A  Brave  Life. 


tOct. 


lage  of  Saratoga,  hidden  away  among  beau- 
tiful trees,  and  with  a  pretty  brook  (a  rare 
possession  for  California)  running  in  a  semi- 
circle around  the  door-yard,  was  bought  in 
exchange  for  the  other  place.  Here  family 
and  friends  and  good  physician  were  all  at 
hand,  but  one  stronger  than  they  had  claimed 
her.  She  made  a  brave  fight  for  life,  as  might 
be  expected  of  one  so  organized  ;  and  finding 
her  strength  waning,  and  disease  gaining 
upon  her,  went  to  San  Francisco  for  change 
of  air  and  medical  treatment.  Here,  tenderly 
ministered  to  by  her  daughter  Sarah,  and 
with  all  possible  helps  to  recovery,  she  ral- 
lied for  a  little  while,  only  to  sink  again.  Her 
suffering  was  so  acute  that  the  strong  spirit 
broke  beneath  it,  and  despondency,  alternat- 
ing with  morbid  fancies,  oppressed  her  be- 
yond endurance,  till  merciful  death  came  and 
freed  the  immortal  from  the  mortal  part. 

"  We  do  thee  grievous  wrong, 
O  eloquent  and  just  and  mighty  Death! 
Life  is  a  cave,  where  shadows  gleam  and  glide 
Between  our  dim  eyes  and  the  distant  light. 
Faint  falls  the  booming  of  the  outer  tide; 
Faint  shines  its  line  of  white. 
When  in  the  cave  our  spirits  darkling  stand, 
When  the  lights  strangely  glimmer  on  the  floor, 
Comes  Death,  and  gently  leads  us  by  the  hand, 
Unto  the  cavern  door." 

She  died  on  February  2gth,  1884.  On 
the  next  day,  the  sorrowing  daughter  brought 
the  precious  dust  back  to  the  family  home, 
and  on  the  succeeding  day  the  burial  took 
place.  It  was  a  most  quiet  and  unostenta- 
tious funeral.  The  little  village  of  Saratoga 
looked  like  a  beautiful  picture,  as  it  lay  nes- 
tled among  the  green  hills  beneath  the  soft 
California  sky.  Neighbors  and  friends  gath- 
ered in  kindly  fashion  at  the  little  farm-house, 
and  then  followed  in  procession  the  hearse, 
as  it  moved  slowly  down  the  green  lane, 
and  along  the  pleasant  road  leading  to  the 
village  church.  On  either  side  were  fields  of 
wheat  or  fruit  trees  in  blossom.  Flowers 
bloomed  by  the  road-side,  and  birds  sang 
blithely.  But  for  that  funeral  train,  one 
could  scarcely  have  believed  that  death  was 
in  the  world.  The  church  is  on  a  high  pla- 
teau overlooking  the  village — a  plain  little 
building,  but  "  beautiful  for  situation."  The 


church-yard  was  full  of  people,  standing  in 
quiet  groups  awaiting  the  arrival  of  the 
hearse.  Six  elderly  men  stood  ready  to  act 
as  pall-bearers,  and  as  soon  as  the  procession 
had  wound  up  the  steep  hill  to  the  church 
door,  the  coffin  was  taken  in  and  set  down 
before  the  pulpit,  which  had  been  decked 
with  trailing  vines  of  ivy  and  the  waxen  clus- 
ters of  the  laurestine.  A  cross  of  these  flow- 
ers, mingled  with  the  small,  sweet-scented 
violets,  that  are  a  part  of  every  California 
garden,  hung  upon  the  front  of  the  little 
reading  desk,  and  wreaths  of  the  same  blos- 
soms lay  on  the  coffin.  The  interior  of  the 
church  is  of  most  primitive  simplicity.  It 
might  have  pleased  Puritan  eyes,  save  for  the 
long  wreaths  of  Christmas  greenery  which 
had  not  yet  been  removed,  and  which  won- 
derfully softened  and  brightened  the  severe 
outlines  of  the  room. 

The  house  was  filled  to  its  utmost  capaci- 
ty ;  perhaps  two  hundred  were  present — 
plain,  serious  country  people.  Many  women 
had  brought  their  little  children,  and  not  a 
few  babies  from  their  mother's  arms  looked 
on  with  wide,  innocent  eyes.  At  times  they 
were  a  slightly  noisy  element  in  the  little  con- 
gregation; but,  evidently,  both  pastor  and 
people  were  accustomed  to  such  interrup- 
tions, and  there  was  a  pathetic  side  to  their 
presence,  for  it  told  of  toiling  women,  to 
whose  maternal  cares  there  came  no  pause. 
The  pastor,  a  plain,  earnest  man,  wholly 
befitting  the  congregation,  conducted  the 
services  in  the  simplest  manner.  It  was  only 
when  four  trained  and  accordant  voices  sang 
the  anthem,  "  Father,  forgive  these  tears," 
that  one  saw  the  first  trace  of  any  unusual 
tribute  to  the  dead.  The  fine,  sympathetic 
soprano  seemed  to  carry  the  burden  and 
mystery  of  life  and  death  on  wings  of  song 
to  the  very  gates  of  heaven,  and  leave  it 
there.  The  hymns,  "  Asleep  in  Jesus,"  and 
"There  is  an  hour  of  peaceful  rest,"  were 
also  sung  with  beautiful  effect  in  the  course 
of  the  services.  This  sweet  singer  came 
from  a  neighboring  town,  as  did  a  very  few 
others.  The  only  persons  who  came  from  a 
greater  distance  to  do  honor  to  the  memory 
of  this  noble  woman,  were  two  Oakland  la- 


1885.] 


A  Brave  Life. 


367 


dies,  one  of  them  over  eighty -three  years  old, 
both  entire  strangers  to  the  family  ;  but  one 
had  been  the  friend  of  Wendell  Phillips  and 
of  William  Lloyd  Garrison,  and  had  shared 
their  enthusiasm;  while  the  dearest  friend  of 
both,  a  beloved  son  and  husband,  had  given 
his  life  in  following  where  John  Brown's  soul 
had  gone  marching  on,  so  that  they  paid  this 
tribute  partly  for  his  sake. 

The  good  pastor  chose  for  his  text  our 
Lord's  words  of  promised  greeting,  "Well 
done,  good  and  faithful  servant."  "Our 
dear  sister  would  not  have  chosen  these 
words  for  herself,"  he  said,  "  but  we  feel  that 
she  deserves  them"-;  and  then  he  briefly  out- 
lined her  life.  There  was  in  the  sermon  but 
the  slightest  allusion  to  her  peculiar  and 
grand  story.  He  spoke  of  her  patience,  her 
devotion,  her  self-sacrifice,  her  unswerving 
faith  in  God,  as  he  might  have  told  the  char- 
acteristics of  any  other  of  God's  humble 
saints.  Doubtless  it  was  best  to  be  thus  in- 
definite, for  the  sake  of  the  sorrowing  daugh- 
ters, who  could  have  borne  no  more  explicit 
references  ;  but  to  those  who  knew  that  the 
ohe  who  lay  before  them,  "asleep  in  Jesus," 
was  the  widow  of  John  Brown,  of  Ossawato. 
mie,  there  was  small  need  of  any  eloquent 
words  of  history  or  eulogy. 

What  wonderful  recollections  crowded 
upon  the  mind  !  How  transfigured  was  the 
scene  !  A  scaffold  hung  beside  the  peaceful 
cross  of  flowers  and  seemed  to  share  its  halo. 
A  noble  gray  head  bowed  above  the  coffin — 
the  head  which  a  famous  sculptor  once  fol- 
lowed with  despairing  admiration  through 
the  crowded  streets  of  Boston.  A  panorama 
of  tragic  scenes  swept  slowly  by  the  quiet 
sleeper,  the  scenes  of  a  drama  such  as  Shak- 
spere  never  wrote,  and  with  a  hero  beside 
whom  his  greatest  kings  seem  paltry  and 
self-seeking  men.  Imagination  paled  before 
her  own  pictures  of  the  life  of  this  man  of 
sorrows.  But  anon  came  the  tread  of  great 
armies  marching  past  to  the  familiar  song, 
and  then  came  up  Lowell's  prophetic  verse  : 


"  Careless  seems  the  great  Avenger  ; — 

History's  pages  but  record 
One  death-grapple  in  the  darkness 

'Twixt  old  systems  and  the  Word  ; 
Truth  forever  on  the  scaffold, 

Wrong  forever  on  the  throne.— 
But  that  scaffold  sways  the  future, 

And  behind  the  dim  unknown 
Standeth  God  within  the  shadow, 

Keeping  watch  above  his  own." 

At  the  close  of  the  exercises,  as  the  rural 
custom  is,  all  friends  and  neighbors  were 
bidden  to  come  and  look  at  the  face  of  the 
dead.  All  in  the  church  passed  slowly  by, 
each  pausing  for  a  moment  by  the  open  cof- 
fin. The  face  within  was  very  noble  in  its 
contours ;  a  broad,  high  forehead,  strong  fea- 
tures, worn  and  wasted  with  suffering,  yet 
with  an  expression  of  deep  restfulness. 
Those  who  looked  upon  the  dead  seemed  to 
feel  this  influence,  and  scarcely  a  tear  was 
shed.  Then  the  face  was  shut  away  from 
sight,  the  bearers  carried  their  burden  to  the 
hearse,  and  all  moved  slowly  to  the  little 
cemetery  which  lay  close  at  hand,  on  the 
same  high  plateau  with  the  church — a  most 
beautiful  resting-place,  full  of  overshadowing 
trees,  and  all  the  sweet  sights  and  sounds  of 
nature  undisturbed.  The  turf  was  thickly 
strewn  with  wild  flowers — golden  buttercups, 
and  the  fragile  little  nemophilae,  which  Cali- 
fornia children  call  "babies'  eyes."  They 
looked  like  a  light  fall  of  snow-flakes. 

Prayer  was  offered  by  the  side  of  the  open 
grave,  a  prayer  full  of  submission  to  the  di- 
vine will,  of  faith  in  the  unseen,  and  of  im- 
mortal hope.  The  coffin  was  lowered  into 
its  place.  The  earth  fell  quickly  upon  it — 
"  dust  to  dust " — and  thus  they  laid  her  down 
to  sleep,  separated  by  the  width  of  a  conti- 
nent from  that  beloved  grave  in  the  Adiron- 
dacks.  But  to  the  reunited  spirits  there  is 
neither  time  nor  space.  "And  God  shall 
wipe  away  all  tears  from  their  eyes;  and  there 
shall  be  no  more  death,  neither  sorrow,  nor 
crying,  neither  shall  there  be  any  more  pain, 
for  the  former  things  are  passed  away." 

M.  H.  f. 


368 


A   Transportation  Aristocrat. 


[Oct. 


A  TRANSPORTATION  ARISTOCRAT. 


I. 


A  HEAVILY  built,  genial  man  leaned  idly 
over  the  railing  of  a  fog-bound  steamer  that 
tossed  uneasily  from  side  to  side  in  the  choppy 
sea,  outside  the  bar  that  guards  Humboldt 
Bay.  From  time  to  time  he  removed  the 
cigar  from  between  his  teeth,  and  addressed 
himself  to  an  automatic  buoy  that  dismally 
moaned  in  its  chains  a  short  distance  away. 

"  You  poor  creature,  how  you  seem  to  suf- 
fer !  I  wish  I  could  render  you  some  assist- 
ance." 

"O-o-o-o!  "  groaned  the  buoy. 

"  Are  you  a  widow  ?  " 

"  O-o-o-o  ! "  in  still  more  heartrending  ac- 
cents. 

"  Sh  !  there,  there,  there,  now,  don't  take 
on  at  such  a  rate.  Beg  your  pardon  for  not 
seeing  the  widow's  veil  over  that  white  frilled 
cap  of  yours.  If  the  road  was  drier,  I'd  come 
over  and  see  you,  for  I  dote  on  widows;  but 
as  it  is,  I  must  tender  you  my  heartfelt  sym- 
pathies from  here.  Let  me  give  you  one  piece 
of  advice,  however — if  you  are  wise,  you  will 
capture  another  husband  before  you  ruin 
your  lovely  voice  with  so  much  moaning, 
and  before  you  rust  out  your  eyes  with  such 
long  continued  weeping. —  Crocodile  tears, 
though  I  wouldn't  have  her  hear  me  for  the 
world,"  he  remarked  between  his  teeth. 
"  Bah  !  I've  seen  that  kind  too  many  times." 

Hearing  an  amused  though  politely  sub- 
dued ripple  of  laughter  in  the  vicinity,  he 
wheeled  around  abruptly,  and  found  himself 
face  to  face  with  a  tall  young  woman,  whose 
twinkling  gray  eyes  were  regarding  him  curi- 
ously. "  Did  she  doubt  his  sanity  ?  "  he  asked 
himself.  If  she  did,  it  would  be  wise  for  him 
to  explain  at  once. 

"I  did  pity  the  poor  thing,"  he  remarked, 
by  way  of  apology,  at  the  same  time  throwing 
the  stump  of  his  cigar  overboard.  "  I  thought 
that  if  she  felt  half  as  blue  as  I  do,  she  needed 
human  sympathy.  It's  confounded  luck  for 


a  man  of  my  superfluous  energy  to  be  fog- 
bound in  a  wretched  tumbling  tub  like  this  for 
two  endless  days.  You  don't  seem  to  fancy 
it  much,  yourself.  Are  you  a  stranger  here  ?" 

The  young  woman  was  at  a  loss.  True, 
on  board  ship  one  is  privileged  to  speak 
with  anybody ;  but  Miss  Martha  Sherwood, 
brought  up  according  to  the  rigid  Phil- 
adelphia etiquette,  had  been  taught  that  it 
was  a  mortal  sin  to  make  an  acquaintance 
informally.  As  she  was  a  motherless  girl, 
her  aunt  had  impressed  upon  her  at  parting 
the  necessity  of  being  a  chary  traveler,  for 
Mr.  Sherwood,  notwithstanding  his  good  in- 
tentions to  be  the  best  of  fathers,  was  too 
much  absorbed  in  the  society  of  the  smoking 
room  to  be  more  than  a  nominal  protector 
for  his  daughter.  Reflecting,  however,  that 
she  had  inadvertently  drawn  the  gentleman's 
attention  towards  herself,  she  thought  it 
would  do  no  harm  to  answer  him  civilly,  so 
she  said  : 

"  Yes,  I  am  a  stranger.  Father  and  I  have 
never  been  so  far  west  before." 

"Business?"  inquired  the  man,  dropping 
down  upon  the  bench  beside  her,  and  throw- 
ing one  knee  over  the  other. 

"My  father?"  asked  Miss  Sherwood. 
"Yes,  he  has  come  on  business." 

"  Lumber,  I  presume.  That  is  the  only 
business  here.  Is  he  wishing  to  buy  ?  " 

"  No,  it  is  government  land  that  he  is  go- 
ing to  take  up." 

"By  Jove,"  exclaimed  the  man  with  in- 
creased interest,  "  that's  my  business,  too. 
I  don't  intend  to  sell  out  to  any  syndicate, 
either  :  there's  money  in  holding  on — money 
in  holding  on."  Seeing  a  blank,  uninterested 
expression  creeping  over  his  companion's 
face,  his  earnestness  relaxed,  and  he  added : 
"  I  don't  suppose  you  understand  much 
about  the  details  of  the  lumber  business — 
women's  heads  were  not  made  for  such 
things.  I  believe  I'll  go  and  have  a  talk 
with  your  father." 


1885.] 


A   Transportation  Aristocrat. 


369^ 


Raising  his  hat  to  her,  he  sauntered  off 
towards  the  smoking  room,  with  an  amusing 
air  of  conscious  superiority  over  "these  wo- 
men." Miss  Sherwood  listlessly  leaned  back 
against  the  railing,  and  supporting  her  head 
in  the  palm  of  her  hand,  she  fixed  her  gaze 
shorewards,  hoping  to  see  the  dense  fog  lift. 

"The  air  is  growing  lighter,"  she  thought. 
"What  a  singular  man  that  is — handsome 
enough  to  be  from  Baltimore.  His  great 
Southern  eyes  are  so  expressive.  I  wonder 
if  he  is  married  or  single.  How  I  wish  papa 
had  left  me  at  home  with  Aunt  Helen ;  for 
I  am  sure  we  shall  have  nothing  here  but 
log  cabins,  Indians,  and  fleas — ugh !  There ! 
I  do  believe  that  the  fog  is  lifting." 

Presently  she  rose,  and  after  wrapping  her- 
self more  securely  in  her  warm  fur  cloak, 
she  went  aft  in  search  of  her  father,  whom 
she  found  earnestly  engaged  in  conversation 
with  the  eccentric  stranger. 

"  Papa  dear,  the  fog  is  lifting,"  she  said 
to  him  softly,  when  there  was  a  convenient 
pause.  "  Don't  you  wish  to  come  forward 
and  watch  for  the  first  glimpse  of  our  new 
home?  The  Captain  says  that  he  hears  the 
pilot  boat  coming  out  to  us." 

"  Yes,  Martha,  we'll  watch  together  for 
the  first  sight  of  our  new  home.  My  daugh- 
ter Martha — Mr.  George  Wright." 

Mr.  Wright  bowed  gravely,  and  murmured 
something  about  "Very  happy,  I'm  sure"; 
then  he  added  more  intelligibly : 

"Your  father  tells  me  that  you  are  not 
anticipating  much  pleasure  from  your  new 
life." 

"  I  prefer  the  East,"  returned  Miss  Sher- 
wood. "  I  am  afraid  it  will  seem  dull  here." 

"If  it  is  any  encouragement,"  said  Mr. 
Wright  affably,  "  I  will  tell  you  a  great  secret. 
I  have  been  told  that  Eureka  is  like  Paris — 
don't  laugh — you  cannot  resist  its  fascina- 
tion. I  presume  that  its  natural  grandeur 
compensates  for  its  isolation  from  the  world. 
At  any  rate,  the  Humboldt  people  are  a 
race  by  themselves — and  a  delightful  one,  I 
am  told." 

"  I  care  more  for  the  scenery  than  for  the 
people,"  said  Mr.  Sherwood  with  sturdy  con- 
viction. "  I  am  tired  of  crowds  of  people, 
VOL.  VI.— 24. 


tired  of  shams,  tired  of  hypocrisy;  but  I  can- 
not make  Martha  believe  that  there  is  a 
world  outside  the  city  limits  of  Philadelphia 
and  Newport." 

"  Papa  is  about  right,"  said  the  girl.  "  I 
do  not  appreciate  scenery,  unless  there  .are 
people  in  it  to  make  it  interesting;  but  I 
dare  say  that  I  can  learn.  One  can  school 
one's  self  to  endure  anything." 

Mr.  Wright  bent  upon  her  a  curious  and 
prolonged  stare,  finally  coming  to  the  conclu- 
sion that  she  was  not  quite  as  charming  and 
divine  as  he  had  thought  she  was  a  few  mo- 
ments before.  "  Her  soul  must  have  gone 
to  the  creditors  along  with  the  rest  of  Sher- 
wood's property,"  he  groaned  inwardly. 

Miss  Sherwood  bore  his  scrutiny  without 
the  least  particle  of  embarrassment.  Had 
she  not  been  stared  at,  admired,  and  criti- 
cised all  her  life?  Aside  from  the  social 
standing  her  father's  wealth  had  given  her, 
she  was  endowed  with  an  amount  of  indi- 
viduality that  would  command  attention  un- 
der any  circumstances.  She  had  no  striking 
features,  and  yet  the  tout  ensemble  was  strik- 
ing. Her  complexion  was  pale  and  clear ; 
her  gray  eyes  frank  and  steady ;  her  nose 
and  chin  like  a  thousand  others  ;  her  mouth 
pretty,  but  expressive  of  weakness.  Perhaps 
her  mode  of  dressing  was  where  she  made 
her  point — always  in  black,  yet  with  a  variety 
and  individuality  that  was  marvelous.  A 
monochrome  belle  must  have  a  wonderful 
ingenuity  to  stand  such  a  test  successfully. 
Miss  Sherwood  rather  affected  loose  garments 
and  Rubens  hats,  but  the  somber  mono- 
chrome saved  her  from  appearing  loud. 

The  passengers  now  made  a  sudden  rush, 
uttering  enthusiastic  expressions  of  admira- 
tion at  the  curious  and  beautiful  phenom- 
enon which  presented  itself.  The  heavy 
fog-banks  had  partially  lifted — just  high 
enough  to  display  a  strip  of  magnificent 
landscape  between  them  and  the  seething 
ocean  below.  The  far-famed  Humboldt  bar 
stretched  its  swirling,  frothing  length  before 
them.  A  small  pilot  boat  struggled  and  buf- 
feted its  way  through  the  tumultuous  break- 
ers. Out  on  the  yellow  sand  beach  that 
stretched  away  to  the  right  as  far  as  eye 


370 


A   Transportation  Aristocrat. 


[Oct. 


could  see,  rose  abruptly  one  black,  solitary 
light-house,  around  the  tower  of  which  sleep- 
ily careened  four  or  five  sea-gulls.  The  sun, 
which  had  just  gone  down,  left  behind  it 
only  the  rich  afterglow,  accentuated  by  broad, 
radiating  bars  of  golden  light,  which  soon 
grew  dim,  leaving  in  their  stead  a  warm  vio- 
let haze  to  veil  the  vast  extent  of  mighty, 
impenetrable  redwood  forests  that  rise  tier 
upon  tier,  beginning  at  the  water's  edge  and 
melting  into  the  snow-crowned  peaks  that 
outline  the  horizon.  Between  the  sandy 
beach  on  one  side,  the  forest-covered  island 
to  the  left,  and  the  redwoods  in  the  back- 
ground, lay  Humboldt  Bay,  calm  and  slug- 
gish, with  scarcely  enough  current  to  float 
along  the  great  rafts  of  logs  that  dotted  its 
surface.  At  the  piers  were  long  lines  of 
shipping,  and  each  saw-mill  that  reared  its 
head  here  and  there  around  the  bay  had  its 
quota  of  skeleton-like  masts  and  spars,  which 
disappeared  from  sight  at  times  in  the  cloud 
of  smoke  that  curled  upwards  from  the  great, 
ever-hungry,  ever  devouring  refuse  fires,  to 
mingle  at  last  with  the  overhanging  fog-banks. 
Between  the  trees  on  the  farther  side  of  the 
bay  peeped  some  white  steeples  and  a  few 
groups  of  houses. 

"That  looks  like  a  good  hotel,"  remarked 
Miss  Sherwood,  as  the  steamer,  guided  by 
the  pilot,  was  borne  safely  across  the  bar,  and 
landed  at  the  pier  in  sight  of  a  large,  white 
building  from  which  airily  floated  the  Ameri- 
can flag. 

"  How  can  you  speak  of  hotels,  Miss  Sher- 
wood," remonstrated  Mr.  Wright,  " — of  ho- 
tels in  the  presence  of  such  grandeur  ?  By 
Jove,  Miss  Sherwood,  I  never  want  to  see  an- 
other hotel.  Give  me  a  bed  of  overlapping 
fir  boughs,  a  roaring  camp-fire,  and  a  venison 
steak.  Which  of  your  hotels  can  give  you 
accommodations  like  that  ?  " 

"  I  should  be  in  despair  if  they  couldn't 
give  us  anything  better — life  wouldn't  be 
worth  living,"  flippantly  retorted  the  young 
woman.  "  Besides,  Mr.  Wright,  I  know 
very  well  that  a  week's  diet  of  venison,  and 
at  the  same  time  being  made  a  victim  of 
damp  nights,  bears,  tarantulas,  snakes,  and 
fleas,  would  make  you  contented,  and  glad 


to  return  to  civilization  and  the  comforts  of 
even  a  third  rate  hotel." 

"  Well,  Miss  Sherwood,  we  are  here.  I 
advise  you  to  try  the  Vance  House,  if  you 
must  patronize  a  hotel.  I'll  let  you  know  as 
soon  as  I  am  settled.  Good-bye,  Sherwood, 
I'll  see  you  in  a  few  days  " — and  Mr.  George 
Wright  disappeared. 

The  tired  passengers  filed  down  the  slip- 
pery gang-plank  into  a  dismal,  badly  lighted 
room,  shivering  miserably  while  waiting  for 
the  baggage  to  be  taken  from  the  hold.  In 
the  meantime  the  fog  had  dipped  down 
again,  and  the  situation  was  becoming  de- 
pressing. Out  of  the  dim  obscurity  of  one 
corner  of  the  rambling  waiting  room,  as  Miss 
Sherwood's  eyes  became  accustomed  to  the 
light,  a  shadowy  form  began  to  be  material- 
ized. Penetrating  eyes,  grizzled  eyebrows, 
bushy  hair,  shrimp-like  form,  spidery  arms 
and  legs,  stooping  shoulders,  and  a  head  that 
was  much  too  large  for  the  shriveled  body — 
one  by  one  these  features  took  shape,  and 
the  whole  formed  a  little  old  man.  At  first 
Miss  Sherwood  was  inclined  to  laugh,  for  he 
had  come  into  her  line  of  vision  so  uncannily 
— piece-meal,  as  it  were ;  but  something  in  his 
bowed  form,  and  his  pathetically  nervous 
manner  of  looking  about  to  see  that  he  was 
not  pursued,  checked  her  risibilities.  Mr. 
Sherwood  was  gazing  vacantly  about  him, 
with  the  helplessness  of  a  traveler  in  a  for- 
eign land,  who  is  at  a  loss  where  to  make  a 
beginning.  One  by  one  his  fellow  passen- 
gers disposed  of  their  baggage,  and  filed  out 
of  the  arched  entrance  into  the  choking 
blackness  of  the  fog  without.  In  the  midst 
of  his  dilemma,  the  weazened  old  person  in 
the  corner,  after  a  last  hasty  glance  around, 
darted  forward,  and  touched  him  on  the 
arm. 

"Baggage,  sir?"  he  quietly  asked.  "Where 
are  you  going  to  stop  ?  " 

"  They  told  me  to  go  to  the  Vance  House. 
Do  you  know  of  any  better  ?  I  shall  be  away 
a  great  deal,  and  I  hate  to  leave  my  daughter 
alone  in  a  hotel.  I'd  like  to  go  to  the  best 
place." 

The  old  man's  face  brightened.  After  a 
moment's  close  scrutiny  of  the  gentleman 


1885.] 


A   Transportation  Aristocrat. 


371 


and  his  daughter,  he  said  in  a  childishly  high- 
pitched,  and  trembling  voice  : 

"  I  reckon  I  can  git  ye  some  accommoda- 
tions. They  are  abaout  the  finest  ye  can  git 
in  this  yere  taown.  Ther  name  is  Meserve, 
the  people  ez  hez  the  haouse.  Mis'  Meserve 
an'  two  daughters.  Nice  family — firs'  class." 

The  old  man  seemed  earnest.  He  was 
already  tugging  and  pulling  away  at  the  bag- 
gage to  lift  it  into  his  cart. 

"  Shall  we  risk  it,  Martha  ?  "  inquired  Mr. 
Sherwood  helplessly. 

"Why  not?"  indifferently  returned  Miss 
Sherwood. 

"  'Tain't  a  very  long  walk.  Kerridges  is 
scurse  in  these  parts.  It's  dark  ez  pitch,  an' 
ye  might  ride  up  in  the  waggin,  ef  ye  wa'nt 
too — too —  '  he  hesitated,  and  looked  un- 
comfortable. 

"Proud?"  interrogated  Miss  Sherwood, 
coming  to  his  relief.  "  Proud  ?  no,  indeed ; 
we  are  too  tired  to  be  proud,  anyway.  Come, 
papa,  no  one  knows  us  here.  I  don't  see 
any  carriages." 

"  Ain't  but  two  kerridges  in  Eureka,"  in- 
terrupted the  old  man.  "  'Most  every  family 
keeps  a  buggy  —  the  Meserves,  they  hev  a 
kerridge ;  best  one  they  could  buy  in  San 
Francisco.  Nice  family,  the  Meserves  is — 
firs'  class." 

They  mounted  to  the  high  seat,  and  were 
soon  en  route.  In  less  than  ten  minutes  they 
drew  up  before  an  imposing  residence.  The 
old  man  gave  the  reins  to  Mr.  Sherwood, 
and  climbed  laboriously  down  to  open  the 
ornate  iron  gates,  surmounted  by  two  colored 
glass  lamps.  The  faint  tinkle  that  followed 
the  old  man's  timid  pull  at  the  door-bell  soon 
brought  to  view  a  stout,  masculine-looking 
woman,  somewhat  past  middle  age,  who 
snapped  :  "  Well  ?  What  do  you  come  to 
the  front  door  like  this  for?  Haven't  I  told 
you — " 

"  Sh,  mother  ! "  whispered  the  old  fellow 
nervously,  "there  is  a  gentleman  an'  his 
daughter  in  the  waggin.  They  wanted  the 
best,  an'  they're  strangers.  The  gentleman 
wouldn't  like  to  leave  his  daughter  in  the 
hotel  much.  I  told  'em  this  was  the  best ; 
it  is,  isn't  it  ?  " 


The  woman  reddened  and  elbowed  her 
way  out  to  the  wagon  without  replying  to  the 
old  man.  To  Mr.  Sherwood  she  said  in  a 
modified  voice  : 

"  We  never  have  taken  in  any  strangers  to 
live  with  us,  but  we  have  a  large  house.  I 
don't  know  but  what  you  might  stay,  now  that 
Uncle  Hiram — as  they  call  him — has  brought 
you  here." 

Detecting  a  shadow  of  reluctance  in  her 
tone,  Mr.'  Sherwood  spoke  up  with  alacrity, 
hastening  to  explain  that  he  had  letters  from 
prominent  men  in  New  York  and  Philadel- 
phia to  Mr.  Samuel  Larsen,  Senator  By- 
ram,  and  the  Episcopal  clergyman  of  the 
town. 

"  O,  that's  all  right,"  said  the  woman,  with 
an  increased  cordiality  which  indicated  how 
fully  her  mind  had  been  relieved  by  the  in- 
formation. "Walk  right  in.  My  name's 
Meserve — and  yours  ?  " 

"Sherwood.  My  daughter's  name  is  Mar- 
tha Sherwood." 

Martha  observed  that  as  her  father  handed 
Uncle  Hiram  two  silver  dollars,  Mrs.  Meserve 
turned  away  irritably,  and  for  some  moments 
her  face  did  not  resume  its  customary  pale- 
ness. 

"  Queer ! "  thought  Martha  to  herself.  "  I 
wonder  if  everybody  in  Eureka  is  like  that — 
just  as  if  they  all  had  a  dreadful  mystery 
hanging  over  them." 

The  following  morning  she  met  the  rest 
of  the  family — two  daughters,  and  a  dissi- 
pated son,  who  seldom  graced  his  home  with 
his  presence.  The  young  ladies  had  been 
educated  at  the  convent  in  the  town,  but 
their  style  of  dressing  was  anything  but  con- 
ventual. Having  read  in  all  the  latest  fash- 
ion books  of  the  rage  for  red  that  had  as- 
sailed the  poor,  tired  Eastern  eyes,  the 
Meserves  resolved  to  out-redden  the  reddest. 
Red  cotton  Mother  Hubbard  dresses,  red 
silk  and  velvets  for  Sunday,  red  parasols,  red 
stockings,  hats,  and  gloves — their  wardrobes 
ran  the  gamut  of  the  reds.  Now,  in  the 
early  morning,  they  were  radiant  in  vermilion 
Mother  Hubbards,  relieved  by  white  yokes 
and  sleeves. 

Hannah,   the   eldest,  was   by  no   means 


372 


A   Transportation  Aristocrat. 


[Oct. 


young,  but  her  slight  figure  took  off  at  least 
five  of  her  thirty-five  years.  She  was  what 
the  French  call  a  chatain,  and  you  know 
these  dark  blondes  never  age  as  rapidly  as 
their  golden-haired  sisters.  Hannah  Me- 
serve's  eyes  were  small  but  full,  and  her 
eyelids  being  too  large  for  the  purpose  for 
which  they  were  intended,  hung  in  loose 
wrinkles.  Her  thin,  firmly  compressed  lips, 
and  her  small  ears  set  close  to  her  head,  if 
phrenology  tells  the  truth,  betrayed  both 
selfishness  and  hypocrisy  in  a  marked  degree. 
Juanita,  the  younger  sister,  a  tall,  colorless 
blonde,  her  waxiness  exaggerated  by  the  scar- 
let dress,  seemed  more  like  a  figure  of  Mad- 
ame Tussaud's  than  like  a  living  creature. 
She  might  have  been  twenty  three  or  twenty- 
four  years  of  age — she  had  not  lost  her 
freshness,  notwithstanding  that  a  terrible  fall 
she  had  received  a  few  years  before  had  made 
her  an  invalid,  perhaps,  for.  life.  Juanita 
was  treacherous  and  spiteful,  as  a  reigning 
belle,  who  is  richer  and  better  dressed  than 
any  other  woman  in  the  community,  feels 
that  she  has  the  right  to  be.  With  all  her 
aptitude  for  treachery  and  slander,  she  had 
another  quality  which  almost  compensated 
for  them,  and  this  quality  was  loyalty. 

When  the  Sherwoods  had  been  domiciled 
in  their  new  home  for — well,  say  a  month, 
who  should  happen  in  one  morning  but 
George  Wright,  clad  in  a  dark  blue  flannel 
English  blouse,  and  the  high  lights  of  his 
face,  /'.  e.,  cheeks  and  tip  of  his  nose,  painted 
in,  in  a  vivid  if  not  very  becoming  scarlet. 

To  the  Meserves  he  made  a  profoundly 
exaggerated  bow,  and  then  took  no  further 
notice  of  them.  Without  waiting  for  an  in- 
vitation from  Miss  Sherwood,  he  threw  him- 
self into  a  lounging  chair,  and  in  his  chatty, 
off-hand  manner,  ran  over  his  varied  experi- 
ences in  the  town  since  he  had  left  her  on  the 
steamer.  Today  he  had  come  more  to  see 
Mr.  Sherwood  on  business ;  so  after  an  hour's 
conversation  with  the  ladies  he  withdrew  with 
Miss  Martha's  father,  promising  to  call  fre- 
quently. He  certainly  kept  his  promise,  for 
hardly  a  day  passed  but  that  he  dropped 
in. 

Mrs.    Meserve   exerted  herself  to  please 


both  gentlemen,  confiding  to  her  son  one 
night  when  they  were  alone,  that  "  if  Wright 
would  take  Juanita,  and  Sherwood  would 
take  Hannah,  the  Meserve  family  would  be 
made.  It  shan't  fall  through  on  my  account. 
If  Hiram  would  only  keep  still  we  could  catch 
them  well  enough." 

Then  young  William  Meserve  laughed  vi- 
ciously, and  said  :  "  Lord !  Mother,  you're  a 
stunner.  Some  more  money  wouldn't  come 
amiss  in  the  house,  would  it?  Father's  get- 
ting old — he  can't  last  long." 

As  the  two  girls  sat  in  the  room  one  even- 
ing with  Miss  Sherwood  and  Mr,  Wright,  lis- 
tening to  his  pen  pictures  of  the  types  about 
town,  one  name  that  he  mentioned  made 
them  give  their  closest  attention. 

"  Nice  old  man — that  one  that  drives  the 
Eureka  express.  One  of  the  world's  noble 
souls." 

"The  old  man  who  brought  papa  and  me 
from  the  station  ?  Deep-set  black  eyes,  ner- 
vous manner,  and  stooping  figure  ?  "  inquired 
Miss  Sherwood.  Glancing  up  from  her  em- 
broidery at  that  moment,  she  saw  Hannah 
Meserve's  face  grow  crimson.  Juanita  was 
about  to  make  some  impetuous  speech,  but 
Hannah,  with  a  look  of  absolute  authority, 
was  trying  to  silence  her. 

"Yes,"  continued  Mr.  Wright,  who  had 
observed  the  by-play,  "  yes,  same  one.  I  tell 
you  that  man  has  a  noble  soul.  Any  woman 
might  be  proud  of  such  a  man." 

"Wherein  lies  his  nobility?"  mockingly 
asked  Miss  Sherwood. 

"  Would  you  like  to  know  ?  "  asked  Mr. 
Wright,  furtively  watching  the  rapidly  chang- 
ing expression  on  the  faces  of  the  two  Me- 
serves. "  Well,  Uncle  Hiram  is  an  old  man. 
By  his  earnings  in  the  express  business  he  ac- 
cumulated a  small  capital.  This  he  invested 
in  timber  land,  which,  in  the  boom  of  some 
years  ago,  gave  him  an  enormous  interest  on 
his  money.  He  looks  like  a  rich  man,  doesn't 
he  ? — like  a  high  liver  ?  That  man,  sir,  has 
drudged  away  the  best  years  of  his  life  to 
provide  a  home  for  a  family  who  not  only 
will  not  claim  him,  but  who  actually  pass 
him  on  the  street  without  a  sign  of  recogni- 
tion. Late  at  night,  when  he  has  housed 


1885.] 


A  Transportation  Aristocrat. 


373 


his  wagon,  he  creeps  around  to  the  back 
door  of  his  elegant  house,  and  like  a  sneak 
thief  steals  off  to  his  room,  while  his  family, 
thoughtlessly,  no  doubt,  revel  in  the  drawing 
room,  dressed  in  silk  and  boasting  of  family 
connections." 

"  Who  told  you  all  that  ?  "  asked  Hannah 
Meserve,  with  the  slightest  suspicion  of  a 
sneer  in  her  tone.  "  Did  he  ?  " 

"Well,"  replied  Mr.  Wright,  quietly,  "he 
did  and  he  didn't.  We  were  sitting  down 
on  the  pier  this  afternoon,  when  a  carriage 
drove  by,  in  which  were  seated  a  lady  and 
a  young  woman  who  might  have  been  her 
daughter.  Uncle  Hiram  looked  rather  queer, 
and  forgot  what  he  was  speaking  about. 
After  a  moment  he  gave  an  apprehensive 
start,  and  said  wearily,  '  God  knows  I've 
done  the  best  I  could  with  life,  but  I'm  an 
old  man,  an'  I  can't  help  feeling  bitter  to 
have  my  own  blood  deny  me,  when  I  ain't 
done  nothin'  but  provide  'em  with  the  very 
best  ever  sence  we  were  married.'  By  Jove, 
I  just  slapped  him  on  the  back,  and  begged 
him  to  tell  me  the  whole.  There  is  no  med- 
icine like  unburdening  the  mind,  to  comfort 
a  breaking  heart.  Little  by  little,  without 
mentioning  any  names,  he  told  me  his  little 
tale  of  sorrow." 

"  Why  don't  they  recognize  him  ?  "  asked 
Hannah  Meserve,  with  lively  interest. 

"  I  presume,  Miss  Meserve,  it  is  on  at- 
count  of  his  occupation.  If  they  were  in- 
telligent people,  they  would  know  that  the 
man  makes  the  place,  and  not  the  place  the 
man.  If  I  ever  find  out  who  his  family  are, 
I  intend  to  give  them  a  lesson  that  they  will 
remember — the  brutes." 

"  How  can  people  do  such  things  ? — and 
he  has  worked  so  hard.  I've  noticed  him 
sometimes — but  he  seems  to  shrink  from  ev- 
ery one.  Do  you  know  his  name  ?  "  asked 
Miss  Meserve. 

"  Hannah  Meserve,  I  should  think  God 
would  strike  you  dead  ! "  cried  Juanita,  who 
could  control  herself  no  longer. 

"  Sh  !  he  don't  know.  If  you  don't  stop 
we'll  lose  them  both,"  whispered  Hannah, 
drawing  her  sister  out  of  the  room,  after 
bidding  good  afternoon  to  Mr.  Wright. 


II. 


SIXTEEN  miles  to  the  southeast  of  Eureka 
lies  a  great  tract  of  dense  redwood  timber 
land,  mighty  and  impregnable  in  its  age  and 
grandeur.  Suns  rise  and  suns  set,  but  the 
heart  of  the  forest  is  blind  to  the  glorious 
gamut  of  coloring  that  runs  riot  in  the  skies 
above.  The  heart  of  the  forest  is  dead  to 
life,  dead  to  light,  dead  to  everything  but  its 
own  impenetrable  darkness  and  the  mourn- 
ful susurrus  of  its  own  leaves.  Never  the  faint- 
est twitter  of  a  bird  varies  the  melancholy 
refrain  that  soughs  through  the  branches, 
now  loud,  now  soft,  now  wailing  and  sobbing 
away  into  silence.  Never  the  purl  of  a 
happy  brooklet  tinkles  in  its  depths ;  only 
the  subdued  echo  of  the  far-off  ocean  comes 
in  a  fitful  dirge  over  and  among  the  lofty, 
swaying  tree-tops. 

On  the  memorable  day  when  the  Govern- 
ment gave  Messrs.  Sherwood  and  Wright  the 
permission  to  stake  out  adjoining  claims  in 
this  virgin  timber  land,  both  men,  in  the 
presence  of  majestic  mother  Nature,  were 
overwhelmed  with  awe  and  sentiment.  They 
lifted  their  hats  and  bowed  their  heads  with 
a  momentary  silence,  as  if  to  ask  pardon  for 
desecrating  the  wilderness. 

"By  Jove!"  exclaimed  Wright.  "It's  a 
sin  to  bring  a  hateful  civilization  into  such 
a  place  as  this.  Here,  Sherwood,  you  drive 
the  first  stake,  for  I  can't — by  Jove,  I  can't." 

Sherwood  took  the  stake  and  said,  "  I 
can  comprehend  your  feelings,  Wright : 
but,  tell  me,  does  it  not  depend  very  much 
upon  ourselves  whether  the  civilization  be 
hateful  or  not  ?  We — you  and  I — need  feel 
no  pangs  of  conscience,  for  we  can  make 
here  a  home  that  will  be  a  credit  to  all  con- 
cerned, so  here  goes."  In  another  moment 
the  stake  was  driven. 

During  the  weeks  that  ensued  a  wonderful 
transformation  was  made.  Huge  wooden 
monarchs  were  hewn  down,  and  changed  into 
beams  for  the  foundation  of  the  new  home. 
A  long  line  of  trees  was  felled  to  earth,  to 
make  an  opening  by  which  the  settlers  could 
communicate  with  the  outer  world.  A  well 
was  dug  which  yielded  nectar  :  a  cabin  built, 


374 


A  Transportation  Aristocrat. 


[Oct. 


loads  of  lumber — coals  to  Newcastle — being 
procured  for  the  purpose  ;  stock  was  placed 
in  a  corral,  and  the  cackle  of  some  stray 
chickens  tried  to  overrule  the  tree-songs 
which  had  so  long  had  a  monopoly  of  the 
concert  business.  After  many  weeks  of  in- 
cessant toil  the  cabin  was  completed,  and 
Martha  sent  for  to  be  the  queen  of  Sequoia 
Hollow,  as  the  settlers  called  their  place. 

Martha  had  mourned  in  secret  when  she 
first  came  to  Eureka — mourned  because  it 
was  dull,  and  because  the  phase  of  life  was 
new  and  arid  to  her.  George  Wright's  no- 
bility of  heart  and  his  open  war  on  all  small- 
mindedness  was  infectious;  so,  before  she 
was  fairly  aware  of  it,  she,  too,  began 
to  view  life  in  a  different  spirit.  The  old 
selfishness  gave  way  to  a  little  respect  for  the 
feelings  and  rights  of  others.  By  degrees 
she  learned  to  share  her  father's  burden  and 
to  try  to  make  it  easier  for  him.  Once  out 
in  Sequoia  Hollow,  she  exerted  herself  to  be 
womanly  and  helpful.  She  was  woefully  in- 
experienced, but  both  men  were  lenient,  and 
nearly  always  laughed  good-humoredly  at  her 
pitiful  mistakes. 

The  Meserves  came  to  see  them  often,  and 
it  was  not  long  before  Miss  Sherwood  found 
that  Mrs.  Meserve  invariably  engrossed  her 
attention  completely,  in  order  to  leave 
Hannah  with  Mr.  Wright,  and  Juanita  with 
Mr.  Sherwood.  To  all  outward  appearan- 
ces, Mr.'  Wright  was  infatuated  with  Han- 
nah, and  was  fast  trying  to  win  her  heart — 
not  that  her  heart  was  hard  to  win — no,  in- 
deed ;  but  her  suitor  made  his  advances 
leisurely,  like  an  epicure  who  eats  a  fine  din- 
ner slowly,  in  order  to  have  the  fullest  en- 
joyment from  every  morsel  that  he  tastes. 
Miss  Sherwood  thought  to  herself  that  he 
might  do  better,  but  she  had  seen  too  much 
of  the  world  not  to  realize  the  inutility  of  say- 
ing anything  about  it.  Martha  was  just 
enough  to  say  to  herself,  that  perhaps  it  was 
the  personal  antipathy  which  existed  between 
her  and  the  Meserves  that  made  their  faults 
seem  so  glaring.  Perhaps  it  was.  Whatever 
the  feeling  may  have  been  that  she  cherished 
in  her  heart  of  hearts,  the  outward  expression 
never  betrayed  her. 


Uncle  Hiram  was  another  frequent  visitor. 
He  usually  came  to  see  them  on  Sunday, 
when  business  was  slack.  •  His  manners 
were  quaint,  and  his  speech  anything  but  in 
accordance  with  Murray;  but  his  gentle,  sim- 
ple heart,  and  his  liberal,  generous  ideas, 
tempered  his  short-comings,  softening  him 
into  an  altogether  lovable  old  man. 

"  By  Jove,  Uncle  Hiram,  you're  a  saint, 
if  there  ever  was  one,"  said  Wright,  one  after- 
noon, as  the  family,  seated  on  some  com- 
fortable tree  stumps  out  in  front  of  the  cab- 
in, basked  in  the  afternoon  sunshine,  and 
talked  about  hereditary  traits. 

"  Wa'al,  I  ain't  no  saint,  George,  but  I  do 
b'lieve  that  God  A'mighty  did  make  some 
people  dum'd  selfish,  an'  with  hearts  of  old 
redsandstun — but  I  believe  He  did  it  to  try 
the  patience  of  them  as  thinks  they're  sech 
an  all  fired  sight  better.  Them  as  is  ugly. 
an'  selfish,  the  Pharisees,  they  aint  to  blame. 
It  comes  a'mighty  rough  on  them  as  aint 
made  with  grindstun  hearts,  though." 

"  Don't  you  think  that  selfishness  is  only 
a  sort  of  blindness,  Uncle  Hiram  ?  "  asked 
Martha,  who  was  judging  the  matter  from 
her  own  experience. 

"  I'm  afeared,  Miss,  thet  it's  a  kind  of  blind- 
ness thet  no  eye  doctor  on  airth  can  cure  ;  it's 
stun-blindness,"  sighed  the  old  man. 

"I  can  cure  that  sort  of  blindness,"  assert- 
ed George  Wright,  purring  two  or  three  rings 
of  smoke  up  into  the  air.  "  Would  you  like 
to  be  invited  to  the  clinical  lesson  ?  " 

"  Come,  Wright,"  interposed  Mr.  Sher- 
wood, "don't  you  think  you  are  getting  be- 
yond your  depth  ?" 

"You  just  wait — you  just  wait,"  said  the 
younger  man,  half  closing  his  eyes  and  nod- 
ding significantly. 

"  Such  a  place  for  mysteries,"  exclaimed 
Miss  Sherwood,  with  a  rapid,  searching  look 
at  each  of  the  three  men.  "  Such  a  place 
for  deep  and  dark  palls  of  mystery  I  have 
never  seen.  Is  everybody  here  like  that  ? 
It's  worse  than  a  convict  settlement,"  and 
she  laughed  uneasily,  while  Mr.  Wright  came 
over  to  where  she  sat,  and  with  an  enigmat- 
ical smile,  reiterated, 

"  You  just  wait — you  just  wait." 


1885.] 


A  Transportation  Aristocrat. 


375 


III. 

MONTHS  went  by,  George  Wright's  atten- 
tions waxing  warmer  at  each  succeeding 
moon.  Miss  Meserve  assumed  a  proud  air 
of  monopoly  over  her  cavalier,  which  left  no 
doubts  in  the  gossipy  Eureka  mind.  The 
young  woman  even  permitted  congratula- 
tions to  be  offered.  True,  she  gave  a  blush- 
ing denial  to  the  reports,  but  it  was  a  blush 
that  conveyed  the  impression  that  the  denial 
was  a  mere  matter  of  form.  When  George 
Wright  was  approached  on  that  score,  he 
usually  answered  in  his  off-hand  way: 

"  By  Jove  !  you're  the  fortieth  man  that 
has  asked  me.  Why  can't  you  let  a  fellow 
alone.  I  can  manage  my  own  business — in 
that  line." 

At  Mrs.  Meserve's,  every  time  that  the 
young  man  was  ushered  into  the  drawing 
room,  he  heard  the  rustle  and  saw  the  flutter 
of  feminine  apparel  making  its  escape  through 
opposite  doorways,  leaving  him  to  fight  out 
the  battle  alone  with  the  charming  Miss  Me- 
serve. She  wondered  after  each  visit  why 
he  had  not  come  to  the  point.  A  thousand 
times  he  had  hovered  dangerously  near  the 
•  verge,  but  he  had  not  yet  taken  the  final 
leap. 

One  afternoon  he  invited  her  to  take  a 
drive  with  him  down  along  the  coast  line, 
where  the  views  were  so  grand.  At  a  bend 
in  the  road  they  came  suddenly  upon  Uncle 
Hiram  sitting  in  his  trunk-laden  cart.  See- 
ing Miss  Meserve  with  Wright,  he  turned  his 
face  away,  but  not  before  the  young  man  had 
caught  sight  of  the  pained  flush  that  dyed  the 
old  man's  faded  cheeks. 

"  Nice  old  man,  that,"  remarked  Wright, 
eying  his  companion  with  the  interest  of  a 
boy  who  has  speared  a  moth  on  a  needle. 
It  was  the  only  time  since  their  first  meeting 
that  Uncle  Hiram's  name  had  been  men- 
tioned between  them;  but  Miss  Meserve  was 
not  caught  napping. 

"  Very  nice,"  she  replied  indifferently. 

"You  ought  to  know«him — he  has  lived 
here  so  long,"  continued  Wright. 

"  O  well,  in  Eureka  one  doesn't  make  a 
friend  of  one's  expressman,  you  know.  Our 


isolation  does  not  make  us' ignore  the  con- 
venances like  that." 

"You  don't  say  so!  But,  Hannah,  I  have 
been  told  that  here,  where  the  demand  ex- 
ceeds the  supply,  the  express  business  is  not 
one  to  be  ashamed  of.  Some  of  the  express- 
men may  even  become  rich.  This  Uncle 
Hiram,  I  am  told,  is  a  wealthy  man." 

"  Then  why  don't  he  live  like  a  rich  man?" 
snapped  Miss  Meserve,  who  was  fast  losing 
her  temper. 

"  Why  don't  you  ask  him  ? "  persisted 
Wright. 

"  Me  ?  Why  should  I  bother  my  head 
about  my  expressman  ?  "  sneered  the  girl. 

"  Ah  ! "  exclaimed  Wright,  with  a  similar 
sneer.  "  I  forgot  for  the  time  being  that  the 
line  of  caste  was  so  distinctly  drawn  in  Eure- 
ka. Why,  indeed,  should  you  interest  your- 
self in — your  expressman  ?  " 

When  Mr.  Wright  left  the  young  woman 
at  her  own  door,  Mrs.  Meserve  drew  her 
daughter  into  the  drawing  room,  and  said  : 

"  He  hasn't  come  to  the  point  yet,  has  he?" 

"  Not  exactly,"  snapped  the  girl,  "  and  I 
don't  believe  he  means  to  come,  either.  I 
am  sure  he  knows  about  father." 

"Just  like  Hiram  to  ruin  my  plans  in  every 
way;  but  if  he  has  told  this  to  those  men,  I'll 
find  a  way  to  shut  his  mouth — tight,  too." 

"  Mother  !  but  George  seems  to  be  his 
friend." 

"Friend?  friend?  —  like  the  friendship 
one  feers  for  a  negro  waiter;  the  friendship 
the  President  might  feel  for  a  bootblack  that 
had  done  him  a  service.  It  makes  me  ill  to 
see  your  father's  low  nature  work  itself  out. 
But  I  tell  you,  you  shall  marry  Wright. 
You'll  never  have  another  chance,  you  know 
that,  I  suppose.  You  are  pretty  old,  and  the 
wrinkles  on  your  face  don't  get  any  fewer." 

"  Mother !"  expostulated  the  girl,  wounded 
to  the  heart  by  her  mother's  coarse  speech. 

"  Even  if  you  were  young,  Hannah,  you 
might  hunt  along  way  before  finding  another 
such  a  catch  as  Wright.  It  makes  me  blaze 
with  anger  to  see  that  superannuated  Sher- 
wood's daughter  trying  her  fascinations  upon 
him;  but  Lord,  he's  as  blind  as  a  bat  to  all 
other  attractions  when  you're  around." 


376 


A  transportation  Aristocrat. 


[Oct. 


"Are  you  sure  of  that?  "  demanded  Miss 
Meserve  significantly,  for  hers  was  a  nature 
that  could  eat  itself  out  with  jealous  doubts. 
These  phlegmatic  people  are  hard  to  stir  out 
of  their  selfish  apathy,  but  once  roused,  their 
passions  carry  them  beyond  every  limit. 

"  Why  shouldn't  I  be  sure?"  retorted  the 
mother.  "  Haven't  I  used  my  eyes.  Now, 
listen  to  what  I  say.  Try  your  very  best  to 
make  him  come  to  the  point.  We  can  keep 
Juanita  in  San  Francisco  until  it  is  all  over, 
for  she  always  takes  father's  part  so,  that  she 
would  break  up  all  our  plans  if  she  were  here. 
So  good-night,  my  love,  the  bride  to  be." 


IV. 


"  UNCLE  HIRAM,  the  time  has  come  for 
you  to  take  a  firm  stand  in  this  matter — are 
you  afraid,  when  you  know  that  I  will  be  with 
you  ?  " 

"Wa'al,  George,"  replied  the  old  man, 
wiping  the  perspiration  off  his  forehead,  and 
looking  about  him  more  nervously  than  ever, 
"Wa'al,  George,  I'm  sort  of  shaky  about 
mother;  she's  all  fired  sot  in  her  way.  She 
mightn't  like  it." 

"  I  rather  think  she'll  have  to  like  it  this 
time,  though.  Is  your  new  suit  done  yet?" 

"Yes,  it's  done  an'  home,  but  I  do  feel 
a'mighty  oncommon  in  it.  George,  I  can't 
go  agin  mother,  she's  so  all  fired  sot." 

"  Hm  !  Uncle  Hiram,  just  let  rne  tell  you 
something.  It  is  a  way  that  certain  cowardly 
bullies  have,  to  put  on  a  great  many  airs 
and  pretend  to  be  able  to  crush  the  world  ; 
but  just  let  another  party  show  fight,  and 
they  subside.  I  agree  that  your  spouse  is 
not  an  easy  subject  to  work  on,  but  if  I  am 
not  mistaken,  she  will  be  too  much  paralyzed 
at  the  attitude  I  take  to  be  very  much  aston- 
ished at  anything  you  may  do." 

"  I  don't  know,  I  don't  know,"  mum- 
bled Uncle  Hiram,  nervously ;  "  mother's 
so  sot." 

There  was  to  be  a  dinner  party  at  the 
Meserves  that  night.  George  Wright  had 
taken  the  last  step,  and  this  was  to  be  a  sort 
of  betrothal  celebration — for  in  Eureka  every 
event  is  made  an  excuse  for  a  social  gather- 


ing. Juanita  had  come  home,  and  Mr.  Sher- 
wood and  Martha  were  invited  in  from 
Sequoia  Hollow  to  assist  at  the  dinner.  Mr. 
Wright  took  upon  himself  the  responsibility 
of  providing  the  flowers  for  the  occasion. 
While  he  was  overseeing  their  arrangement, 
he  called  Mrs.  Meserve  to  one  side,  and 
asked  the  privilege  of  inviting  an  old  and  re- 
spected friend  of  his,  who  had  come  unex- 
pectly  the  day  before  to  make  him  a  visit 
Mrs.  Meserve,  all  smiles  at  the  success  of 
her  matrimonial  campaign,  gave  a  ready 
consent.  Before  she  had  time  to  make  any 
polite  inquiries  in  regard  to  the  guest,  she 
was  called  away  to  attend  to  something  in 
another  room. 

Miss  Sherwood  seemed  in  unusually  good 
humor,  while  her  father  rubbed  his  hands  to- 
gether and  chuckled  every  time  he  found 
himself  alone  for  a  moment.  Were  not  these 
betrothals  always  cause  for  rejoicing  ? 

One  by  one  the  guests  arrived,  but  as  the 
dinner  hour  drew  near,  Mr.  Wright  took  out 
his  watch  more  and  more  frequently:  still 
his  guest  did  not  come.  fc 

"  Well,"  he  whispered  at  last,  "  we  need 
not  wait  any  longer,  Mrs.  Meserve.  Some- 
thing has  detained  my  friend;  he  will  not 
come  now.  No,  I  am  sure  ;  for  he  has  nev- 
er kept  an  appointment  tardily  before." 

The  guests  were  marshalled  into  the  din- 
ing room,  and  seated  in  congenial  relations 
around  the  beautifully  arranged  table.  When 
the  dessert  was  served,  a  door  opened,  and  a 
little  old  gentleman,  radiant  and  exquisite 
in  a  fashionable  swallow-tail  and  white  neck- 
tie, came  forward.  Mrs.  Meserve's  half  fin- 
ished sentence  underwent  ominous  suspen- 
sion ;  the  bride  elect  turned  blue  about  the 
eyes  and  lips;  Juanita  looked  from  one  to 
the  other,  then  rising  from  her  seat  she  stood 
for  a  moment  uncertain. 

"  Ladies  and  gentlemen,  I  have  the  honor 
of  presenting  to  you  my  future  father-in-law, 
Mr.  Hiram  Meserve,"  said  Mr.  Wright,  ris- 
ing and  bowing  to  the  host. 

"  Come,  papa,  here  is  your  place,  by  me," 
said  Juanita,  leading  her  father  to  the  va- 
cant chair  beside  her. 

Mr.  Meserve  smiled  and  said,  "  I  am  sorry 


1885.] 


A   Transportation  Aristocrat. 


377 


to  be  so  late,  my  friends;  I  was  detained *. 
but  mother  knows  better  how  to  make  it 
pleasant  than  I  do." 

Mrs.  Meserve  was  speechless.  Was  that 
her  despised  husband  sitting  there  and  talk- 
ing so  easily? — establishing  his  identity,  when 
she  had  kept  it  hidden  all  these  years;  tricked 
out  in  a  swallow-tailed  coat  and  white  neck- 
tie at  his  age ;  and  George  Wright  was  in  the 
conspiracy,  too.  How  she  lived  through 
that  dessert  she  never  knew,  for  the  tempest 
that  was  brewing  within  her  choked  every 
word  that  she  tried  to  utter.  Her  dinner 
over,  she  and  Hannah  excused  themselves 
for  a  few  moments,  and  Mr.  Wright,  seeing 
them  leave  the  room,  followed  after. 

"  Were  you  surprised  ?  "  he  asked,  when 
he  was  alone  with  them  in  the  library. 

"  Did  you  bring  him  ?  "  demanded  Mrs. 
Meserve,  viciously. 

"  He  was  my  guest,"  returned  Mr.  Wright, 
with  his  aggravatingly  amiable  drawl. 

"You  dared  to  shame  me  before   those 

• 

people  ?  " — this,  still  more  ominously. 

"Shame?  you  need  not  think  that  he  is 
ashamed  of  you." 

"  That  man — who  has  refused  to  leave  his 
little  dirt  cart  for  us — that  man,  with  his  low 
inclinations  and  illiteracy — do  you  dare  to 
blame  me  ? — me,  a  mother  who  has  lived  for 
her  children's  good,  and  who  has  tried  to 
make  the  most  of  life  for  their  sake.  If  I 
were  a  man,  I  should  knock  you  down  for 
this  insult — you,  who  have  dared  to  ask  the 
hand  of  my  daughter." 

"Madam,  I  withdraw  that  petition  at 
once.  Do  you  think  that  I  would  choose  a 
woman  to  be  my  wife  who  would  treat  her 
father  as  Hannah  has  treated  hers — who 
would  deny  him  as  Peter  denied  his  Christ? 
Do  you  think  that  I  would  marry  a  hypocrite, 
a  Pharisee,  or  even  the  child  of  such  blood  ? 
I  love  old  Mr.  Meserve,  and  I  intend  to 
stand  by  him." 

"  So  you  repudiate  my  daughter,  sir  ?  " 
fairly  screamed  the  furious  mother. 

"Not  precisely,"  retorted  Mr.  Wright.  "I 
simply  wish  to  say  that  I  am  not  in  such 
haste  to  change  my  lot  as  I  was.  Further- 
more, Mrs.  Meserve,  I  could  not  marry  your 


daughter  if  I  would — I  have  other  ties,  you 
know" — this  accompanied  by  a  significant 
nod. 

"  Sir !  what  do  you  mean  ?  not  that  you 
have  one  wife  already,"  exclaimed  Mrs.  Me- 
serve, seating  herself  by  a  table,  and  leaning 
her  head  nervelessly  in  the  palm  of  her  hand, 
while  she  stared  in  amazement  at  the  non- 
chalant cavalier  before  her.  Hannah  had 
made  a  move  forward,  as  if  she  would  plead 
her  own  cause,  but  Mrs.  Meserve  thrust  her 
back  with  her  free  hand,  and  ordered  her  to 
be  silent. 

"  Now,  sir,"  she  continued  severely,  "  will 
you  be  kind  enough  to  give  me  an  explana- 
tion ?  " 

"  Certainly,  madam.  To  tell  you  the  truth, 
I  expect  my  wife  and  mother  up  on  the  com- 
ing steamer.  I  have  been  waiting  to  provide 
a  comfortable  home  for  them  before  I  sent 
for  them." 

"  How  do  you  account  for  this  scandalous 
behavior,  sir?  I  demand  an  explanation,  you 
villain ;  to  crush  my  poor  lamb's  life." 

"  Perhaps  your  daughter  will  remember 
the  first  conversation  that  she  and  I  had 
about  Uncle  Hiram.  I  told  her  at  the  time, 
that  if  I  ever  found  out  who  his  family  were, 
I  would  give  them  a  lesson  that  they  would 
remember.  There  is  no  punishment  too 
great  for  the  Peters  of  this  world — no  hell 
too  hot  for  the  hypocrite." 

"  What  would  Miss  Sherwood  think  of  you 
now  ?  "  sneered  Miss  Hannah. 

"They  have  known  for  some  time.  They 
too,  love  Uncle  Hiram,  and  despise  the  hypo- 
crite." 

Mrs.  Meserve  was  not  the  woman  to  yield 
easily.  She  gathered  herself  together,  swept 
by  the  young  man,  and  went  back  to  her 
guests.  The  evening  seemed  endless,  and  the 
visitors  depressed.  The  last  guest  finally  de- 
parted. Mrs.  Meserve  and  Hannah  then  held 
a  council  with  closed  doors.  All  that  night 
mysterious  noises  emanated  from  their  rooms. 
The  following  day  a  steamer  sailed  for  San 
Francisco,  bearing  Mrs.  Meserve  and  Hannah 
with  it,  and  carrying  in  the  hold  numerous 
trunks  and  boxes,  containing  every  movable 
treasure  that  they  had  been  able  to  remove 


378 


Brindle  and  Others. 


[Oct. 


from  the  house.  Juanita  alone  was  left  be- 
hind, saddened  and  cured  by  the  lesson  she 
had  had.  Then  when  Mr.  Wright's  mother 
and  wife  came,  Uncle  Hiram  gave  them  a 
home  with  him,  thus  leaving  Sequoia  Hol- 
low to  the  Sherwoods. 


Did  the  town  talk  about  that  dinner  party 
and  its  result — the  identification  of  their  old 
favorite,  Uncle  Hiram  ?  Ah !  my  friend, 
such  choice  acts  so  seldom  agitate  the  com- 
munity, that  when  they  do  come  the  topic  of 
the  weather  rusts  from  disuse. 

Em  Hie  Tracy  Y.  Swett. 


BRINDLE  AND  OTHERS. 


ISAAC  and  I  were  sitting  at  the  door  of  our 
castle,  looking  out  over  the  sea.  The  sun  was 
sinking  into  the  ocean,  and  a  gentle  breeze 
began  to  creep  inland,  dissipating  the  heat 
of  a  sultry  afternoon.  As  the  twilight  deep- 
ened, and  the  calmness  of  approaching  night 
settled  down  on  the  world,  I  could  see  that 
Isaac  was  growing  sentimental.  It  was  easy 
to  detect  these  moods,  for  they  invariably 
found  expression  in  one  way.  Rising  from 
the  cracker  box  upon  which  he  had  been 
seated,  he  went  inside,  and  returned,  present- 
ly, with  a  French  accordion.  Tilting  the 
box  back  against  the  adobe  wall,  he  sat  down' 
shut  his  eyes,  and  began  to  play. 

Under  no  circumstances  could  this  musi- 
cian have  been  mistaken  for  a  handsome 
man.  His  mouth  was  large  and  his  eyes  were 
small.  As  for  nose,  there  was  little  to  speak 
of ;  but  his  ears  were  generous  and  omnipres- 
ent. Sitting  there  in  his  shirt  sleeves,  he 
made  a  picture,  however,  which  never  failed 
to  please;  and  when  his  stentorian  voice 
wailed  forth  its  plea  of 

"Don't  you  cry  so,  Nora  darling, 
Wipe  them  tears  away," 

one  was  almost  tempted  to  cry  with  Nora 
from  stress  of  sympathy,  or  weep,  at  least, 
with  the  mother  tongue,  towards  which  the 
minstrel  showed  no  mercy. 

"  Ike,"  I  said,  after  he  had  executed  the 
thirteenth  stanza  of  this  distressing  melody, 
"I  suppose  you  are  thinking  of  Nashville, 
now." 

"  How  did  you  know  that  ? "  he  answered, 
with  a  start. 

The  boy  did  not  know  that  I  could  see 
right  through  him.  He  thought  he  was  deep ; 


but  I  had  long  since  discovered  his  secret. 
Six  months  before,  he  had  said  farewell  to  a 
little  black-eyed  girl  on  one  of  the  bridges  of 
Nashville,  and  now,  as  he  sat  on  the  far  rim 
of  the  Pacific,  and  watched  the  sun  sink  into 
China,  the  memory  of  her  face  came  back 
with  the  twilight  and  the  song. 

"  I  know  all  about  it,"  I  said,  "  and  now  I 
am  going  to  give  you  some  poetry  to  offset 
the  song." 

Isaac  hated  poetry.  Its  witchery  made 
no  appeal  to  him.  I,  on  the  other  hand,  had 
to  do  something  to  neutralize  the  effects  of 
the  accordion  ;  so  I  commenced  on  Miles 
O'Reilly's  Bohemian  ode : 

".My  friend,  my  chum,  my  trusty  crony, 
We  were  designed,  it  seems  to  me, 
To  be  two  lazy  lazaroni, 
On  sunshine  fed  and  maccaroni, 
Beside  some  far  Sicilian  sea." 

Ike  yawned.  "  That  allusion  to  maccaro- 
ni," he  said,  "  reminds  me  that  you  have  not 
got  supper  yet." 

Here  was  a  return  to  the  practical — a 
stern  reminder  of  common-place  duty  unper- 
formed. In  an  evil  hour  I  had  made  a  con- 
tract with  this  poet-hater  to  do  the  cooking 
for  our  household.  Isaac  was  to  furnish  the 
material  and  I  was  to  cook  it :  that  was  the 
contract.  A  species  of  protocol  to  the 
agreement  provided  that  both  of  us  should 
wash  dishes.  Isaac  had  a  way,  however,  of 
shirking  his  share  of  this  latter  duty.  He 
was  always  in  favor  of  turning  the  plates  over 
after  a  meal  and  leaving  them  until  a  holi- 
day. Furthermore,  he  would  never  wash 
pots  and  frying  pans,  but  invariably  left  them 
for  me  to  clean.  This  was  a  standing  griev- 


1885.] 


Brindle  and  Others. 


ance,  which  I  tried  to  bear  as  meekly  as  pos- 
sible. By  way  of  retaliation,  I  contrived,  it 
is  true,  to  make  him  eat  a  great  deal  of  salt 
pork  in  rhe  course  of  a  week,  but  I  do  not 
think  he  suspects  me  to  this  day  of  any  mal- 
ice in  the  matter.  Isaac  was  a  Hebrew  of  a 
very  pronounced  type,  but  when  it  came  to 
questions  of  diet,  I  always  found  him  liberal 
and  ready  to  adapt  himself  to  the  larder. 

It  would,  perhaps,  be  well  to  say  here,  that 
the  castle  to  which  allusion  has  been  made 
was  an  old  adobe  house,  situated  upon  the 
shores  of  San  Luis  Obispo.  It  stood  back  a 
little  from  the  beach  and  the  county  road, 
and  was  known  in  those  days  as  a  half-way 
station  between  the  towns  of  Cambria  and 
San  Luis  Obispo.  Isaac  had  seized  upon 
the  location  as  a  favorable  one  for  trade,  and 
had  converted  the  old  Spanish  mansion  into 
a  wayside  country-store.  The  place  was  lone- 
some enough  most  of  the  time,  for  the  near- 
est ranch-house  was  a  mile  away  ;  and  so  it 
happened  when  I  came  straggling  through 
the  country  in  quest  of  the  indefinite,  he  took 
me  in  as  companion  and  cook.  For  three 
long  summer  months  our  relations  had  been 
most  happy.  We  slept  in  the  same  bed, 
hunted  clams  along  the  beach,  and  sky- 
larked with  the  senoritas  at  the  ranch  house 
further  down  the  shore.  Isaac  complained 
sometimes  that  I  neglected  my  culinary  du- 
ties to  go  fishing  or  shell  hunting,  but  when 
I  intimated  that  my  resignation  was  at  his 
disposal,  he  invariably  relented.  He  could 
not  stay  mad  long,  and  then  his  conscience 
twitched  him  a  little  about  the  neglected  fry- 
ing pans. 

On  the  evening  to  which  allusion  has  been 
made,  I  had  proceeded  as  usual  to  the  prep- 
aration of  supper,  leaving  Isaac,  with  his  ac- 
cordion, upon  the  vine-clad  veranda,  look- 
ing seaward,  when  he  suddenly  called  me. 

"  Be  quick,"  he  said  ;  "  What  is  this  coin- 
ing up  the  road  ?  " 

Hastening  to  the  front  door,  I  glanced  in 
the  direction  indicated.  A  tall  figure  was 
advancing  through  the  dusk  towards  the  cas- 
tle. It  carried  a  stick  upon  one  shoulder, 
from  which  depended  a  bundle,  and  a  wide- 
rimmed  straw  hat  was  pulled  far  down  over 
its  eyes. 


"  It's  a  tramp,"  said  Ike  ;  "  better  get  your 
gun  and  stand  it  off." 

At  this  instant  the  arms  of  the  approach- 
ing stranger  flew  up  on  either  side  like  the 
flukes  of  a  windmill,  a  hoarse  cry  proceeded 
from  his  dusty  throat,  and  he  came  forward 
with  a  rush.  Ike  turned  pale,  and  retreated 
inside,  but  I  stood  my  ground,  and  a  mo- 
ment later  was  clasped  in  the  arms  of  the 
wild  looking  stranger.  It  was  Brindle,  my 
old  school  chum. 

"  Ike,"  I  said,  "come  out  from  under  that 
counter,  and  let  me  introduce  you  to  my 
friend." 

Isaac  came  forth,  but  it  was  some  time  be- 
fore he  was  fully  reassured,  for  Brindle  was, 
indeed,  a  hard-looking  citizen.  He  had 
tramped  all  the  way  down  from  San  Jose, 
sleeping  in  haystacks,  and  subsisting  as  best 
he  could  on  the  country  through  which  he 
traveled.  A  three-weeks'  beard  covered  his 
face,  his  nose  was  sun-blistered,  and  his  eyes 
were  blood-shot.  His  hair,  which  was  long 
and  red,  hung  far  down  on  his  coat  collar, 
and  his  general  appearance  was  dusty  and 
bedeviled.  But,  however  unprepossessing 
in  external  signs,  no  man  knew  the  gentle 
nature  of  this  youth  as  I  did.  Self  with  him 
was  always  neglected,  because  he  never 
thought  of  self.  Simple  and  honest  as  the 
sun,  he  believed  all  other  men  to  be  honest, 
and  walked  through  the  world  with  his  heart 
on  his  sleeve,  confiding  in  every  one  and 
giving  to  every  one  from  his  exhaustless 
store  of  charity  and  human  sympathy.  The 
humbler  creatures,  too,  had  share  in  his  so- 
licitude. A  hundred  times  I  had  seen  him 
step  high  to  avoid  crushing  bugs  in  the  road 
— and  bugs,  too,  that  stood  disrespectfully 
on  one  end,  and  pointed  at  him  as  he  went 
by.  Once  I  caught  him  crying  in  the  woods 
over  the  death  of  a  mother  quail,  which  his 
dog  had  killed. 

"  The  brave  little  mother !"  he  said  ;  "  she 
flew  right  to  my  feet  in  the  defense  of  her 
chicks,  and  Snap  struck  her  before  I  could 
stop  him." 

Many  were  the  tramps  and  rambles  which 
we  had  had  together  along  tangled  river 
banks  and  up  wild  Sierra  canons.  Brindle 
loved  the  woods.  The  city  stifle^  and  fretted 


380 


Brindle  and  Others. 


[Oct. 


him.  He  was  a  shy,  lost  spirit  in  a  crowd  ; 
but  unfettered  on  the  grassy  plains,  or  buried 
deep  in  the  shadows  of  the  forest,  he  bubbled 
and  gurgled  and  ran  over  with  joy  like  the 
crystal  springs  into  which  he  was  always  div- 
ing. To  me  his  knowledge  of  wood-craft  was  a 
constant  marvel.  He  knew  and  had  a  name 
for  every  little  plant  and  blade  of  grass  in 
the  woods,  and  he  could  weave  more  poetry 
about  a  leaf  and  see  more  pretty  things  in  a 
bit  of  colored  stone,  than  any  man  I  ever 
knew. 

For  some  reason  or  other  he  had  pinned 
his  faith  to  me.  Why,  I  never  knew.  I 
was  always  poking  fun  at  him  and  contriving 
to  get  him  into  scrapes,  just  to  see  him  squirm 
out  again ;  but  nothing  shook  his  affection. 
He  was  never  content  when  he  went  on  his 
summer  rambles  unless  I  was  along,  and  this 
was  not  the  first  occasion  on  which  he  had 
followed  me  to  distant  retreats,  when  circum- 
stances made  it  impossible  for  us  to  leave 
the  city  together.  I  was  not  particularly 
surprised,  therefore,  at  his  sudden  appear- 
ance at  the  castle,  and  for  a  week  we  held 
high  carnival.  It  was  undoubtedly  a  very 
interesting  week  for  Isaac,  also,  as  he  lived 
most  of  the  time  on  sardines.  He  did  not 
know  that  I  overheard  him,  but  when  he  re- 
marked one  day  to  a  rancher,  who  was  buy- 
ing groceries,  that  he  had  not  eaten  much 
lately,  because  his  cook  was  off  beach-hunt- 
ing with  a  lunatic,  I  repeated  the  ungracious 
remark  to  Brindle,  and  that  forgiving  youth 
nearly  died  of  laughter.  However,  we  pre- 
pared an  elaborate  supper  that  night,  con- 
sisting of  pork  in  many  styles,  and  Isaac  took 
down  his  frown  and  smiled. 

The  discovery  of  a  sulphur  spring  about 
this  time,  in  the  mountains  twenty  miles  to 
the  south  of  us,  was  attracting  considerable 
attention,  and  many  people  were  going  to  the 
place  for  the  benefit  of  the  waters.  As  yet 
no  roads  had  been  built  to  the  retreat,  and 
it  lay  hidden  and  mysterious  far  up  the  dark 
canons,  accessible  only  by  mule  trail  or  on 
foot.  Brindle  conceived  the  idea  of  visiting 
this  spring,  and  prevailed  upon  me  to  go 
with  him. 

Provided  with  such  an  outfit  as  Ike's  store 


could  furnish,  we  started  off  late  one  after- 
noon, proposing  to  make  six  or  seven  miles 
that  night,  and  finish  the  journey  on  the  fol- 
lowing day.  Sunset  found  us  in  the  neigh- 
borhood of  a  rude  cabin  in  the  mountains, 
the  owner  of  which  sat  at  his  front  door 
smoking.  He  was  a  piratical-looking  cus- 
tomer, with  a  shaggy  beard  and  a  voice  like 
a  cracked  trombone ;  but  to  our  request  of 
hospitality,  he  graciously  placed  the  whole 
plantation,  "  sech  as  it  was,"  at  our  disposal. 

An  old  woman  inside  was  cooking  supper, 
and  she  seemed  much  pleased  at  the  arrival 
of  strangers.  Brindle,  in  particular,  took 
her  fancy.  He  reminded  her  of  a  man  she 
had  seen  hanged  once  on  a  picnic  occasion 
in  old  Missouri,  and  the  thought  of  those 
other  days  caused  her  old  mahogany  face  to 
beam  with  peculiar  satisfaction.  When  the 
meal  was  ended,  we  all  sat  on  the  little  plat- 
form in  front  of  the  house,  and  listened  while 
the  old  pirate  talked.  He  was  a  hard  case, 
if  his  own  story  might  be  believed.  He  had 
killed  more  men,  niggers,  and  Indians  than 
fall  to  the  lot  of  most  men.  During  the 
war  he  had  been  a  member  of  Quantrell's 
band  of  guerrillas,  and  Yankee  blood  was  as 
incense  to  his  nostrils. 

While  he  talked — and  he  gave  no  one  else 
a  chance  to  say  much — he  punctuated  his 
remarks  in  a  manner  peculiarly  and  origin- 
ally his  own.  In  order  to  destroy  the  squir- 
rels about  the  place,  as  he  explained,  he  had 
procured  a  "  school  "  of  cats,  and  these  had 
increased  and  multiplied,  until  fifty  or  sixty 
semi-savage  felines  now  roamed  about  his 
cabin.  The  multiplicity  of  these  animals  had 
struck  both  Brindle  and  me,  as  we  neared  the 
place.  There  was  a  cat  behind  every  shrub 
— cats  everywhere  They  were  a  mean  and 
hungry-looking  set,  slipping  noiselessly  about, 
and  watching  for  every  crumb  and  scrap 
which  the  old  woman  tossed  to  them  from 
the  remains  of  our  supper.  As  we  sat  on  the 
porch  in  the  dusk  of  the  evening,  these 
creatures  closed  in  on  us  in  a  semi-circle, 
and  patiently  watched  and  waited  on  their 
haunches.  Little  of  their  bodies  could  be 
seen,  but  a  row  of  green  eyes,  stretching 
from  left  to  right,  looked  up  to  us  from  the 


1885.] 


Brindle  and  Others. 


381 


darkness.  In  the  intervals  of  the  man's  talk 
he  squirted  tobacco  juice  with  great  precis- 
ion at  these  glittering  eyeballs.  Hong  prac- 
tice had  made  him  expert  in  the  art,  so  that 
he  could  hit  a  cat  in  the  eye  at  ten  feet  with 
unerring  certainty.  Frequently  he  took  them 
on  the  fly,  raking  an  unsuspecting  feline 
across  both  optics  as  he  moved  within  the 
range  of  action.  Each  sally  of  this  kind  was 
invariably  followed  by  a  squall  and  a  flutter 
in  the  darkness,  after  which  there  was  one 
pair  of  green  eyes  less  in  the  semi-circle. 
Brindle  was  angry  about  this,  and  would 
have  reproved  our  host  then  and  there  for 
his  cruelty,  had  I  not  restrained  him  with 
the  suggestion  that  the  cats  seemed  to  like 
it,  judging  from  the  promptness  with  which 
the  ranks  closed  up  when  a  feline  fell.  Several 
hours  thus  passed  before  we  were  conduct- 
ed to  a  straw  bed  in  an  out-house,  where  we 
passed  the  night.  And  what  a  night  it  was  ! 
The  fleas  were  so  numerous  that  sleep  was 
impossible.  They  literally  devoured  us.  Nev- 
er before  or  since  in  my  experience  have  I 
seen  anything  like  it.  After  tossing  about 
for  several  hours,  Brindle  struck  a  match  and 
we  looked  around.  A  dozen  cats  immediately 
flew  through  an  open  window  with  a  startling 
bound.  In  one  corner  of  the  room  stood  a 
coal-oil  can.  Brindle  moved  over  towards 
it.  It  was  a  hard  expedient,  but  there 
seemed  no  remedy.  Uncorking  the  can,  he 
proceeded  to  rub  himself  all  over  with  coal 
oil,  after  which  he  came  to  bed  and  was 
soon  fast  asleep.  He  had  rendered  himself 
flea-proof.  I  did  not  imitate  his  example  but 
I  profited  by  his  experience.  The  odor  of 
the  oil  kept  back  the  fleas  for  a  while,  and 
we  both  slept. 

It  was  late  next  morning  when  we  resumed' 
our  tramp.  Our  host  was  not  an  early  riser, 
and  the  old  woman  wanted  Brindle  to  write 
a  letter  for  her  before  we  went ;  so  the  sun 
was  high  over  the  hills  and  growing  warm 
when  we  started.  The  old  pirate  scornfully 
refused  the  compensation  which  we  proffered, 
but,  learning  that  Brindle  sometimes  wrote 
for  the  newspapers,  he  assured  us  that,  if  we 
would  return  that  way,  he  would  give  us  a 
faithful  account  of  how  he  "  chewed  up " 


seven  men  on  one  occasion,  and  painted  a 
whole  town  with  gore ;  all  of  which  would 
make  the  best  kind  of  reading.  Thanking 
him  for  his  good  intentions,  and  congratu- 
lating one  another  that  it  had  not  occurred 
to  our  host  to  annihilate  either  one  of  us  dur- 
ing our  stay  beneath  his  roof,  we  shouldered 
our  traps,  and  walked  away. 

Night  was  almost  down  again  when  we 
reached  the  spring  towards  which  our  feet 
were  directed,  for  we  had  loitered  along  the 
way.  Black  mountains  rose  high  and  gloomy 
all  about  the  hidden  fountain,  and  a  few  hun- 
dred yards  above  it,  where  the  canon  widened 
a  little,  a  party  of  fifteen  or  twenty  men  had 
pitched  their  camp.  They  were  mostly  young 
and  middle-aged  men — ranchers  and  stock- 
men of  the  surrounding  country — who  had 
come  up  into  the  mountains  for  recreation 
and  game.  They  received  us  with  hospital- 
ity, found  us  shelter  in  one  of  the  tents,  and 
made  us  feel  at  ease  from  the  start. 

For  a  day  or  two  nothing  of  unusual  in- 
terest occurred.  We  lounged  about  in  the 
shade,  bathed  in  the  sulphur  waters,  and 
hunted  a  little,  mornings  and  evenings.  In 
the  mean  time,  Brindle's  simple,  trusting  na- 
ture had  caused  him  to  be  marked  as  a  vic- 
tim by  the  fun-loving  youths  who  composed 
the  camp. 

It  was  about  this  time  that  Vasquez,  the 
famous  bandit,  had  committed  his  atrocious 
murder  at  Tres  Pinos,  and  the  State  was 
ringing  with  accounts  of  the  terrible  affair. 
Officers  were  searching  in  every  direction  for 
the  daring  outlaw,  and  no  one  knew  where 
he  would  next  show  his  bloody  hand.  One 
afternoon  a  man  came  into  camp  with  great 
solemnity,  and  proceeded  to  read  from  a 
newspaper,  which  he  claimed  to  have  just 
received,  an  account  of  Vasquez's  supposed 
flight  into  San  Luis  Obispo  county.  The 
boys  gathered  about  him  as  he  read. 

"  There  is  every  reason  to  believe,"  the  arti- 
cle concluded,  "  that  the  outlaw  is  now  con- 
cealed in  the  mountains  near  the  - 
Springs,  accompanied  by  several  members  of 
his  gang.  It  would  be  well  for  persons  hav- 
ing business  in  that  quarter  of  the  county  to 
keep  a  sharp  lookout." 


382 


Brindle  and  Others. 


[Oct. 


This  was  not  the  most  cheerful  news  for 
pleasure  seekers  ,  but  it  caused  little  appre- 
hension in  our  camp,  as  most  of  the  party 
were  armed,  and  abundantly  able  to  cope 
with  the  bandit  in  case  of  collision.  Such 
news  as  it  was,  however,  it  had  apparent  con- 
firmation, later  in  the  day,  when  two  hunters 
came  in  with  the  report  that  a  band  of  Mexi- 
cans was  camped  in  the  canon,  a  mile  or  so 
down,  having  the  appearance,  in  point  of 
numbers  and  description,  of  being  the  Vas- 
quez  band,  as  described  in  the  newspaper 
article  which  had  been  read. 

It  was  immediately  determined  that  a 
guard  should  be  set  that  night,  and  every 
one  was  advised  to  hold  himself  in  readiness 
for  any  sudden  call  or  emergency.  Brindle 
alone,  of  all  the  members  of  the  camp, 
seemed  to  be  indifferent  to  the  danger  which 
menaced  us  ;  but  he  alone,  poor  boy,  was 
ignorant  of  the  fact  that  no  real  danger  ex- 
isted, for  I  had  wickedly  joined  the  conspir- 
ators, and  consented  to  the  hoax  of  which 
my  friend  was  to  be  the  victim. 

Towards  dusk,  as  was  his  custom,  Brindle 
started  alone  for  the  spring  to  bathe,  and  by 
the  time  he  was  ready  to  return,  it  had  grown 
quite  dark.  In  the  meantime,  half  a  dozen 
of  the  boys,  with  their  guns,  slipped  out  of 
camp,  and  concealed  themselves  in  the  brush 
along  the  trail.  As  Brindle  approached, 
bang  went  a  gun  from  the  ambush,  and  a 
charge  of  quail  shot  whizzed  a  few  feet  over 
the  startled  bather's  head.  For  a  moment 
he  hesitated,  when  bang  went  another  shot. 
Brindle  now  started  on  a  run  for  the  camp, 
and  a  perfect  volley  was  turned  loose  on  him, 
as  he  skipped  over  the  jagged  rocks,  and  tore 
his  way  through  the  tangled  chaparral. 

Reaching  the  clearing,  he  rushed  into  the 
glare  of  the  camp-fire,  and  declared  that  he 
had  been  attacked  by  Vasquez  and  his  entire 
gang.  In  his  excitement,  he  did  not  notice 
that  men  were  missing  from  camp,  and  the 
latter  managed  to  creep  in  unobserved  almost 
as  soon  as  Brindle  got  there.  All  was  at 
once  commotion  ;  the  fires  were  put  out,  and 
every  one  pretended  to  be  badly  frightened. 

"Give  me  a  gun,"  cried  Brindle,  "and  I 
will  lead  you  back  to  where  they  are." 


Every  one  took  good  care,  however,  that 
no  gun  should  fall  into  his  hands.  It  was 
perfectly. evident  that  Brindle  was  no  cow- 
ard, however  much  the  attack  had  startled 
him,  and  he  would  certainly  have  taken  a 
shot  that  night  at  anything  moving  in  the 
brush,  if  he  had  had  a  weapon. 

"  Come  on,  then,  and  I  will  lead  you  back 
without  arms,"  he  exclaimed,  when  he  found 
that  no  weapon  was  to  be  had ;  and  twenty 
armed  men  at  once  followed  him  into  the 
brush,  and  back  over  the  trail  leading  to  the 
spring.  For  an  hour  the  pretended  search 
was  kept  up,  and  then,  one  by  one,  the  men 
straggled  back  to  camp  and  went  to  bed. 

No  thought  of  suspicion  entered  Brindle's 
mind  as  to  the  reality  of  that  night's  transac- 
tions; and,  when  all  had  settled  down,  and  he 
finally  crawled  under  his  blanket  and  went 
to  sleep,  my  heart  smote  me  to  think  of  the 
dastardly  part  I  had  taken  in  the  programme. 

Nor  was  this  the  end  of  the  deceptions 
practiced  upon  my  confiding  and  unsus- 
picious friend. 

The  day  after  the  Vasquez  incident,  two 
men  came  into  camp,  in  great  excitement, 
bearing  an  old  raw-hide  bag,  containing  half  a 
dozen  twenty  dollar  gold  pieces  and  a  variety 
of  smaller  coins,  both  gold  and  silver.  They 
claimed  to  have  found  it  among  the  rocks, 
high  up  on  the  mountain  side,  where  they 
were  looking  for  deer. 

A  conference  of  the  campers  was  at  once 
held,  and  the  conclusion  reached  that  this 
must  be  the  stamping  ground  of  the  robbers. 
There  could  be  no  doubt  that  the  treasure 
found  was  the  concealed  booty  of  outlaws. 
Perhaps  the  hills  were  full  of  it.  Who  could 
tell  ?  Before  the  outside  world  should  learn 
of  these  hidden  riches,  we  would  take  pos- 
session of  the  land,  then  and  there,  under 
the  mining  laws  of  California,  and  secure  the 
treasure  for  ourselves. 

So  well  acted  was  the  programme  that 
Brindle  fell  at  once  into  the  snare.  The 
possibility  of  sudden  riches  loomed  up  be- 
fore him,  and  his  enthusiasm  knew  no 
bounds.  It  was  decided  that  the  members 
of  the  camp  should  form  a  close  corporation 
for  mutual  protection  and  profit,  and  Brindle 


1885.] 


The  Great  Lame.   7'emple,  Peking. 


383 


was  elected  secretary  of  the  organization.  A 
tent  was  set  aside  for  him,  a  table  and  writing 
materials  procured,  and  the  new  official  en- 
tered upon  the  discharge  of  his  duties. 

For  two  long  days  the  farce  continued. 
Brindle,  in  the  mean  time,  had  written  out 
notices  and  staked  off  claims  to  the  land  in 
every  direction  about  the  camp.  He  had 
even  prepared  a  map  of  the  region,  and  made 
a  rude  but  formal  record  of  the  corporation's 
proceedings,  and  had  them  attested  and  wit- 
nessed by  all  present.  With  characteristic 
earnestness  he  threw  his  whole  heart  into 
the  work,  suspecting  no  guile,  and  two  of  the 
busiest  days  of  his  life  went  by.  In  the 
mean  time  the  boys  were  lying  off  in  the 
bush,  holding  on  to  themselves  to  prevent  an 
explosion. 

Occasionally  some  one  would  sneak  up 
to  the  secretary's  tent,  and  suggest  some- 
thing which  involved  more  work,  or  an  ex- 
cited committee  would  wait  upon  him  with 
the  request  that  he  record  a  new  find ;  for 
it  must  be  remembered  that  gold  was  being 
found  every  few  hours  during  the  existence 
of  this  remarkable  corporation.  Over  ten 
thousand  dollars  in  gold  and  silver  were 
turned  over  to  the  treasurer  of  the. company 
during  the  two  days  of  its  existence.  As 
there  could  not  have  been  over  two  hundred 
dollars  in  the  camp,  all  told,  some  idea  may 
be  had  of  the  rapid  circulation  which  the 
coin  underwent.  As  fast  as  the  treasurer  re- 
ceived the  money,  he  passed  it  out  quietly 
to  some  new  rascal,  who  went  off  into  the 
chaparral  and  returned  in  due  time  with  more 


"  swag,"  and  an  additional  fabrication  as  to 
how  and  where  he  unearthed  it.  Seldom 
in  the  history  of  follies  has  so  much  reckless 
lying  been  done  in  so  short  a  time,  and  act- 
uated by  so  unworthy  a  purpose,  i.  <?.,  that  of 
deceiving  an  honest,  simple-minded  youth, 
who  could  not  yet  believe  that  all  the  world 
was  not  as  guileless  as  himself. 

But  the  bubble  could  not  float  indefinitely. 
Brindle  began  to  suspect,  and  finally  accused 
the  men  of  deception.  A  roar  of  laughter 
greeted  his  awakening.  To  my  sorrow,  I 
could  see  that  he  was  deeply  pained. 

"  And  you,  too,  Judas,"  he  said  reproach- 
fully, when  I  tried  to  smooth  the  matter  over, 
"how  could  I  suspect  you,  old  man?" 

In  spite  of  his  eccentricities  the  men  liked 
Brindle,  and  when  they  saw  that  he  was  hurt, 
they  tried  to  make  amends ;  but  the  boy 
would  brook  the  camp  no  longer ;  so  next 
morning  we  shouldered  our  traps  and  made 
our  way  back  to  the  bosom  of  Abraham's 
son  in  the  castle  by  the  sea. 

Brindle  has  grown  older  and  wiser  now, 
and  is  the  editor  of  a  newspaper  ;  but  when 
he  writes  editorials  which  are  particularly 
impracticable,  or  dilates  upon  the  possibilities 
of  the  "ineffable  whence,"  I  occasionally 
send  him  around  a  share  of  the  "  Vasquez 
Gold  and  Treasure  Mining  Stock,"  which  I 
still  possess,  just  to  remind  him  of  the  earth, 
earthy. 

As  for  Isaac,  he  runs  a  pawn  shop  at  pres- 
ent on  Washington  Street,  and  he  will  loan 
you  from  two  and  a  half  to  five  dollars  any 
day  on  your  two  hundred  dollar  chronometer. 
D.  S.  Richardson. 


THE  GREAT  LAMA  TEMPLE,  PEKING. 


AT  early  dawn  one  summer's  morning,  I 
accompanied  Doctor  Dudgeon,  of  the  Lon- 
don Missionary  Society  in  Peking,  to  visit 
the  Yung-ho-kung,  a  very  fine  old  Lama 
Temple,  just  within  the  wall  at  the  northeast 
corner  of  the  Tartar  city.  It  contains  about 
one  thousand  three  hundred  monks,  of  all 
ages,  down  to  small  boys  of  six  years  old, 


under  the  headship  of  a  Lama  who  assumes 
the  title  of  "  The  Living  Buddha." 

These  monks  are  Mongolians  of  a  very 
bad  type,  dirty,  and  greedy  of  gain.  They 
are  generally  offensively  insolent  to  all  for- 
eigners, many  of  whom  have  vainly  endeav- 
ored to  find  access  to  the  monastery ;  even 
the  silver  key,  which  is  usually  so  powerful 


384 


The  Great  Lama  Temple,  Peking. 


[Oct. 


in  China,  often  failing  to  unlock  the  inhos- 
pitable gates.  That  I  had  the  privilege  of 
entrance  was  due  solely  to  the  personal  in- 
fluence of  Doctor  Dudgeon,  whose  medical 
skill  has  happily  proved  so  beneficial  to  the 
Living  Buddha  and  several  of  the  priests,  as 
to  ensure  him  a  welcome  from  these. 

It  was  not,  however,  an  easy  task  to  get  at 
these  men,  as  a  particularly  insolent  monk 
was  acting  as  door-keeper,  and  attempted 
forcibly  to  prevent  our  entrance.  That,  how- 
ever, was  effected  by  the  judicious  pressure 
of  a  powerful  shoulder,  and  after  a  stormy 
argument  fhe  wretch  was  at  length  over- 
awed, and  finally  reduced  to  abject  humility 
by  threats  to  report  his  rudeness  to  the  head 
Lama.  At  long  last,  after  wearisome  expos- 
tulation and  altercation,  every  door  was 
thrown  open  to  us,  but  the  priest  in  charge 
of  each  carefully  locked  it  after  us,  lest  we 
should  avoid  giving  him  an  individual  tip. 
Happily,  I  had  a  large  supply  of  five  and  ten 
cent  silver  pieces,  which  the  Doctor's  knowl- 
edge of  Chinese  customs  compelled  our  ex- 
tortioners to  accept.  At  the  same  time, 
neither  of  us  could  avoid  a  qualm,  as  each 
successive  door  was  securely  locked,  and  a 
vision  presented  itself  of  possible  traps  into 
which  we  might  be  decoyed. 

Every  corner  of  the  great  building  is  full 
of  interest,  from  the  brilliant  yellow  china 
tiles  of  the  roof,  to  the  yellow  carpet  in  the 
temple.  The  entrance  is  adorned  with  stone 
carvings  of  animals,  and  the  interior  is  cov- 
ered with  a  thousand  fantastic  figures  carved 
in  wood — birds,  beasts,  and  serpents,  flowers, 
and  monstrous  human  heads  mingle  in  gro- 
tesque confusion.  It  is  rich  in  silken  hang- 
ings, gold  embroidery,  huge  picturesque  pa- 
per lanterns  of  quaint  form,  covered  with 
Chinese  characters,  and  grotesque  idols  can- 
opied by  very  ornamental  baldachinos. 

Conspicuous  amongst  these  idols  is  Kwang- 
ti,  who  was  a  distinguished  warrior  at  the  be- 
ginning of  the  Christian  era,  and  who,  about 
eight  hundred  years  later,  was  deified  as  the 
god  of  war,  and  State  temples  were  erected 
in  his  honor  in  every  city  of  the  Empire.  So 
his  shrine  is  adorned  with  all  manner  of  ar- 
mor, especially  bows  and  arrows — doubtless, 


votive  offerings.  He  is  a  very  fierce  looking 
god,  and  is  attended  by  two  colossal  com- 
panions, robed  in  the  richest  gold-embroid- 
ered silk.  Another  gigantic  image  is  that  of 
a  fully-armed  warrior  leading  a  horse  ;  I  be- 
lieve he  is  Kwang-ti's  armor-bearer.  In  vari- 
ous parts  of  the  temple  hang  trophies  of  arms 
and  military  standards,  which  are  singular 
decorations  for  a  temple  wherein  Buddha  is 
the  object  of  supreme  worship. 

But  the  fact  is,  that  though  Kwang-ti  is  the 
god  of  war,  he  is  also  emphatically  a  "  pro- 
tector of  the  peace,"  and  his  aid  is  invoked 
in  all  manner  of  difficulties,  domestic  or  na- 
tional. For  instance,  when  the  great  salt 
wells  in  the  province  of  Shansi  dried  up,  the 
sorely  perplexed  emperor  was  recommended 
by  the  Taouist  high  priest  to  lay  the  case  be- 
fore Kwang-ti.  The  emperor  therefore  wrote 
an  official  dispatch  on  the  subject,  which  was 
solemnly  burnt,  and  thus  conveyed  to  the 
spirit  world,  when,  in  answer  to  the  son  of 
heaven,  the  warrior-god  straightway  appeared 
in  the  clouds,  mounted  on  his  red  war-horse, 
and  directed  the  emperor  to  erect  a  temple 
in  his  honor.  This  was  done,  and  the  salt 
springs  flowed  as  before.  Kwang-ti  again 
appeared  in  1855,  during  the  Taiping  rebel- 
lion, to  aid  the  imperial  troops  near  Nankin, 
for  which  kind  interposition,  Hien-feng,  the 
reigning  emperor  (whose  honor-conferring 
power  extends  to  the  spirit  world),  promoted 
him  to  an  equal  rank  with  Confucius.  So, 
here  we  find  him  rewarded  alike  by  Taou- 
ists  and  Buddhists. 

In  the  "  Peking  Gazette,"  for  July  28th, 
1 86 1,  is  published  the  petition  of  the  direct- 
or-general of  grain  transport,  praying  the  em- 
peror to  reward  the  god  Kwang-ti  for  his  in- 
terposition on  the  nth  of  March,  whereby 
two  cities  were  saved  from  the  rebels.  He 
states  that  such  was  the  anxiety  evinced  by 
this  guardian  god,  that  his  worshipers  saw 
the  perspiration  trickle  from  his  visage  in  the 
temple.  The  emperor  duly  acknowledged 
these  good  services,  and  directed  that  a  tab- 
let should  be  erected  in  memory  thereof. 

All  the  altar  vases  in  this  temple  are  of  the 
finest  Peking  enamel — vases,  candlesticks, 
and  incense-burners,  from  which  filmy  clouds 


1885.] 


The  Great  Lama  Temple,  Peking. 


385 


of  fragrant  incense  float  upward  to  a  ceiling 
paneled  with  green  and  gold.     Fine  large 
scroll  paintings  tempted  me  to  linger  at  every 
turn,  and  the  walls  are  encrusted  with  thou- 
sands of  small  porcelain  images  of  Buddha. 
In  the  near  temple,  which  is  called  the 
Foo-Koo,  or  Hall  of  Buddha,  stands  a  Cy- 
clopean image  of  Matreya,  the  Buddha  of 
Futurity.     It  is  seventy  feet  in  height,  and  is 
said  to  be  carved  from  one  solid  block  of 
wood;  but  it  is  colored  to  look  like  bronze. 
Ascending  a  long  flight  of  steps,  we  reached 
a  gallery  running  round  the  temple  about  the 
level  of  his  shoulders.     I  found  that  the  gal- 
lery led  into  two  circular  buildings,  one  on 
each  side,  constructed  for  the  support  of  two 
immense  rotating   cylinders  about    seventy 
feet  in  height,  full  of  niches,  each  niche  con- 
taining  the    image   of   a    Buddhist   Saint. 
They   are   rickety   old    things  and   thickly 
coated  with  dust,  but  on  certain  days  wor- 
shipers come  and  stick  on  strips  of  paper 
bearing  prayers.     To  turn  these  cylinders  is 
apparently  an  act  of  homage  to  the  whole 
saintly  family,  and  enlists  the  good  will  of  the 
whole   lot.      Some  Lama  monasteries  deal 
thus  with  their  one  hundred  and  twenty-eight 
sacred  books  and  two  hundred  and  twenty 
volumes  of  commentary,  placing  them  in  a 
huge  cylindrical  book-case,  which  they  turn 
bodily  to  save  the  trouble  of  turning  individ- 
ual pages — the  understanding  having  appar- 
ently small  play  in  either  case.     Doctor  Ed- 
kins  saw  one  of  these  in  the  Ling-Yin  Mon- 
astery, at  Hang-Chow,  and  another,  of  the 
octagonal  form  and  sixty  feet  in  height,  at 
the  Poo-sa-ting  padoga  in  the  Wootai  Valley, 
a  district    in   which  there  are  perhaps   two 
thousand    Mongol    Lamas.      At   the   same 
monastery  where  he  saw  this  revolving  library, 
there  were  three  hundred  revolving  prayer  or 
praise  wheels,  and  at  another  he  observed  a 
most   ingenious  arrangement,  whereby   the 
steam  ascending  from    the   great  monastic 
kettle  (which  is  kept  ever  boiling  to  supply 
the  ceaseless  demand  for  tea)  does  further 
duty  by  turning  a  praise  wheel  which  is  sus- 
pended from  the  ceiling.     I  myself  have  seen 
many  revolving  libraries  at  Buddhist  temples 
in  Japan,  but  this  is  the  first  thing  of  the 

tme  kind  that  I  have  seen  in  China. 
VOL  VI.— 25. 


It  was  nearly  six  A.  M.  ere  we  reached  the 
Lama  Temple,  so  that  we  were  too  late  to  see 
the  grand  morning  service,  as  that  commences 
at  four  A.  M.,  when  upwards  of  a  hundred 
mats  are  spread  in  the  temple,  on  each  of 
which  kneel  ten  of  the  subordinate  Lamas, 
all  wearing  their  yellow  robes,  red  hood  (or 
rather  mantle),  and  a  sort  of  classical  helmet 
of  yellow  felt,  with  a  very  high  crest,  like 
that  worn  by  Brittania.  They  possess  red 
felt  boots,  but  can  only  enter  the  temple  bare- 
footed. The  Great  Lama  wears  a  violet-col- 
ored robe  and  a  yellow  mitre.  He  bears  a 
sort  of  crosier,  and  occupies  a  gilded  throne 
before  the  altar ;  a  cushion  is  provided  for 
him  to  kneel  upon.  The  whole  temple  is 
in  darkness  or  dim  twilight  save  the  altar, 
which  is  ablaze  with  many  tapers. 

When  the  great  copper  gong  sounds  its 
summons  to  worship,  the  brethren  chant  lit- 
anies in  monotone,  one  of  the  priests  read- 
ing prayers  from  a  silken  scroll,  and  all  join- 
ing in  a  low  murmur,  while  clouds  of  incense 
fill  the  temple.  A  peculiarity  of  this  chant 
is,  that  whilst  a  certain  number  of  the  breth- 
ren recite  the  words,  the  others  sing  a  con- 
tinual deep  bass  accompaniment.  Again 
the  gong  marks  the  change  from  prayer  to 
sacred  chants,  and  after  these  comes  a  terri- 
ble din  of  instrumental  music,  a  clatter  of 
gongs,  bells,  conch-shells,  tambourines,  and 
all  manner  of  ear-splitting  abominations. 
Then  follows  a  silence  which  may  be  felt,  so 
utter  is  the  stillness,  and  so  intense  the  re- 
lief. 

With  regard  to  dress,  this  seems  to  vary 
in  different  districts,  and  perhaps  may  denote 
different  sects.  In  Ceylon  all  the  priests  are 
bareheaded,  whereas  those  we  saw  in  the 
Northern  Himalayas  wore  scarlet  clothing 
and  scarlet  head-gear.  The  Lamas  at  La- 
dak,  in  Thibet,  likewise  wear  scarlet,  while 
those  of  Spiti  wear  an  orange-colored  under- 
garment, and  over  that  a  loose  jacket  of 
dark  red  with  wide  sleeves.* 

In  Mongolia  (where  monasticism  is  in 
such  repute  that  every  family  which  possesses 
more  than  one  son  is  obliged  to  devote  one 
to  the  monastic  life)  every  Lama  wears  the 

1  See  "  In  the  Himalayas,"  page  437.  C.  F.  Gordon 
Gumming.  Published  by  Chatto  &  Windus. 


386 


The  Great  Lama  Temple,  Peking. 


[Oct. 


long  yellow  robe,  with  yellow  mantle  and 
yellow  helmet — the  last  two  items  being  al- 
ways worn  during  the  services  in  the*  temple, 
where  the  correct  attitude  of  devotion  is  to  sit 
cross-legged,  tailor-fashion,  on  low  divans. 
There,  too,  the  high-priests  are  distinguished 
by  purple  robes.  Doctor  Edkins  says  that  in 
the  Wootai  Valley  boy  Lamas  wear  red,  and 
when  they  are  grown  up  they  assume  purple- 
brown  clothing,  only  those  of  mature  years 
being  promoted  to  yellow  robes. 

By  the  way,  speaking  of  ecclesiastical  head- 
gear, I  am  told  that  throughout  Thibet 
Queen  Victoria's  effigy  (current  on  the  Brit- 
ish Indian  rupee)  is  familiarly  known  as  that 
of  a  "  wandering  Lama  "  (lama-rob-du\  her 
regal  crown  being  supposed  to  represent  the 
head-gear  of  a  religious  mendicant. 

I  would  fain  have  spent  hours  in  looking 
over  the  many  interesting  details  of  this 
place;  and  the  priests,  when  once  assured 
that  they  could  extract  nothing  larger  than 
ten-cent  pieces,  became  so  eager  to  multiply 
these,  that  they  volunteered  to  show  us 
every  nook  and  corner.  But  so  much  time 
had  been  wasted  at  first,  and  we  were  so 
disconcerted  by  the  annoyance  to  which  they 
had  subjected  us,  that  we  were  fairly  tired 
out,  and  finally  were  compelled  to  decline 
further  inspection.  Of  course,  we  now  re- 
gret that  we  did  not  further  improve  the 
unique  occasion,  and  see  everything  we  pos- 
sibly could.  But  truly,  in  the  matter  of 
sight-seeing,  the  flesh  is  sometimes  weak. 

Besides,  as  we  had  come  such  a  distance, 
it  was  well  to  secure  this  opportunity  of  see- 
ing the  Wen-miao — the  great  Confucian  tem- 
ple, which  is  very  near.  I  have  now  seen  a 
great  many  of  these  temples  in  honor  of 
Confucius,  and  practically  they  are  all  alike, 
the  impression  they  convey  being  of  great 
mausoleums.  They  are,  in  fact,  ancestral 
halls  containing  only  ornamental  tablets  bear- 
ing the  names  of  noted  saints.  This,  how- 
ever, is  an  unusually  fine  specimen.  It  stands 
in  shady,  silent  grounds,  and  the  funereal 
character  of  the  place  is  happily  suggested 
by  groves  of  fine  old  cypress  trees,  said  to 
be  five  hundred  years  old,  and  by  numerous 
stone  tablets  resting  on  the  backs  of  huge 
stone  tortoises.  Some  of  these  stones  occupy 


small  shrines  roofed  with  yellow  porcelain 
tiles, and  commemorate  various  learned  men. 

The  exterior  of  the  hall  is  handsome, 
though  here,  as  in  most  Chinese  temples,  the 
wire  netting  which  protects  the  fine  carving 
beneath  the  eaves  from  the  incursions  of 
nesting  swallows,  rather  detracts  from  its  ef- 
fect. The  interior  is  severely  simple.  The 
huge  solid  pillars  are  of  plain  teak-wood, 
and  the  floor  is  carpeted  with  camel's  hair 
matting.  The  tablet  bearing  the  name  of 
Confucius  occupies  a  plain  wooden  recess 
colored  red,  and  at  right  angles  to  this  are 
similar  niches  for  the  tablets  of  Mencius  and 
the  other  greatest  sages.  In  front  of  each  is 
an  altar,  with  massive  candlesticks  and  vases. 
At  the  further  end  of  the  hall  are  ranged 
two  rows  of  six  tablets  and  altars,  to  the 
twelve  sages  of  China. 

Being  in  Peking,  it  is  about  superfluous  to 
say  that  this  building  seems  like  a  survival 
of  a  nobler  past,  and  is  now  somewhat  dirty 
and  neglected  looking,  while  the  grounds  are 
untidy  and  overgrown  with  rank  weeds.  But, 
of  course,  it  is  cleaned  up  periodically,  on 
the  occasions  of  the  great  spring  and  au- 
tumn services,  such  as  I  described  when  writ- 
ing from  Foo  Chow,  especially  as  here  the 
Emperor  officiates  in  person. 

But  the  objects  of  chief  interest  connected 
with  this  temple  are  some  relics  of  a  remote 
past,  which  in  Chinese  estimation  are  of  in- 
estimable value.  Chief  among  these  are  ten 
large  cylindrical  stones,  shaped  like  gigantic 
churns,  which,  for  lack  of  a  better  name,  are 
called  stone  drums.  The  Chinese  believe 
these  to  have  been  respectively  engraven  in 
the  days  of  Yaou  and  Shun,  who  lived  B.  c. 
2357  and  B.  c.  2255.  Reference  is  made 
to  them  as  objects  worthy  of  reverence,  in  a 
classic,  bearing  date  about  B.  c.  500.  Cer- 
tain it  is  that  such  interest  has  ever  attached 
to  them,  that  whenever  the  Emperors  of  Chi- 
na have  changed  their  capital,  these  stone 
drums  have  also  been  removed.  The  story 
of  their  wanderings  is  as  curious  as  the  legen- 
dary history  of  our  own  much  venerated  cor- 
onation stone  in  Westminster  Abbey.1 

l  For  legend  of  the  Coronation  Stone,  see  "  In  the 
Hebrides."  C.  K.  Gordon  Gumming.  Chatto  &  Win- 
dus. 


1885.J 


The  Great  Lama   Temple,  Peking. 


387 


But  the  fortunes  of  the  present  dynasty 
are  especially  connected  with  the  six  unhewn 
stones  in  the  cypress-grove  in  the  Temple  of 
Heaven.  Apparently  these  also  were  origi- 
nally rude,  water-worn  boulders,  which  were 
shaped  and  inscribed  to  commemorate  cer- 
tain imperial  hunting  expeditions.  When 
the  fame  of  Confucius  caused  all  literary  in- 
terests to  cluster  round  his  name,  they  were 
deposited  in  one  of  his  temples,  where  they 
were  preserved  for  upwards  of  a  thousand 
years. 

Then  came  a  period  of  wars  and  troubles, 
during  which  the  great  stones  disappeared. 
They  were,  however,  recovered  A.  D.  1052, 
and  placed  in  the  gateway  of  the  Imperial 
College.  Then  the  Tartars  invaded  North- 
ern China,  and  the  Imperial  Court  fled  to 
Pien  Ching,  in  the  Province  of  Honan,  car- 
rying these  cumbersome,  great  stones.  In 
A.  D.  1 1 08,  a  decree  was  passed  that  the 
inscriptions  should  be  filled  in  with  gold,  in 
order  to  preserve  them. 

In  A.  D.  1 126,  another  Tartar  tribe  captured 
the  city  of  Pien  Ching,  and  carried  the  ten 
stones  back  to  Peking,  where,  for  a  while, 
even  they  shared  the  fate  of  all  things  in  this 
city.  They  were  allowed  to  fall  into  neglect, 
and  sacrilegious  hands  removed  the  gold. 
Worse  still,  some  Vandals,  of  a  class  not  pe- 
culiar to  China,  carried  off  one  of  the  stones 
and  ruthlessly  converted  it  into  a  drinking 
trough  for  cattle  !  After  many  years,  when 
antiquarian  interest  was  re-awakened,  it  was 
found  to  be  missing,  and  after  long  search  its 
mutilated  remains  were  discovered  in  a  farm- 
yard, and  brought  back,  to  be  deposited  with 
the  others  (A.  D.  1307)  in  their  present  post 
of  honor. 

The  stones  derive  additional  interest  from 
the  fact  that  the  characters  in  which  the  po- 
etic stanzas  are  inscribed  are  now  obsolete. 
To  avoid  all  danger  of  their  ever  again  being 
lost,  a  set  of  exact  copies  has  been  made  by 
imperial  command. 

Less  venerable,  but  certainly  more  impos- 
ing to  the  outward  eye,  is  another  stone  me- 
morial, which  is  stored  in  the  corridors  en- 
circling the  Court  of  the  Pekin  University, 
which  adjoins  the  Confucian  temple.  This 


is  a  series  of  no  less  than  two  hundred  no- 
ble slabs  of  black  marble,  like  upright  grave- 
stones, each  twelve  feet  in  height.  On  these 
are  engraven  the  whole  of  the  classics,  /'.  <?., 
the  thirteen  books  of  Confucius.  It  appears 
that  by  some  extraordinary  accident,  there 
was  once  an  Emperor  of  China  so  depraved 
as  to  endeavor  to  destroy  every  existing  copy 
of  this  source  of  all  wisdom.  There  is  no 
doubt  his  early  years  had  been  embittered 
by  the  study  of  these  wearisome  volumes, 
and  when,  on  his  accession  to  the  throne,  he 
was  expected  to  expound  their  doctrine  to 
all  his  officials  and  mandarins,  his  soul  was 
filled  with  a  wild  desire  to  commit  them,  once 
for  all,  to  the  flames.  Perhaps  if  he  had  suc- 
ceeded, he  might  have  relieved  his  country 
from  its  mental  bondage  to  the  Example  and 
Teacher  of  all  eyes.  He  failed,  however; 
but  in  case  such  another  Herod  should  ever 
arise,  it  was  decided  that  these  words  of  wis- 
dom should  be  preserved  on  imperishable 
marble,  which,  moreover,  should  forever  in- 
sure the  Chinese  characters  in  which  they  are 
inscribed  from  any  change.*  So,  round  a 
great  court,  known  as  the  Hall  of  the  Clas- 
sics, are  ranged  these  tall,  solerrm  marble  tab- 
lets— embodiments  of  the  dead  weight  where- 
with the  present  is  here  hampered  by  the  past; 
and  here,  once  a  year,  the  Emperor  is  obliged 
to  give  that  lecture,  the  very  thought  of  which 
so  distracted  his  ancestor. 

Our  sight-seeing  capacities  were  now  so 
thoroughly  exhausted  that  we  were  thankful 
to  get  curled  up  once  more  in  the  terrible 
Peking  cart,  and  to  know  that  each  jolt 
brought  us  nearer  to  the  Mission  House, 
and  to  a  welcome  breakfast  and  well-earned 
rest. 

1  This  method  of  honoring  sacred  books  has  recently 
been  imitated  by  the  king  of  Burmah,  who  has  had  the 
sacred  •  books  of  the  Beetigal  thus  engraven  on  seven 
hundred  and  twenty-eight  slabs  of  alabaster,  each  about 
five  feet  in  height  by  three  feet  six  in  width,  and  four 
inches  thick.  The  slabs  are  engraven  on  both  sides,  and 
over  each  is  erected  a  miniature  dome-shaped  dagoba, 
surmounted  by  the  golden  symbol  of  the  honorific  um- 
brella. Hitherto  the  Burmese  sacred  books  have  been 
inscribed  only  on  palm  leaves  ;  therefore  the  king  takes 
this  means  of  preserving  them,  and  of  acquiring  personal 
merit  at  a  cost  of  about  ,£36,400,  each  slab  costing  about 
five  hundred  rupees,  i.  e.,  about  two  hundred  and  fiftydol- 
lars. 

C.  F.  Gordon  Gumming. 


388 


Thoughts  towards  Revising  the  Federal  Constitution. 


[Oct. 


THOUGHTS  TOWARDS   REVISING  THE  FEDERAL  CONSTITUTION. 


THAT  the  Constitution  of  the  United 
States  is  one  of  the  most  wonderful  monu- 
ments of  human  wisdom,  and  therefore  enti- 
tled to  all  the  respectful  reverence  which 
forms  the  backbone  of  American  loyalty,  is 
evident  from  the  perfection  with  which  its 
provisions  have  operated,  notwithstanding 
the  changeful  growth  of  the  nation  during 
the  century  of  its  existence.  That  its  amend- 
ments have  been  so  few,  that  there  is  now  no 
public  sentiment  in  favor  of  more  of  them, 
is  most  extraordinary,  in  view  of  the  fact  that 
nearly  all  the  old  State  Constitutions  have 
been  remodeled  to  adapt  them  to  modern 
conditions,  while  the  changes  in  the  nation 
have  certainly  been  far  greater  than  those  of 
any  State.  For,  comparing  1787  with  1885, 
our  population  has  grown  from  3,000,000  to 
probably  55,000,000.  The  almost  universal 
poverty  of  the  people  then,  has  given  place 
to  enormous  accumulation  of  individual  and 
corporate  wealth  now.  The  number  of  States 
has  increased  from  thirteen  to  thirty-eight, 
besides  nine  territories.  In  lieu  of  the  old 
difficult  modes  of  communication  on  horse- 
back, or  by  stage,  or  sloop,  we  have  the 
railroad,  the  steamer,  the  telegraph.  The 
seven-by-nine  weeklies  of  Revolutionary  days 
have  grown  into  the  mammoth  dailies  and 
semi-dailies  of  today.  The  log  school-house 
has  given  place  to  the  present  elaborate  sys- 
tems of  education,  and  Harvard,  Princeton, 
and  Yale  are  only  the  older  among  hundreds 
of  American  colleges. 

Is  it  to  be  supposed  that  if  steam  and 
electricity  had  not  been  subdued  to  human 
uses,  this  nation  could  have  held  together 
for  even  one  hundred  years?  Would  it  not 
be  an  anomaly  in  history,  that  a  Constitution, 
the  first  of  its  kind  ever  successfully  adopted, 
designed  to  supply  the  wants  of  a  poor  and 
sparse  population  of  only  3,000,000,  should 
prove  to  be  so  perfect  as  to  meet  all  the  re- 
quirements of  55,000,000,  under  the  condi- 
tions of  proportionate  expansion  in  all  the 


relations  of  civilization  ?  Will  it  not  utterly 
fail,  unless  revised  or  greatly  amended,  to 
meet  the  needs  of  the  200,000,000  who  will 
occupy  the  United  States  ere  the  close  of 
the  twentieth  century? 

The  following  are  some  of  the  suggestions 
that  have  been  mentioned  as  topics  for  dis- 
cussion in  this  connection  : 

1.  Extend  the  powers  of  Congress,  so  as 
to  authorize  Federal  legislation  on  a  number 
of  civil  relations  now  exclusively  legislated 
on  by  the  several  States.     Such  are  marriage, 
divorce,    inheritance,    probate   proceedings, 
modes  and  subjects  of  taxation,  education, 
the  tenure  of  real  estate,  and  the  collection 
of  debts.     Give  to  that  body  more  clear  and 
mandatory  jurisdiction  over  interstate  com- 
merce and  communication,  and  the  exclusive 
regulation  of  banks,  insurance   companies, 
and  all   other   corporations  which    transact 
business  in  more  than  one  State  or  Terri- 
tory. 

2.  Correspondingly  curtail  the  jurisdic- 
tion of  the  State  Legislatures  on  the  same 
subjects. 

3.  Increase  the  judicial  power,  so  as  to 
give  to  the  Federal  Courts  jurisdiction  over 
all  claims  against  the  United  States,  whether 
in  law  or  equity,  and  allow  the  government 
to  be  sued,  as  well  as  to  sue,  in  said  courts. 
Give  also  to  the  judiciary,  State  and  Federal, 
respective   jurisdiction  in  all  cases  of  con- 
tested elections,  or  cases  involving  the  qual- 
ification of  members  of  Legislature,  instead 
of  leaving  each  House  to  be  the  judge  of 
such  questions. 

4.  Restrict  the  powers  of  Congress  to  the 
enactment  of  general   or   public   measures 
only,  in  like  manner  as  this  has  been  recently 
effected  with  the  Legislature  of  California. 

5.  Require  that  Cabinet  officers  should 
be  appointed  from  the  leaders  of  the  dominant 
party  in  one  or  both  houses  of  Congress,  with- 
out  causing  them  to  vacate  their  seats,  or 
else,  if  appointed  from  outside,  that  Congress 


1885.] 


Thoughts  towards  Revising  the  Federal   Constitution. 


389 


; 


entitle  them  to  seats  therein,  with  the  right 
to  initiate  measures  and  take  part  in  debates, 
even  if  no  vote  be  given  them. 

6.  Add  to  the  qualifications  of  members 
of  all  legislative  bodies,  professional  educa- 
cation  in  statecraft. 

7.  Change  the  source  of  the  authority  of 
Senators  in  all  legislative   bodies,  so  as  to 
make  the  Senate  the  direct  representative  of 
capital,  by  conferring  the  power  to  vote  for 
United  States  Senators  only  upon  those  indi- 
viduals in  each  State  (and  for  State  Senators 
upon  those  in  each  Senatorial  district)  who 
shall  have  paid   taxes    during  the  previous 
year  on  at  least  $100,000  of  their  own  prop- 
erty in  such  State  or  district. 

8.  Prohibit  further  immigration  into  the 
United  States,  except  of  such  foreigners  as 
shall  have  a  certain  degree  of  education,  and 
some  art  or  profession,  or  sufficient  property 
to  insure  them  a  living.     Limit  the  right  of 
suffrage  to  persons  born  in  the  United  States. 

9.  Abolish   the   present  Indian  system, 
and  provide  for  Indians  on  precisely  the  same 
principles  and  conditions  as  are  provided  for 
all  other  races. 

10.  Extend  the  Presidential  term  to  eight 
years,  and  provide  for  the  election  of  two  or 
three  Vice-Presidents  instead  of  one.   Abolish 
the  electoral  college,  extend  the  term  of  Rep- 
resentatives to  six  years,  of  Senators  to  ten 
years,  and  forbid  the  reelection  of  all  execu- 
tive officers  having  patronage  to  bestow. 

Our  first  and  second  propositions  involve 
a  modification  of  the  present  dividing  line 
between  Federal  and  State  jurisdiction.  The 
reasons  for  the  old  division  no  longer  exist. 
There  are  now  no  separate  colonies,  with  di- 
verse origins,  peoples,  religions,  and  tradi- 
tions, so  jealous  of  each  other  as  to  make  it 
almost  impossible  to  unite  them  into  one  na- 
tion. The  inter-consolidation  of  the  origi- 
nal thirteen  States  has  now  been  silently 
going  on  for  a  century,  while  the  twenty- 
five  new  States  and  nine  Territories  never 
had  any  inherited  peculiarities  (other  than 
those  which  were  wiped  out  by  the  war)  to 
prevent  the  citizen  of  any  part  of  the  nation 
feeling  equally  at  home  in  every  other  part. 


The  old  State  prides,  interests,  and  provin- 
cialisms have  everywhere  been  melted  into 
a  common  alloy  in  the  alembic  of  univereal 
inter-communication.  Almost  all  citizens 
have  relatives  in  more  than  one  State.  In- 
ter-marriages, inheritances,  partnerships,  mi- 
grations, and  travel,  are  universal.  Hun- 
dreds—perhaps  thousands — of  corporations, 
employing  thousands  of  millions  of  capital, 
are  transacting  business  in  banking,  insur- 
ance, telegraphy,  express,  manufacturing,  and 
transportation  in  more  than  one  State,  many 
of  them  in  all  the  States  and  Territories. 
The  census  of  1880  shows  that  no  less  than 
$2,370,000,000  of  property  is  owned  in  other 
States  than  those  in  which  it  is  situated. 
The  internal  commerce  of  the  country 
amounts  to  ten  thousand  millions  annually, 
against  a  foreign  trade  of  only  one  thousand 
five  hundred  millions.  Passengers  carried 
annually  within  the  country  are  nearly  six 
times  the  entire  population. 

Yet,  with  all  this  consolidation  and  inter- 
communication among  a  growing  people, 
who  have  hardly  any  interests  that  are  strict- 
ly bounded  by  State  lines,  what  an  enormous 
mass  of  conflicting  statutory  law  must  be 
encountered  on  merely  crossing  the  border ! 
All  civil  and  penal  legislation,  and  a  great 
deal  that  is  political  (the  few  topics  reserved 
to  Congress  excepted),  must,  under  the  pres- 
ent Constitution,  be  enacted  by  State  or  Ter- 
ritorial legislatures.  Forty-seven  statute-mills, 
manned  mostly  by  green  or  dishonest  hands, 
a  majority  of  whom  are  elected  because  they 
are  not  fit,  and  superseded  before  they  can 
become  fit — at  least  by  experience — are  set 
to  work  every  year,  to  grind  out  crude  and 
undigested  laws  and  regrind  old  ones,  until 
the  aggregate  of  such  work  would  fill  a  pub- 
lic library  ;  until  a  large  part  of  the  labors  of 
the  bench  is  not  in  administering  the  law, 
but  in  determining  it ;  until  no  business  man 
can  pretend  to  keep  posted  in  the  changes 
that  are  continually  occurring  in  the  laws  af- 
fecting his  interests. 

We  cannot,  of  course,  here  go  into  detail 
in  the  examination  of  facts  in  so  large  a  field 
as  is  covered  by  this,  or  indeed  by  any  of  our 
own  suggestions.  For  these  we  must  refer 


390 


Thoughts  towards  Revising  the  Federal  Constitution. 


[Oct. 


to  the  knowledge  of  every  newspaper  reader. 
But  we  may  safely  ask  :  What  is  gained  by 
all-this  unnecessary  friction  and  complication 
in  governmental  machinery  ?  Why  should 
the  divorced  man,  married  to  his  second 
wife,  be  deemed  respectable  in  one  State  and 
a  bigamist  in  another?  Why  should  the 
causes  of  divorce  differ  in  different  States  ? 
Why  should  there  be  such  a  universal  chaos 
on  the  subject  and  methods  of  taxation  ? 
Why  should  the  citizens  of  one  State,  who 
individually  have  the  constitutional  right  to 
all  the  privileges  and  immunities  of  citizens 
in  the  several  States,  find  themselves  at  once 
enmeshed  in  the  nets  of  hostile  legislation, 
whenever  they  attempt  to  cross  State  lines  in 
the  character  of  stockholders  in  corporations? 
Who  profits  by  all  this  fuss,  except  lawyers 
and  politicians  ?  Who  suffer  from  it  but  the 
constantly  increasing  portion  of  the  people 
whose  residence,  relatives,  property,  or  busi- 
ness are  in  more  than  one  State  ?  Is  it  not 
time  for  the  great  nation  to  take  a  hint  from 
the  Roman  Empire  in  the  days  of  Justinian, 
or  from  France  and  her  Codes  Napoleon, 
and  by  some  means  not  provided  in  our  pres- 
ent constitution,  devise  and  adopt  a  "  Cor- 
pus Juris  Civilis,"  which  shall  be  uniform 
and  permanent  in  all  parts  of  our  vast  nation- 
al domain  ? 

Our  third  and  fourth  suggestions  contem- 
plate curtailing  the  powers  of  Congress  in 
the  departments  of  private  and  special  legis- 
lation, by  transferring  to  the  courts  exclusive 
jurisdiction  over  all  claims  against  the  Gov- 
ernment, and  by  following  English  precedent 
in  referring  contested  elections  and  cases 
touching  the  qualification  of  members  to  the 
courts.  The  last  clause  in  the  proposition 
needs  no  discussion.  It  has  too  long  been 
customary  to  seat  or  reject  the  doubtfully 
elected  or  disqualified  member,  solely  with 
reference  to  the  effect  of  his  vote  upon  the 
party  in  power,  to  leave  room  for  any  faith 
in  the  decision  of  such  cases  on  their  legal 
merits  by  any  legislative  body  or  political 
party.  If  justice  be  contemplated  at  all  in 
such  cases,  they  must  be  referred  to  disin- 
terested tribunals. 

But  the  reasons  for  transferring  the  juris- 


diction over  claims  against  the  Government 
from  Congress  to  the  Federal  Courts,  are 
self-evident  to  any  reader  of  the  Congres- 
sional Record.  One  great  source  of  the  cor- 
ruption with  which  Congress  has  long  been 
reeking,  is  the  mass  of  private  bills  with 
which  almost  every  member's  pockets  are 
stuffed  at  every  session.  In  fact,  many  mem- 
bers are  nominated  and  elected  for  the  sole 
purpose  of  serving  private  interests  at  the 
expense  of  the  nation.  At  the  first  session 
of  the  last  Congress,  more  than  ten  thousand 
private  bills  were  introduced,  nearly  all  of 
them  embodying  claims  upon  the  treasury. 
These,  of  course,  could  not — probably  not 
a  tenth  of  them — be  justly  dealt  with  on  their 
merits  in  committee,  much  less  in  either 
House,  while  the  merest  attempt  to  properly 
investigate  them  could  have  been  made  only 
at  the  expense  of  the  eight  hundred  public 
bills  introduced  at  the  same  session.  Of 
course,  many  members  are  pecuniarily  inter- 
ested in  these  private  bills  They  go  to 
Congress  as  the  attorneys  of  claimants,  from 
whom  they  receive  large  contingent  commis- 
sions. Hence  a  powerful  argument  for  trad- 
ing votes ;  hence  a  corruption  fund  for  party 
purposes;  hence  the  "commercial  princi- 
ple "  (heaven  save  the  mark ! ),  which  is  the 
oil  which  now  lubricates  nearly  all  our  polit- 
ical machinery;  hence  the  failure  to  reduce 
taxation,  for  money  cannot  be  made  out  of 
an  empty  treasury;  hence  the  infamies  of 
the  Committee  Room,  and  one  great  source 
of  the  shameless  venality  which  makes  the 
very  atmosphere  of  our  national  capital  intol- 
erable to  a  strictly  honest  man. 

Now  the  work  of  deciding  the  merits  of 
claims  against  Government  is  really  judicial 
and  not  legislative.  It  ought,  therefore,  to 
be  performed  by  the  courts  where  the  claim- 
ants reside.  For,  as  it  is  a  great  hardship  to 
force  an  honest  claimant  to  go  to  Washing- 
ton— perhaps  with  his  witnesses  — to  prove 
his  rights,  probably  to  remain  there  for  years 
before  getting  a  hearing,  so  is  it  an  advan- 
tage to  the  fraudulent  claimant  to  be  able  to 
make  an  ex  parte  showing  in  the  Star  Cham- 
ber privacy  of  the  Committee  Room,  far 
away  from  parties  and  witnesses  on  the  other 


1885.] 


Thoughts  towards  Revising  the  Federal  Constitution. 


391 


side.  The  only  honest  objection  to  trans- 
ferring the  whole  business  to  the  courts  is, 
the  traditional  idea  that  the  Government  can- 
not be  sued,  save  by  such  special  consent  as 
is  now  sometimes  given  by  Congress  to  pro- 
ceed in  the  Court  of  Claims.  Would  it  not 
be  far  better  to  abolish  this  legal  fiction 
—  itself  a  tradition  of  monarchy — and  al- 
low anybody  to  sue  the  Government,  con- 
fining the  function  of  Congress  to  the  pay- 
ment of  judgments,  than  to  preserve  the 
phantasmic  reverence  for  Government  sup- 
posed to  inhere  in  the  present  inhibition  to 
sue,  at  the  frightful  cost  to  the  nation  of  the 
present  system  ?  For  it  is  a  physical  impos- 
sibility for  the  most  able,  industrious,  and 
conscientious  Congressman  to  give  proper 
attention  to  his  public  duties,  and  yet  devote 
the  necessary  time  to  this  perpetual  flood  of 
private  bills.  And  the  predominance  of  these 
bills,  like  that  of  decayed  fruit  in  a  package, 
spreads  infection  throughout  the  entire  mass, 
until  it  is  popularly  supposed  that  no  meas- 
ure whatever  can  be  got  through  Congress 
that  it  is  not  tainted  with  personal  or  party 
corruption. 

Of  course  it  is  now,  and  always  has  been, 
in  the  power  of  Congress  to  remedy  this 
great  abuse  of  law.  Why  is  it  not  done  ? 
Simply  because  it  is  too  much  to  expect  that 
Congressional  politicians  will  enact  any 
measure  which  would  confine  their  emolu- 
ments to  their  salaries,  let  the  public  inter- 
ests suffer  as  they  may. 

The  effect  of  the  present  state  of  things 
upon  the  transactions  of  public  business  is 
well  shown  in  the  following  extract  from  the 
Washington  correspondent  of  the  San  Fran- 
cisco "Bulletin,"  of  April  loth,  1884. 

"  In  two  respects,  the  present  year  promises  to  be 
a  political  phenomenon.  The  oldest  frequenters  of 
the  lobbies  of  Congress  never  saw  legislation  in  so 
backward  and  deplorable  a  condition,  and  the  pre- 
diction is  now  freely  made,  that  for  a  do-nothing 
Congress  this  will  outstrip  all  its  predecessors. 
There  are  about  six  hundred  bills  favorably  acted  on 
by  committees  now  on  the  House  calendars — seven 
or  eight  special  orders,  the  Tariff  Bill,  and  the  Agri- 
cultural, Indian,  Sundry,  Civil,  River  and  Harbor, 
and  Legislative,  Executive,  and  Judicial  Appropria- 
tion Bills,  all  untouched.  Under  the  most  favorable 
circumstances,  it  will  require  until  July  i$th  to  pass 


the  Tariff  and  Appropriation  Bills.  Fully  three 
hundred  and  fifty  bills  which  have  passed  the  Senate 
are  now  lying  on  the  Speaker's  table  in  the  House, 
awaiting  reference  to  committees.  These  bills  are 
probably  the  only  ones  that  will  be  enacted.  In  the 
scramble  of  the  last  hours,  they  will  be  dragged  out 
of  their  resting-places  and  rushed  through.  So  far 
this  session,  the  House  has  not  once  taken  up  the 
regular  calendar,  upon  which  there  are  over  two  hun- 
dred bills.  Probably  it  will  never  be  touched  during 
the  present  Congress.  With  the  four  months  ended 
day  before  yesterday,  Congress  passed  fifteen  bills 
and  resolutions.  At  this  rate,  how  long  will  it  take 
to  pass  the  six  hundred  now  on  the  files  ?  Some- 
thing like  ten  years.  Some  of  the  old  members  say 
it  is  a  blessing  that  Congress  cannot  pass  the  six 
hundred  under  ten  years,  for  eighty  per  cent,  of  them 
are  jobs.  But  they  do  not  state  how  many  really 
necessary  bills  die  every  year,  and  how  much  money 
is  spent  printing  and  reprinting  the  measures  intro- 
duced. Some  of  these  bills  originated  ten,  twenty, 
thirt  years  ago.  Congressmen  have  come  and 
gone,  but  through  defeat  and  death  the  bills  have 
survived,  and  are  biennially  introduced,  referred, 
reported,  and  left  to  perish  on  the  files.  All  Con- 
gresses are  slow,  but  this  is  generally  acknowledged 
to  be  the  slowest  for  years,  if  not  the  slowest  that 
ever  met  in  Washington.  At  the  very  greatest,  six 
per  cent  of  the  business  before  it  cannot  be  trans- 
acted." 

This  account,  with  variations,  is  a  true  rep- 
resentation of  the  workings  of  our  Congress 
during  the  past  fifty  years.  It  is  the  most 
cumbrous  of  all  machines  intended  "how 
not  to  do  it."  Necessarily  composed  main- 
ly of  politicians  successful  enough  to  secure 
their  election,  but  guiltless  of  statecraft,  and 
with  neither  the  desire  nor  qualification  to 
serve  the  people  in  a  business  sense,  while 
their  only  anxiety  is  to  make  their  temporary 
power  the  means  of  fortune  or  subsequent 
office  for  themselves,  Congress  has  never 
contained  a  majority  of  members  who  were 
fitted  to  render  efficient  service  to  the  peo- 
ple. So  its  history  has  been  a  long  narrative 
of  inefficiency  and  often  of  national  disgrace. 
It  scolded  for  thirty  years  over  slavery,  to  the 
serious  neglect  of  public  interests,  but  with- 
out settling  the  question  of  the  negro  oth- 
erwise than  by  the  fugitive  slave  law  and 
the  repeal  of  the  Missouri  compromise.  It 
received  the  money  for  the  French  Spoliation 
Claims  some  time  in  the  twenties,  but  never 
passed  any  measure  for  its  distribution  until 
the  last  session,  when  doubtless  all  the  origi- 


392 


Thoughts  towards  Revising  the  Federal  Constitution. 


[Oct. 


nal  claimants  are  dead.  It  has  neglected 
the  Navy  ever  since  the  war  of  1812,  save 
during  the  four  years  of  Civil  War,  until  it 
has  now  become  practically  extinct,  except 
as  an  annual  charge  to  the  Treasury.  It 
has,  during  twenty  years,  so  neglected  the 
Merchant  Marine  that  only  a  million  and  a 
quarter  of  tons  of  sailing  vessels  now  fly  the 
American  flag  in  the  foreign  trade,  being  just 
one  tenth  of  England's  fleet,  which  ours  nearly 
equalled  in  1855.  And  when,  after  years  of 
agitation,  the  Dingley  law  was  passed  by  the 
last  Congress,  it  was  careful  not  to  touch  the 
vitals  of  the  question.  It  has  so  neglected 
the  fortifications  of  the  country  that  we  have 
not  now  a  single  gun  anywhere  capable  of 
injuring  a  first-class  iron-clad,  nor  any  foun- 
dry capable  of  making  such  a  gun.  Every 
one  of  our  rich  seaboard  cities  is  therefore  at 
the  mercy  of  any  power  possessing  iron-clad 
ships  of  war.  It  stole  the  Geneva  award 
money  from  those  claimants  in  whose  name 
and  for  whose  use  it  was  obtained,  and  gave 
it  to  those  whose  claims  had  been  expressly 
denied  by  the  Commissioners,  thereby  doub- 
ling the  future  rates  of  war  premiums  on 
American  vessels,  as  compared  with  those  of 
other  flags.  It  has  always  neglected  the  pro- 
tection of  American  citizens  abroad,  so  that, 
except  in  England,  they  have  almost  aban- 
doned such  foreign  residence  as  is  necessary 
to  foreign  commerce  ;  and  the  commerce  has 
become  almost  extinct.  It  has  never  shown 
the  slightest  disposition  to  check  the  flow  of 
pauperism  from  Europe,  though  during  two 
decades  the  institutions  of  the  country  have 
been  steadily  undermined,  especially  in  the 
cities,  by  the  ignorant,  prejudiced,  thought- 
less, and  mercenary  votes  of  foreigners.  It 
has  allowed  the  French  to  get  possession  of 
the  Isthmus  of  Panama,  from  whence  they 
will  presently  dominate  our  Pacific  Coast 
commerce,  unless  we  buy  or  drive  them  out 
— in  either  case  at  a  cost  of  hundreds  of  mil- 
lions. It  has  proved  for  years  unable  or  un- 
willing to  cope  with  financial  questions,  so  as 
to  settle  definitely  the  relations  of  gold  and 
silver  coinage,  and  relieve  the  people  from  a 
weight  of  taxation  nearly  double  the  needs 
of  the  country.  It  has  for  years  neglected 


the  reorganization  of  the  Supreme  Court, 
until  the  average  appellant  must  await  the 
decision  of  preceding  cases,  accumulated  five 
years  deep.  It  has  always  failed  in  its  treat- 
ment of  the  Indians,  though  never  in  filling 
the  pocket  of  the  "Indian  ring."  It  has 
wholly  failed  to  exercise  its  exclusive  powers 
in  regulating  interstate  commerce,  notwith- 
standing the  numerous  and  clear  definitions 
of  those  powers  by  the  Supreme  Court — 
though  it  has  stretched  its  powers  to  create 
interstate  monopolies.  And  so  difficult  has 
it  become  to  procure  any  legislation  of  a  pub- 
lic nature,  in  which  there  is  neither  a  private 
fee  nor  political  capital  for  the  members,  that 
the  people  are  now  content  to  suffer  for  a 
generation,  as  Californians  have  done  over 
the  Chinese  question,  from  causes  that  a  wise 
and  patriotic  Congress  could  remove  in  a  few 
weeks  or  months  of  close  attention  to  busi- 
ness. 

Meantime,  the  grinding  out  of  private  bills 
goes  on  ! 

In  our  own  State  we  have  found  means  to 
restrict  the  powers  of  the  Legislature  to  the 
passage  of  general  and  public  measures. 
The  result  has  been  the  reduction  of  the  bi- 
ennial volume  of  statutes  from  one  thousand 
octavo  to  three  hundred  and  fifty  duodecimo 
pages.  One  direction  for  Congressional  re- 
form is  herein  indicated.  But  other  changes 
in  the  material,  the  methods,  and  powers  of 
that  now  dangerous  and  treacherous  branch 
of  the  Government  are  imperatively  de- 
manded, unless  the  whole  framework  of  our 
Constitution  is  to  be  allowed  to  break  down 
by  the  failure  of  its  legislative  department. 

This  brings  us  to  the  fifth  of  our  sugges- 
tions, which  expresses  the  idea  so  admirably 
brought  out  by  Woodrow  Wilson,  of  Johns 
Hopkins  University,  in  his  article  on  "  Com- 
mittee or  Cabinet  Government,"  in  the  OVER- 
LAND MONTHLY  of  January,  1884.  That  arti- 
cle is  worthy  of  the  best  writer  in  the  Feder- 
alist. Mr.  Wilson — after  narrating,  from  per- 
sonal observation,  the  faulty  workings  of  the 
present  Committee  system,  in  its  secrecy,  its 
lack  of  personal  or  party  responsibility,  its 
customary  indifference  to  the  recommenda- 
tions of  the  President,  and  its  general  subser- 


1885.] 


Thoughts  towards  Revising  the  Federal  Constitution. 


393 


viency  to  the  interests  of  corrupt  politicians, 
instead  of  those  of  the  people — proceeds  in 
this  language  : 

"  Cabinet  Government  "  is  government  by 
means  of  an  executive  ministry  chosen  by 
the  chief  magistrate  of  the  nation  from  the 
ranks  of  the  legislative  majority — a  ministry 
sitting  in  the  Legislature,  and  acting  as  its  Ex- 
ecutive Committee ;  directing  its  business, 
and  leading  its  debates ;  representing  the 
same  party  and  the  same  principles,  bound 
together  by  a  sense  of  responsibility  and 
loyalty  to  the  party  to  which  it  belongs,  and 
subject  to  removal  whenever  it  forfeits  the 
confidence  or  loses  the  support  of  the  body 
it  represents.  Its  establishment  in  the  United 
States  would  be  impossible  without  the  addi- 
tion of  four  words  in  Section  vi.,  Article  i., 
of  the  Constitution,  so  as  to  make  the  last 
clause  thereof  read  :  '  And  no  person  hold- 
ing any  (other  than  a  Cabinet)  office  under 
the  United  States,  shall  be  a  member  of  either 
House,  during  his  continuance  in  office.'  .  .  . 
Those  four  words  being  added  to  the  Consti- 
tution, the  President  might  be  authorized  and 
directed  to  choose  for  his  Cabinet  the  lead- 
ers of  the  ruling  majority  in  Congress.  That 
Cabinet  might,  on  condition  of  acknowledg- 
ing its  tenure  of  office  as  dependent  on  the 
favor  of  the  Houses,  be  allowed  to  assume 
those  privileges  of  initiation  in  legislation 
and  leadership  in  debate  which  are  now 
given  by  an  almost  equal  distribution  to  the 
Standing  Committees ;  and  Cabinet  Govern- 
ment would  be  instituted." 

Mr.  Wilson  continues  :  "  Cabinet  Govern- 
ment would  put  the  necessary  bit  in  the 
mouth  of  beast  caucus,  and  reduce  him  to 
his  proper  service,  for  it  would  secure  open- 
doored  government.  It  would  not  suffer  leg- 
islation to  skulk  in  committee  closets  and 
caucus  conferences.  Light  is  the  only  thing 
that  can  sweeten  our  political  atmosphere  : 
light  thrown  upon  every  detail  of  adminis- 
tration in  the  departments:  light  diffused 
through  every  passage  of  policy  ;  light  blazed 
full  upon  every  feature  of  legislation ;  light 
that  can  penetrate  every  recess  or  corner  in 
which  any  intrigue  might  hide;  light  that 
will  open  to  view  the  innermost  chambers  of 


Government,  drive  away  all  darkness  from 
the  Treasury  vaults,  illuminate  foreign  cor- 
respondence, explore  national  dockyards, 
search  out  the  obscurities  of  Indian  affairs, 
display  the  working  of  justice,  exhibit  the 
management  of  the  Army,  play  upon  the  sails 
of  the  Navy,  and  follow  the  distribution  of 
the  mails;  and  of  such  light  Cabinet  Govern- 
ment would  be  a  constant  and  plentiful 
source." 

The  limits  of  this  essay  will  not  permit  full 
elucidation  of  this  subject,  so  ably  treated  by 
Mr.  Wilson.  It  is,  however,  surprising  that 
so  thoughtful  a  paper  should  have  apparently 
found  so  few  readers,  and  it  would  be  equally 
surprising  under  any  other  Government  than 
ours,  if  the  writer  were  not  sought  out,  and 
placed  in  some  public  position,  where  he 
might  have  the  opportunity,  as  he  has  the 
talent  and  the  will,  to  serve  the  people  to 
good  purpose.  But  of  such  are  not  the  king- 
dom of  politicians  !  . 

If  we  were  to  adopt  this  English  method 
of  ministerial  appointment,  why  would  not 
the  expectation  of  a  seat  in  the  Cabinet,  ac- 
companied as  it  would  be  by  the  heavy  re- 
sponsibility of  reducing  party  platforms  and 
pledges  to  practice,  compel  the  selection  of 
candidates  for  Congress  from  among  the 
very  ablest  and  best  men  of  all  parties  ? 
Why  would  not  the  new  field  thus  opened  to 
political  ambition  be  speedily  occupied  by  a 
class  of  minds  far  superior  to  the  average 
legislative  material  of  today  ? 

Our  sixth  suggestion  expresses  the  idea 
that,  whether  the  introduction  of  Cabinet 
Government  would  improve  the  breed  of 
Congressmen  or  not,  an  amendment  of  the 
Constitution  should  make  sure  of  this  mat- 
ter by  raising  the  standard  of  qualification  of 
members  of  the  legislative  branch.  No  man 
educated  out  of  the  United  States  should 
ever  be  delegated  to  make  laws  for  America; 
and  a  people  which  has  done  and  is  doing  so 
much  for  universal  education,  should  prove 
its  conviction  of  the  value  thereof  by  refus- 
ing to  be  governed  by  any  but  the  most 
thoroughly  educated  men.  The  principle  of 
special  education  as  a  qualification  for  spe- 
cial duties  is  now  recognized  in  the  army,  the 


394 


Thoughts  towards  Revising  the  Federal  Constitution. 


[Oct. 


navy,  in  the  practice  of  the  law,  in  the  judi- 
ciary, in  medicine,  surgery,  and  dentistry,  in 
the  schools  and  in  the  church.  Why  should 
it  not  be  extended  to  the  highest  department 
of  the  Government?  Why  should  not  free 
colleges  be  established  by  law  in  every  State 
as  schools  for  statesmen,  wherein  history, 
political  economy,  finance,  political  and  so- 
cial science,  diplomacy,  moral  philosophy, 
public  law,  and  all  the  art  and  science  of 
government  on  American  and  patriotic  prin- 
ciples, should  be  the  curriculum  ;  and  whose 
graduates,  carefully  trained  in  the  old  Roman 
ideas  of  patriotism  and  public  spirit,  should 
alone  be  eligible  to  legislative  office  ?  Would 
not  that  be  a  long  step  in  the  direction  of 
legislative  reform  ? 

Is  it  not  a  strange  anomaly  that  in  this  na- 
tion, which  is  spending  more  for  popular  ed- 
ucation than  any  other  that  ever  existed, 
public  office  (except  so  far  as  the  recent 
Civil  Service  Reform  movement  affects  sub- 
ordinate places  in  the  executive  departments) 
is  the  only  position  for  which  no  educational 
qualification  is  required  ?  Is  it  not  absurd 
that  nominating  conventions  everywhere 
name  their  best  men  for  executive  places, 
where,  their  every  duty  being  prescribed  by 
law,  they  have  no  discretion  as  to  what  to  do, 
but  are,  as  it  were,  only  the  people's  clerks — 
put  there  to  obey  orders — while  the  men  who 
are  to  give  the  orders,  and  manage  the  busi- 
ness by  making  the  laws,  are  generally  the 
tail  of  every  ticket,  selected  from  unknown, 
ignorant,  foreign-born,  or  even  positively  vi- 
cious, material,  and  having  no  higher  knowl- 
edge of  their  duties,  no  purer  notion  of  pa- 
triotism, than  to  obey  "  the  boss  "  or  sell  their 
votes  for  coin  ?  The  idea  of  the  fathers  on 
this  subject  was,  that  the  good  sense  of  the 
voter  would  naturally  seek  the  very  best  men 
for  the  rulers  of  the  nation,  just  as  they 
would  select  servants  and  agents  in  their 
private  business  from  the  best  available  tal- 
ent. They  expected  "the  office  to  seek  the 
man,"  not  "  the  man  the  office."  They  re- 
garded public  service  as  an  honor,  not  a  mat- 
ter of  bargain  and  sale.  In  their  view  the 
office-holder  was  a  public  servant  not  a  fa- 
vored being,  who,  by  the  lucky  chance  of  an 


election,  acquired  a  title  to  certain  powers 
and  emoluments,  as  if  he  had  drawn  a  prize 
in  a  lottery,  or  made  a  good  speculation. 
How  have  the  early  ideas  been  forgotten  dur- 
ing the  last  fifty  years  !  How  can  this  nation 
expect  to  compete  with  the  splendid  brain 
power  which  European  nations  place  at  the 
head  of  their  governments,  when  the  boiling 
of  our  political  pot  throws  the  solid  elements 
of  society  always  to  the  bottom,  and  forces 
only  the  scum  to  the  top  ?  How  can  we 
change  the  fatal  condition  of  things,  unless 
the  qualification  of  candidates  for  legislative 
offices  be  so  raised,  that  "beast  caucus"  shall 
no  longer  be  able  to  fill  them  with  ignorance 
and  vice,  and  so  that  whoever  is  elected  will 
necessarily  be  intelligent  and  capable,  and 
almost  certainly  honest  and  faithful. 

Our  seventh  suggestion  will  strike  many 
readers  as  startling,  or  perhaps,  as  merely 
speculative.  But  the  political  scientist  must 
work  on  the  materials  furnished  to  his  hand 
by  humanity  as  it  exists,  not  as  he  may  think 
it  ought  to  exist.  We  have  before  remarked 
on  the  lessened  necessity  now  existing  to  re- 
spect the  political  autonomy  of  the  States,  as 
compared  with  a  century  ago.  So  far  as  the 
United  States  Senate  is  concerned,  capital 
has  already  set  its  eye  upon  it,  as  its  future 
stronghold  against  radicalism  in  the  House, 
which,  as  the  more  popular  body,  is  liable  to 
reflect  the  anti-monopoly  views  of  the  labor- 
ing masses.  There  are  now  twenty-two  mil- 
lionaires in  the  Federal  Senate.  Our  own 
last  Senatorial  election  shows  the  power  of 
wealth  in  the  field.  In  other  States  the  office 
is  becoming  more  and  more  liable  to  be  sold 
to  the  highest  bidder.  Such  is  bound  to  be 
the  future  tendency,  and  it  is  useless  to  deny 
it.  For  the  great  source  of  power  in  all  mod- 
ern nations  is  wealth.  What  is  the  use  of 
trying  to  ignore  that  power,  while  deluding 
ourselves  with  the  fiction  of  manhood  suf- 
frage ?  Grant  that  the  ballot  expresses  the 
will  of  the  man  who  drops  it,  what  influences 
that  will,  in  the  average  voter,  so  powerfully 
as  his  own  interest — the  same  motive  which 
prompts  all  his  other  acts  as  a  business  man 
every  day  and  hour  of  his  working  life? 
Wealth,  being  now  the  mainspring  of  every 


1885.] 


Thoughts  towards  Revising  the  Federal  Constitution. 


395 


social  movement,  will  have  its  way,  whether 
recognized  constitutionally  or  not.  It  does 
have  its  way,  and  every  one  knows  it !  All 
attempts  to  curb  the  fifty  billions  of  Ameri- 
can capital  by  legislation,  while  it  is  not  con- 
stitutionally represented  in  the  Government, 
must  continue  to  fail,  as  they  have  always 
failed.  The  result  of  the  present  system  is  to 
force  capital  to  attain  its  ends  corruptly,  and 
in  so  doing,  it  is  the  factor  in  all  the  political 
rascality  of  which  the  whole  country  com- 
plains. 

The  question  is :  Is  it  better  to  deny  wealth 
any  legal  representation  in  the  Government 
at  the  cost  of  universal  political  demoraliza- 
tion, as  at  present,  or  to  preserve  the  integ- 
rity of  the  people  at  the  cost  of  conferring 
upon  wealth  a  legal  standing  in  the  Govern- 
ment ?  Is  it  better  to  pack  legislatures  with 
scoundrels,  and  maintain  the  lobby  at  the 
doors  of  every  State  House,  session  after  ses- 
sion, for  the  purpose  of  carrying  out  the  be- 
hests of  capital  for  coin,  or  to  honestly  and 
openly  recognize  the  undying  conflict  be- 
tween labor  and  capital,  by  assigning  one 
house  to  each  in  every  legislative  body? 
Would  not  wealth,  thus  made  politically  re- 
spectable, and  placed  in  position  to  protect 
itself  honestly,  be  deprived  of  all  motive  for 
secret  corruption  ?  Would  the  nation  suffer 
any  more  from  its  recognized  dominance  in 
Government,  than  it  now  does  through  the 
same  dominance  in  business,  over  the  entire 
wage-working  class;  than  it  now  does  from 
the  uncontrollable  power  of  capital  in  poli- 
tics, through  "  ways  that  are  dark  and  tricks 
that  are  vain  ? "  The  water  that  springs 
from  the  soil  in  a  level  country  (and  a  re- 
public is  a  political  level)  spreads  over  all 
the  ground,  converting  it  into  quagmire,  de- 
stroying its  usefulness  to  man  and  beast,  and 
filling  the  air  with  noxious  malaria.  But  con- 
fine the  water  in  tight  reservoirs,  conduct  it 
in  canals,  flumes,  and  pipes,  and  we  reclaim 
the  land  and  purify  the  air ;  we  gain  control 
of  the  power  and  all  the  other  uses  by  which 
water  is  beneficent  to  man.  Is  it  not  so  with 
capital  as  a  factor  in  politics  ? 

Our  eighth  suggestion  differs  from  several 
of  the  preceding,  insomuch  that  a  large  por- 


tion of  the  people  are  already  prepared  to 
sustain  it.  The  effect  of  the  wholesale  im- 
migration of  the  lower  and  more  ignorant 
classes  of  foreigners  into  our  country  has 
been  two-fold.  In  the  economical  sense,  we 
have  greatly  gained  in  wealth  from  the  in- 
crease in  the  number  of  the  laboring  and  pro- 
ducing classes  ;  but  in  the  social  and  politi- 
cal sense,  we  have  greatly  suffered  from  the 
vast  concourse  of  foreign-born  people,  whose 
presence  has  changed  or  ignored  the  once 
prevailing  American  ideas.  We  have  taken 
in  this  foreign  element  faster  than  we  can  as- 
similate it.  Consequently,  wherever  it  pre- 
ponderates, as  in  most  of  the  large  cities,  it 
has  crowded  the  American  element  out  of 
the  control  of  public  affairs,  and  fostered  boss- 
ism,  corruption,  and  fraud  to  such  an  extent 
that  municipal  government  in  the  United 
States  is  generally  conceded  to  be  a  failure. 
Moreover,  public  lands  of  good  quality, 
throughout  our  vast  domain,  have  been  be- 
coming scarce  for  some  years.  We  have 
now  none  to  spare  for  the  pauper  classes  of 
Europe.  We  have  not  enough  left  to  sup- 
ply the  demands  of  our  own  young  men  for 
more  than  two  more  generations.  Why, 
then,  continue  to  sell  or  give  lands  and  pro- 
vide money  to  half  a  million  of  foreign  im- 
migrants per  annum  ?  We  have  begun  a  par- 
tial exclusion  of  the  Chinese  ;  why  not  now 
announce  to  the  world  that  we  propose  to 
Americanize  our  present  foreign-born  popu- 
lation by  one  or  two  generations  of  purely 
American  breeding  and  education,  before  ad- 
mitting any  more  ;  and  relieve  our  institu- 
tions, our  society,  and  our  public  sentiment 
of  the  strain  we  have  hitherto  borne,  before 
it  wrenches  the  national  structure  entirely 
out  of  its  original  shape  ? 

To  be  sure,  Congress  has  now  the  power, 
with  the  concurrence  of  the  President,  as  the 
head  of  the  treaty-making  power,  to  act  in  this 
matter.  But  so  long  as  Congressmen  are 
composed  of  the  present  material,  and  for- 
eigners are  convertible  into  citizens,  just  so 
long  will  subserviency  to  the  foreign  vote 
forestall  any  action  whatever  by  machine  pol- 
iticians. Nothing  short  of  an  amendment 
to  the  Constitution  will  accomplish  the  ob- 


396 


Thoughts  towards  Revising  the  Federal  Constitution. 


[Oct. 


ject.  Even  this  would  be  apt  to  remain  un- 
enforced,  unless  it  were  coupled  with  a  pro- 
vision that  after  its  adoption  no  foreign-born 
person  could,  under  any  circumstances,  be- 
come a  citizen,  or  eligible  to  any  office  what- 
ever in  the  Federal,  State,  or  municipal  gov- 
ernments. If  such  were  now  the  law  of  the 
land,  would  it  not  act  like  the  broom  of  Her- 
cules in  the  cleaning  of  the  Augean  stables 
of  political  corruption,  especially  in  our  cit- 
ies? 

Our  eighth  suggestion  is,  that  by  constitu- 
tional provision  the  present  system  of  treat- 
ment of  the  Indians  should  be  done  away 
with,  and  the  Indians  be  vested  with  the  same 
rights,  subjected  to  the  same  laws,  and  re- 
quired to  discharge  the  same  duties,  as  white 
men  and  negroes.  If  Indians  be  men,  why 
all  this  exceptional  sentimentalism  in  their 
governmental  relations,  which  tends  only  to 
keep  all  their  manly  faculties  undeveloped  ? 
Why  maintain  the  tribal  organization  in  the 
midst  of  the  Republic  ?  Why  allot  to  the 
tribe,  in  reservation,  ten  or  twenty  times  as 
much  land,  per  caput,  as  is  required  for  the 
maintenance  of  a  white  family,  while  at  the 
same  time  the  owners  are  not  allowed  to  di- 
vide it,  or  sell  it,  and  seldom  cultivate  it,  be- 
cause, for  want  of  individual  ownership  in 
the  land,  the  inducement  to  labor  for  the 
acquisition  of  property  is  wanting?  Why 
tax  the  industrious  white  to  supply  food  and 
clothing  to  the  idle  Indian  ?  Why  maintain 
a  system  of  agencies  for  the  distribution  of 
supplies — a  system  full  of  fraud,  resulting 
often  in  hardship  to  the  Indians,  whose  food 
and  clothing  are  of  the  poorest,  though  the 
best  be  paid  for  them,  or  misappropriated 
altogether  by  the  thieves  who  handle  them  ? 
Would  it  not  be  far  more  humane  to  the  sav- 
ages, and  more  just  to  the  rest  of  the  nation, 
that  the  Indians  should  be  allowed  or  obliged 
to  divide  up  their  lands  in  severally,  be  taught 
as  others  are  taught,  be  vested  with  the 
franchise,  encouraged  to  scatter  themselves 
among  the  people,  and  left  to  earn  their  own 
living  like  other  people?  The  best  of  them 
would  hail  such  a  change  with  acclamation, 

1  See  article  on  the  subject  by  E.  W.  McGraw,  in  THE 
OVERLAND  MONTHLY. 


and  would  soon  become  good  citizens ;  the 
worst  would  soon  die  out,  as  lazy  whites  and 
negroes  perish,  without  exciting  the  compas- 
sionate sensibilities  of  Boston  or  Chautauqua. 
"  If  a  man  will  not  work,  neither  shall  he  eat  ?  " 
Why  should  the  Indian  be  the  only  excep- 
tion to  the  rule,  or  to  the  old  couplet : 

"Satan  finds  some  mischief  still 
For  idle  hands  to  do." 

Why  would  not  the  same  necessity  for  indus- 
trial exertion,  the  same  responsibilities,  duties, 
and  cares,  produce  the  same  result  in  the 
development  of  an  Indian's  faculties  that  is 
common  with  everybody  else  ?  If  not,  then 
is  he  not  a  man,  but  a  brute ;  and  there  is 
clearly  no  necessity  for  keeping  him  alive  by 
taxation  of  the  industrious  classes,  and  under 
such  conditions  that  the  existence  of  one  In- 
dian often  excludes  a  thousand  whites  from 
the  soil  that  could  be  made  to  support  them. 

Our  tenth  and  last  suggestion  is  a  very  old 
one:  We  have  now  too  many  elections.  The 
enormous  business  of  our  vast  country  suffers 
a  partial  paralysis  every  fourth  year.  The 
danger  that  a  change  in  administration  may 
result  in  a  change  in  the  tariff,  currency, 
coinage,  internal  revenue,  or  foreign  affairs, 
affects  every  merchant  in  the  land,  curtails 
business,  produces  contraction  and  failures, 
and  is  attended  by  no  corresponding  benefit. 
That  eight  years  is  really  preferred  for  the 
presidential  term  by  the  people  is  shown  by 
the  fact,  that  out  of  our  fifteen  Presidents, 
seven  have  been  reflected,  while  in  other 
instances  the  attempt  has  often  been  made 
either  to  nominateor  reeled  the  retiring  Pres- 
ident. 

Again,  the  affairs  of  our  great  country  have 
become  so  complicated  that  it  is  utterly  im- 
possible for  any  but  the  most  able  of  our 
office-holders  and  Congressmen  to  acquire 
sufficient  familiarity  with  his  manifold  duties 
early  enough  in  his  present  short  term  of  office 
to  be  of  any  use  to  his  constituents.  A  Repre- 
sentative is  elected  for  two  years.  It  takes 
all  of  the  first  year  so  to  accustom  him  to  his 
place,  as  to  embolden  him  to  take  any  promi- 
nent part  in  the  business  of  the  House.  Dur- 
ing the  second  year  his  principal  concern  is 


1885.] 


Thoughts  towards  Revising  the  Federal  Constitution. 


397 


to  secure  his  own  reelection.  Failing  in  this, 
he  goes  out,  and  a  new  man  takes  his  place, 
to  go  through  the  same  experience.  How 
can  the  public  business  receive  proper  atten- 
tion under  such  a  system  ?  This  is  one  prom- 
inent reason  why  less  and  less  business  seems 
to  be  transacted  by  each  successive  Congress. 
For,  as  the  nation  becomes  more  and  more 
populous  and  wealthy,  so  is  the  consequence 
of  every  Act  of  Congress  more  widely  and 
deeply  felt.  Hence  greater  slowness  and  re- 
luctance to  act  on  the  part  of  green  men, 
who,  if  at  all  conscientious,  must  be  over- 
whelmed by  a  sense  of  responsibility,  and  a 
painful  consciousness  of  ignorance  on  the 
thousand  questions  which  they  are  tttfled  to 
decide.  Give  these  men  a  term  of  six  years, 
and  the  nation  could  afford  the  loss  of  one- 
sixth  of  the  term  to  be  spent  in  their  educa- 
tion, better  than  it  can  of  half  the  term  as  at 
present. 

For  similar  reasons,  the  term  of  United 
States  Senators  should  be  extended  to  ten 
years. 

For  the  purpose  of  depriving  all  political 
parties  of  the  powerful  assistance  of  office- 
holders in  place — as  well  as  of  preventing  the 
time  of  office-holders  (which  belongs  to  the 
people)  from  being  spent  on  party  politics, 
with  a  view  to  perpetuating  their  own  incum- 
bency— the  Constitution  should  prevent  the 
reelection  of  any  officers  having  patronage  to 
bestow. 

It  is  another  old  suggestion,  that  as  the 
mode  provided  in  the  present  Constitution 
for  the  election  of  a  President  has  not  been 
really  enforced  since  Jefferson's  time,  the 
electoral  college  should  be  abolished,  and 
the  election  of  President  be  made  directly 
by  the  people,  and  decided  in  accordance 
with  the  majority  of  the  entire  vote,  without 
reference  to  State  lines.  Also,  now  that  as- 
sassination has  twice  removed  the  President, 
that  at  least  three  Vice-Presidents  should  be 
elected  instead  of  one,  and  the  order  of  their 
succession  prescribed.  The  matter  of  pro- 
viding some  more  perfect  mode  than  the 
present  for  guarding  the  nation  against  the 
perils  that  might  ensue  upon  the  death  or 
disability  of  both  President  and  Vice-Presi- 


dent, has  been  before  Congress  since  the 
death  of  President  Garfield,  but,  of  course, 
nothing  has  been  done.  Will  any  public  bus- 
iness be  promptly  and  properly  transacted 
while  Congress  is  organized  as  at  present  ? 

We  may  thus  amuse  ourselves  by  specu- 
lation as  to  what  changes  in  the  Federal  Com 
stitution  would  benefit  the  people,  and  make 
our  Government  more  nearly  conform  to  the 
needs  of  our  great  and  growing  nation.  But 
cui  bono  ?  We  must  remember  : 

i st.  That  the  modes  of  amendment  pre- 
scribed in  the  present  instrument  are  two : 
one  whereof  requires  the  concurrence  of  two- 
thirds  of  both  houses  of  Congress,  and  sub- 
sequent ratification  by  the  Legislatures  of 
three-fourths  of  the  States;  the  other  con- 
templates a  convention  to  be  called  together 
on  the  application  of  the  Legislatures  of  two- 
thirds  of'the  States,  with  subsequent  ratifica- 
tion of  its  work  by  the  Legislatures  of  three- 
fourths  of  the  States. 

2d.  That  all  of  the  members,  whether  of 
Congress  or  the  State  Legislatures,  must,  of 
course,  be  politicians,  the  majority  of  whom 
are  not  to  be  expected  to  feel  any  common 
impulse  to  curtail  their  own  power  and  emol- 
uments, merely  to  benefit  the  people. 

3d.  That  thus  no  provision  exists  for  the 
amendment  of  the  Constitution,  except  by 
and  through  the  action  of  the  politicians, 
which  action  will  never  be  taken  except  for 
party  purposes,  or  in  compliance  with  active, 
determined,  and  prolonged  public  agitation, 
or  in  the  presence  of  some  great  emergency 
like  that  which  secured  the  fourteenth  and 
fifteenth  amendments.  Certainly,  it  is  not  to 
be  anticipated  that  three-fourths  or  two-thirds 
of  the  politicians  in  all  the  States  who  may 
be  in  power  at  any  one  time,  will  commit 
such  an  act  of  treason  against  their  own 
wicked  class  as  to  vote  in  favor  of  either  a 
convention  or  separate  amendments,  whose 
object  was  to  benefit  the  people  at  the  ex- 
pense of  the  "machine." 

There  being,  then,  no  public  outcry  in  fa- 
vor of  amending  the  organic  law,  and  less 
probability  of  unanimity  among  the  leaders 
of  opinion  as  to  the  amendments  that  ought 
to  be  made  as  the  population  grows  larger 


398 


The  JRancheria  Affair. 


[Oct. 


and  its  wants  more  varied;  there  being,  also, 
no  method  of  calling  a  convention  except  by 
the  action  of  the  politicians,  and  an  enormous 
vis  inertia  in  the  masses  of  the  people  to  re- 
inforce the  conservatism  of  those  who  prefer 
to  bear  the  ills  they  have  rather  than  to  "fly 
to  others  that  they  know  not  of,"  it  is  not 
now  apparent  when  or  how  a  revision  of  the 
Constitution  is  likely  to  be  undertaken,  or 
what  complexion  would  be  given  to  the  work 
by  such  a  convention  as  the  politicians  would 
be  sure  to  pack  for  their  own  selfish  pur- 


poses. Moreover,  the  country  is  full  of  com- 
munists, socialists,  advocates  of  woman  suf- 
frage, agrarians,  and  cranks,  whose  every 
effort  would  be  concentrated  upon  such  an 
opportunity  to  realize  their  peculiar  views  in 
the  fundamental  law.  To  attempt  a  revis- 
ion, therefore,  would  be  full  of  peril  and  prob- 
abilities of  failure.  Meantime,  the  boy's 
jacket  still  clings  to  the  limbs  of  the  full- 
grown  young  giant.  Will  it  fit  any  better 
when  he  reaches  the  obesity  of  middle  or 
old  age  ? 

C.  T.  Hopkins. 


THE   RANCHERIA  AFFAIR. 


THE  establishing  of  law  and  order  in  the 
gold  regions,  with  such  a  heterogeneous  mass 
of  humanity,  has  always  been  a  source  of 
pride  to  Californians,  as  proving  the  ability 
for  self-government.  The  fact  that  Congress 
tacitly,  if  not  officially,  recognized  the  laws 
and  regulations  enacted  by  the  miners,  and 
that  interests  involving  millions  of  dollars 
were  settled  in  accordance  with  miners'  law, 
proves  an  innate  sense  of  justice  in  the  mass 
of  the  people  who  so  suddenly  occupied  the 
Pacific  slope.  Every  camp  had  its  written 
laws  regarding  the  method  of  obtaining  and 
working  mining  ground,  water  rights,  etc., 
which  were  introduced  into  court,  and  re- 
ceived as  evidence  of  custom.  Many  of  these 
were  drawn  with  as  much  care  as  the  laws 
enacted  by  a  legislative  body.  So  far  as 
miners'  civil  jurisprudence  was  concerned, 
there  was  little  to  complain  of. 

The  case  was  different,  however,  when  the 
people  undertook  to  manage  criminal  mat- 
ters. The  administration  of  justice  was 
strangely  mixed  with  punishment,  vengeance, 
and  a  love  of  blood — for  the  disposition  of  a 
considerable  part  of  a  community  to  engage 
in  the  destruction  of  life  cannot  have  a  better 
name  than  this  last.  Prudence  and  justice 
seem  to  have  been  habitually  put  aside  in 
the  excitement  following  an  atrocious  mur- 
der— or  even  a  lesser  crime ;  for  the  stealing 
of  a  sum  as  small  as  fifty  dollars  was  made, 


in  obedience  to  public  opinion,  a  capital 
offense,  though,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  no  Cali- 
fornia court  ever  punished  theft  with  death. 
It  was  common  enough  in  the  mines,  and 
even  on  the  ranches,  to  hang  for  highway  rob- 
bery, or  for  the  stealing  of  cattle  and  horses. 
In  most  cases,  especially  where  murder  had 
been  openly  committed,  substantial  justice 
was  administered.  When  the  grade  of  the 
crime  was  uncertain,  or  accompanied  with 
mitigating  circumstances,  the  accused  was 
generally  turned  over  to  the  courts. 

One  of  the  most  repulsive  and  unprofitable 
features  of  lynch  law  was  the  prominence  it 
gave  to  that  class  of  people  who  are  always 
on  the  ragged  edge  of  crime.  If  a  crime 
had  been  committed,  the  class  referred  to 
were  sure  to  put  themselves  in  the  lead,  ap- 
pearing to  be  the  movers  of  public  opinion, 
instead  of  followers.  Scarcely  an  execution 
took  place,  in  which  the  most  active  partici- 
pants were  not  themselves  of  the  criminal 
class,  and  good  candidates  for  similar  honors 
on  some  future  occasion.  In  1853  a  most 
atrocious  murder  was  committed  by  a  young 
man  named  Messer.  The  victim  was  an  in- 
offensive old  man;  the  motive  was  simply 
a  desire  to  kill  some  one  for  notoriety.  The 
four  young  men  who  then  officiated  as  execu- 
tioners all  came  to  violent  deaths  :  one  was 
slain  in  a  bar-room  quarrel;  one  was  hung  for 
murder,  and  one  for  theft,  the  manner  of  death 


1885.] 


The  Rancheria  Affair. 


399 


of  the  fourth  being  uncertain.  In  this  case,  as 
in  others,  the  men  were  permitted,  rather  than 
put  forward,  to  do  the  work  repugnant  to  all 
good  citizens.  The  prominence  given  them, 
however,  often  resulted  in  a  supposed  right 
to  avenge  imaginary  wrongs,  and  in  the  com- 
mission of  other  crimes. 

One  of  the  most  serious  tragedies  in  the 
history  of  our  State  occurred  in  August, 
1855.  Rancheria,  in  Amador  County,  was 
a  little  town  of  perhaps  two  hundred  inhab- 
itants, the  larger  portion  of  whom  were  of 
the  Spanish  race,  including  Mexicans,  Chil- 
enos,  Peruvians,  etc.  The  town  had  the  in- 
stitutions common  to  all  mining  camps,  such 
as  a  hotel  or  two*  stores,  saloons,  and  fan- 
dango houses,  where  whisky  and  other  com- 
modities were  sold  in  small  quantities  to 
those  who  worked  the  shallow  and  generally 
poor  mines  of  the  neighborhood.  There 
was  no  extensive  mining;  the  Mexican,  with 
his  bataya,  making  two  or  three  dollars  per 
day,  did  the  most  work. 

These  Mexicans  were  a  hard-working  class, 
satisfied  with  a  meager  diet  of  frijoles  and 
tortillas  (beans,  and  thin  bread  baked  on  a 
hot  stone)  and  a  little  aguardiente.  Crimes, 
except  petty  thefts,  were  uncommon  among 
them. 

The  place,  however,  occasionally  had  a  few 
of  the  caballeros  (horsemen),  who,  by  virtue 
of  superior  birth  and  circumstances,  felt  they 
had  a  right  to  the  goods,  and  even  persons, 
of  the  peons,  or  lower  class.  Between  them 
and  all  the  better  class  of  Americans  there 
was  a  wide  gulf  of  hatred,  kept  alive  by  rec- 
ollections of  the  Mexican  war  and  its  results. 
The  caballero  could  not  forget  that  a  few 
years  before  California  was  part  of  his  nation- 
al domain ;  nor  the  American,  that  he  was  a 
conqueror.  The  Mexican  could  offer  his 
neighbors,  the  Americanos,  a  cigarette  with 
the  utmost  politeness,  which,  however,  could 
not  wholly  disguise  his  unmitigated  hatred 
of  the  conqueror,  who  scarcely  ever  failed  to 
hint  in  some  way  a  superiority. 

The  indolent  caballero  had  an  undisguised 
contempt  for  that  restless  energy  which  would 
tear  up  the  ground  like  fiends  to  get  out  the 
gold,  a  condition  of  mind  inconsistent  with 


the  dignity  of  a  high-bred  Castilian.  Cab- 
alleros were  mostly  gamblers  by  profession, 
to  which,  by  an  easy  logical  process,  they 
added  highway  robbery,  when  the  gam- 
bling failed  to  keep  them  in  funds.  Many  a 
traveler,  with  well-filled  purse,  was  lost  on 
the  lonely  trails  between  the  towns  of  Ama- 
dor and  Eldorado  Counties,  and  the  disap- 
pearance was  always  credited  to  the  Spanish 
caballero.  It  was  known  that  members  of 
some  of  the  first  Spanish  families  of  the 
State  had  organized  bands  of  robbers  in 
Southern  California,  to  plunder  the  cattle 
dealers,  who  often  carried  tens  of  thousands 
of  dollars  to  make  their  purchases. 

In  this  town,  however,  the  few  Americans 
had  lived  in  peace  with  the  poor,  laboring 
peons,  and  an  act  of  hostility,  involving  the 
death  of  a  score  or  more  of  victims,  was  to- 
tally unlocked  for. 

The  banditti  who  began  the  series  of  acts 
that  culminated  in  wholesale  murder  and 
hanging,  numbered  about  one  dozen;  of 
whom  one  appeared  to  be  a  negro,  and  one 
a  recalcitrant  American,  the  rest  being  Mexi- 
cans. Some  were  common  vaqueros,  and 
some  were  well  educated,  and  belonged  to 
the  better  class. 

They  were  first  seen  at  a  place  called  Ha- 
calitas,  August  i5th,  where  they  stayed  all 
night.  The  following  day  they  went  towards 
Drytown,  robbing  several  Chinese  camps  on 
the  way,  and  reached  the  town  about  dark. 
Here  some  of  their  own  countrymen  recog- 
nized their  character,  and  put  the  people  on 
their  guard.  A  constable  and  deputy  sheriff, 
who  attempted  to  interview  the  party,  were 
fired  upon  at  sight,  and  a  regular  fusillade  oc- 
curred, the  balls  rattling  against  the  houses  ; 
though,  owing  to  the  darkness,  no  one  was 
injured.  The  robbers,  as  they  proved  to  be, 
withdrew  from  the  town,  moving  towards 
Rancheria,  which  was  about  two  miles  away. 

It  was  now  evident  that  murder  or  rob- 
bery was  intended,  and  that  the  neighboring 
hamlet  was  to  be  the  scene.  Two  or  three 
hours  were  consumed  in  making  up  a  party 
to  follow  them.  Though  but  a  few  years  had 
elapsed  since  the  people  journeyed  across 
the  plains  fully  armed,  it  was  extremely  dif- 


400 


The  -R.ancheria  Affair. 


[Oct. 


ficult  to  procure  a  sufficient  number  of  ser- 
viceable arms  to  cope  with  the  robbers;  and 
when  the  pursuing  party  reached  Rancheria, 
the  town  was  silent  as  a  tomb.  Those  who 
were  not  killed  had  fled,  or  were  hidden 
away.  The  robbers  had  done  their  work  and 
departed. 

A  store  and  hotel  were  gutted,  the  owners 
and  occupants  being  either  killed  or  left  for 
dead.  One  man,  with  both  legs  broken,  and 
otherwise  fatally  wounded,  survived  long 
enough  to  relate  the  story  of  the  murders. 
Six  white  men,  one  woman,  and  an  Indian 
were  killed  outright,  and  several  more  wound- 
ed. 

It  does  not  appear  that  the  banditti  made 
any  further  attacks.  The  alarm  was  spread 
in  every  direction,  by  telegraph  and  messen- 
gers, so  that  the  people  were  everywhere  on 
the  alert,  and  the  robbers  left  the  county, 
traveling  by  night,  and  hiding  by  day.  They 
were  eventually  overtaken  in  the  southern 
part  of  Calaveras  County,  in  the  neighbor- 
hood of  Chinese  Camp. 

The  following  morning,  a  large  number  of 
exasperated  people,  from  all  parts  of  the 
county,  met  at  the  place.  The  sight  of  the 
slain  raised  their  anger  to  the  highest  pitch. 
Some  were  for  an  immediate  war  of  exter- 
mination on  all  the  Spanish  race.  All  the 
males  of  the  place,  numbering  about  seventy, 
were  brought  together,  and  enclosed  in  a  cor- 
ral made  of  ropes.  During  the  early  stage 
of  the  proceedings  a  motion  to  hang  the  en- 
tire lot  was  voted  on  and  carried. 

It  must  not  be  supposed  that  there  were 
no  men  there  of  cool  brain  ;  on  the  contrary, 
there  were  several  present  whose  discretion 
and  judgment  could  be  relied  on.  Of  this 
number  were  two  elderly  men  by  the  name 
of  Hinkson,  and  also  Judge  Curtis.  They 
got  control  of  the  mass  of  people  by  putting 
themselves  in  the  lead,  and  as  they  were  men 
of  character  and  good  standing,  the  people 
trusted  them.  They  did  not  oppose  the 
popular  determination,  but  advised  caution  : 
"  Let  us  hang  none  but  the  guilty."  Finding 
the  guilty  ones  involved  a  trial  of  some  sort, 
and  a  jury  was  selected  and  a  court  organ- 
ized. 


It  may  be  asked,  where  the  legal  officers 
were  during  this  time*  The  sheriff  and  his 
deputies  were  on  the  trail  of  the  real  murder- 
ers, who  had  left  in  a  body,  going  south.  The 
county  court  was  in  session  at  Jackson,  but 
adjourned  at  noon,  in  consequence  of  the 
absence  of  jurors,  witnesses,  complainants, 
and  defendants.  Some  of  the  officers  were 
at  the  place  during  the  day,  after  the  work  of 
the  mob  was  over. 

When  order  had  been  established,  or  at 
least  partly  so,  witnesses  were  heard.  The 
fact  that  the  murderers  came  in  a  body  and 
departed  the  same  way  was  brought  out,  and 
that,  except  for  being  present,  the  mass  of  the 
population  had  nothing  rt>  do  with  the  mur- 
derers. But  victims  must  be  given  up,  and 
three  men  were  found  guilty  on  the  most 
worthless  testimony,  and  sentenced  to  be 
hung.  One  man,  who  remained  shut  up  in 
his  house  during  the  melee,  thought  he  heard 
one  of  them  crying,  "Hurrah  for  Mexico"; 
another  one,  according  to  the  same  testi- 
mony, had  been  seen  to  place  a  light  in  the 
road  in  front  of  his  house,  and  a  third  one 
to  be  running  around  with  the  banditti  dur- 
ing the  time  of  shooting. 

A  famous  temperance  orator,  W.  O.  Clark, 
tried  to  turn  aside  the  wrath  of  the  people ; 
but  they  were  in  no  mood  to  hear  fine  speech- 
es, and  the  threat  of  hanging  him,  also,  sent 
him  away.  A  Mrs.  Ketchum  was  particu- 
larly active  in  stirring  up  the  popular  wrath. 

The  three  victims  were  hung  to  a  tree 
near  by.  One  of  them  was  a  half-witted 
man,  generally  drunk  on  wine,  and  hence 
called  Port  Wine.  He  was  almost  incapable 
of  crime.  Some  victims  were  necessary  to 
satisfy  the  clamor  for  blood.  The  leaders  of 
the  trial  averted  a  greater  slaughter. 

While  the  bodies  were  hanging  to  the  tree, 
a  vote  was  taken,  expelling  the  whole  Mexi- 
can population  from  the  town  or  camp,  four 
hours  being  given  them  in  which  to  leave. 
The  friends  of  the  victims,  in  one  instance  a 
wife,  begged  for  the  bodies,  that  they  might 
bury  them  before  leaving. 

When  the  news  of  the  murders  and  the 
consequent  excitement  spread,  there  hap- 
pened to  be  in  the  county  a  young  educated 


1885.] 


The  Rancheria  Affair. 


401 


Spaniard  by  the  name  of  Borquitas,  who  had 
been  a  private  secretajy  for  General  Vallejo. 
Having  a  knowledge  of  English,  he  thought 
he  might  be  of  service  in  acting  as  mediator 
between  the  people  and  the  accused.  After 
conversing  awhile  with  the  residents  of  the 
camp,  he  expressed  the  opinion  that  none  of 
those  arrested  had  any  part  in  the  murders. 
This  so  enraged  the  people  that  a  proposition 
was  made  to  hang  him.  The  suggestion 
met  with  little  favor ;  but  a  man  who  had 
been  loudest  in  demanding  his  hanging  re- 
marked that  he  would  settle  the  dispute,  and 
reached  for  his  gun,  drawing  it  towards  him 
by  the  muzzle.  It  went  off,  and  a  heavy  load 
of  shot  struck  him  in  the  breast,  producing 
instant  death.  This  accident  caused  so 
much  excitement  that  Borquitas  left  the  dan- 
gerous locality. 

The  Mexicans  all  left  the  camp,  most  of 
them  moving  into  Mile  Gulch,  about  two 
miles  away.  The  day  after  these  affairs,  a 
still  larger  crowd  assembled  at  the  scene  of 
the  murders,  made  more  angry  than  on  the 
first  day  by  exaggerated  rumors  of  more  mur- 
ders, and  a  proposed  insurrection  of  the 
whole  Spanish  race  on  this  Coast.  Though 
a  few  hundreds  of  Americans  had  been  able 
to  conquer  California  in  1846,  the  absurdity 
was  believed,  notwithstanding  the  Ameri- 
cans outnumbered  the  natives  a  hundred  to 
one. 

The  new-comers  destroyed  all  the  huts  of 
the  Mexicans,  as  well  as  all  other  property 
they  could  find.  It  was  resolved  to  drive  all 
of  the  Spanish  race  out  of  the  country.  A 
large  portion  of  the  angry  mob  went  to  the 
gulch  where  the  banished  inhabitants  had 
retired.  Whether  it  was  deliberately  intended 
or  not,  a  general  slaughter  began.  Numbers 
of  Indians  joined  in  the  affray.  Many  Mexi- 
cans were  surprised  in  the  holes  where  they 
were  mining ;  others  were  shot  down  while 
in  flight.  The  Indians,  who  would  have  been 
most  destructive,  were  hindered  in  the  pur- 
suit and  slaughter  by  the  desire  of  plunder, 
tricking  themselves  out  with  the  finery  of 
their  victims. 

The  people  of  other  portions  of  the  coun- 
ty proceeded  to  expel  the  Mexicans.  At 
VOL.  VI.— 26. 


Sutter  Creek,  the  same  extravagant  and  ab- 
surd stories  of  an  insurrection  were  in  circu- 
lation. A  committee  of  safety  was  appointed 
to  provide  means  of  defense.  About  sixty 
Mexicans,  who  were  mining  on  Gopher 
Flat,  were  arrested  and  brought  to  town. 
One  man,  who  was  unfortunate  enough  to 
have  been  in  Rancheria  on  the  night  of 
the  murders,  was  hunted  through  the  camp. 
He  was  found  concealed  beneath  a  pile  of 
clothes  which  were  being  ironed,  and  was 
hung  to  two  wagon  tongues,  elevated  like 
a  letter  A,  the  wagons  being  locked  to  pre- 
vent them  from  running  apart.  The  sixty 
were  compelled  to  take  the  road  out  of  the 
county. 

The  lower  street  of  the  town  was  inhabited 
by  Spanish  shop-keepers,  and  women  and 
children.  They  also  were  compelled  to  leave, 
many  of  them  climbing  over  the  hills  with 
bare  feet.  Other  parties,  self-appointed,  went 
into  the  surrounding  counties,  disarming  all 
the  Mexicans  they  could  find,  and  keeping 
the  arms  themselves. 

The  Spanish-speaking  population  at  Dry- 
town  were  mostly  Chileno ;  hence  the  name 
Chile  Flat,  for  the  portion  of  the  town  where 
they  resided.  Though  speaking  the  same 
language,  the  Chilenos  and  Mexicans  did  not 
intermingle  much,  so  they  could  hardly  be 
even  suspected  of  any  connection  with  the 
Rancheria  affair.  They  had  to  bear  part  of 
the  injustice  meted  to  the  others,  however. 
On  the  following  Sunday,  when  the  excite- 
ment was  supposed  to  have  culminated,  some 
fifteen  or  twenty  men  on  horse-back  came 
into  the  town,  and  made  an  attack  on  Chile 
Flat,  setting  fire  to  the  brush  shanties,  and 
driving  the  people  away.  One  miscreant, 
who  bore  the  name  of  Boston,  set  fire  to 
the  Catholic  church,  which  was  also  de- 
stroyed. 

This  was  the  last  of  the  popular  outbreaks, 
though  a  mass  meeting  was  held  at  Jackson, 
the  county  seat,  where  it  was  proposed  to 
outlaw  the  whole  Mexican  population ;  but 
the  more  thoughtful  part  of  the  people  strong- 
ly opposed  any  such  cruelty,  and  it  was 
abandoned.  During  the  week  of  the  disturb- 
ance, exaggerated  rumors  of  the  numbers  of 


402 


The  Youth  and  Education  of  Napoleon  Bonaparte. 


[Oct. 


the  killed  were  in  circulation.  One  man, 
who  had  the  term  Judge  prefixed  to  his  name, 
boasted  of  having  killed  thirty  Mexicans  with 
his  own  hand.  It  was  ascertained,  however, 
that  the  slain  numbered  only  eight,  which, 
considering  the  general  war  made  on  them, 
was  quite  fortunate. 

I  have  referred  to  the  pursuit  of  the  mur- 
derers. Some  were  killed  in  the  fight  at 
Chinese  Camp,  in  Calaveras  county,  where 
Phoenix,  the  sheriff,  met  his  death.  Three 
were  taken  alive,  and  hung  without  trial  on 
the  famous  hanging  tree  at  Jackson.  The 
matter  of  hanging  without  a  trial  became  so 
notorious,  that  in  one  or  two  instances  the 
officers,  when  arresting  men  on  suspicion  in 
adjoining  counties,  were  prevented  from  tak- 
ing their  prisoners  where  certain  death  await- 
ed them. 

Many  of  the  Mexicans  who  were  expelled 
went  to  Jenny  Lind,  in  Calaveras  county ; 
where,  adopting  to  some  extent  the  habits 
and  industries  of  the  Americans,  they  out- 


lived the  violent  prejudices  which  formerly 
made  life  and  property  so  insecure. 

Thirty  years  have  passed  since  the  fore- 
going events  convulsed  the  country.  Placer 
mining  has  ceased.  The  town  of  brush 
shanties  long  since  ceased  to  exist.  A  quiet 
farm,  with  the  sounds  of  hay-making  and  har- 
vest, occupies  the  site  of  the  tragedy.  A 
small  lot  enclosed  with  a  picket  fence,  a  plain 
slab  or  two,  noting  the  date  of  the  affair,  are 
all  that  is  left  to  remind  the  generation  of 
middle-aged  persons  who  have  come  on  the 
stage  of  action  since,  of  the  horrors  of  thirty 
years  ago. 

Few  are  found  now  to  justify  the  excesses 
of  that  day,  or  even  to  apologize  for  them. 
In  recalling  these  events,  there  is  no  intention 
of  severely  judging  the  pioneers.  They  did 
what  seemed  best  at  that  time,  but  the  ex- 
cesses were  the  usual  results  of  an  appeal  to 
lynch  law.  Public  opinion,  except  when  man- 
ifested through  prescribed  channels,  is  fitful, 
uncertain,  and  often  unjust. 


THE  YOUTH   AND   EDUCATION  OF   NAPOLEON   BONAPARTE. 


IN  almost  every  crisis  in  the  history  of  a 
race,  some  individual  comes  forward  as  the 
exponent  of  the  thought  and  feeling,  and  the 
type  of  the  ideal  of  his  country,  or  perhaps 
his  age.  If  he  is  a  true  representative 
of  his  age  or  people,  the  student  of  history 
feels  an  interest  in  him,  apart  from  and  inde- 
pendent of  the  attraction  felt  for  a  striking 
character.  The  question,  what  were  the  in- 
fluences which  formed  that  character  that 
made  him  a  representative  man  of  his  day,  is 
always  an  interesting  one. 

Napoleon  truly  represented  the  majority  of 
Frenchmen  of  his  time.  The  same  forces  that 
produced  the  explosion  known  as  the  French 
Revolution  largely  molded  his  character.  It 
was  the  influences  surrounding  his  youth  that 
made  him  welcome  the  revolution,  and  cast 
his  lot  with  the  people  of  France.  Of  ar- 
istocratic lineage,  educated  at  a  military 
school,  an  officer  in  an  army  in  which  only 


the  sons  of  nobles  could  hold  a  commission 
— why  did  he  not  follow  the  example  of  his 
brother  officers,  and  emigrate?  Why  did 
he  repudiate  the  traditions  and  feelings  of 
his  class,  and  join  his  fortunes  to  the  revolu- 
tion, becoming  the  personal  friend  of  Sala- 
cetti  and  Robespierre  the  younger  ?  Why 
was  he  so  bitter  against  the  old  order  and 
such  a  vehement  advocate  of  the  new  ?  Why 
was  the  revolution  so  welcome  to  him  ?  Had 
the  same  bitterness  entered  his  soul  that, 
rankling  in  the  breasts  of  the  French  people, 
had  caused  the  explosion  which  blew  aris- 
tocracy and  a  dissolute  priesthood  clear  out 
of  France  ? 

A  study  of  his  youthful  environments  will 
throw  much  light  upon  the  character  and  the 
early  public  career  of  the  most  remarkable 
man  and  military  genius  the  world  has  seen 
since  Hannibal,  and  will  show  why  he  wel- 
comed the  revolution,  and  became  a  repre- 


1885.] 


The  Youth  and  Education  of  Napoleon   Bonaparte. 


403 


sentative  of  his  time  and  adopted  country. 
Without  such  a  study,  his  career,  particu- 
larly that  portion  of  it  prior  to  Marengo,  will 
remain  an  enigma.  The  investigations  of 
Colonel  Jung  and  others  make  it  possible  to 
examine  and  weigh  the  influences  which  sur- 
rounded his  youth,  and  which  started  him  in 
his  wonderful  career. 

Napoleon  Bonaparte  had  not  a  drop  of 
French  blood  in  his  veins.  He  was  a  Cor- 
sican  Italian.  Corsicans,  since  the  memory 
of  man  runneth  not  to  the  contrary,  have 
been  a  wild,  free,  stubborn,  and  vindictive 
people.  Two  thousand  years  ago  Livy  wrote : 
"  Corsica  is  a  rugged,  mountainous,  and  al- 
most uninhabited  island.  The  people  re- 
semble their  country,  being  as  ungovernable 
as  wild  beasts.  Servitude  in  no  way  softens 
the  Corsicans  ;  if  they  are  made  prisoners, 
they  become  unbearable  to  their  masters,  or 
else  give  up  life  from  sheer  impatience  of  the 
yoke."  Since  Livy's  day,  their  character  has 
been  somewhat  modified  ;  but  it  is  doubtful 
if  time  ever  materially  changes  the  innate 
qualities  of  a  race.  Lanfrey  says  of  them  : 
"To  their  indomitable  wildness  has  been 
united  a  certain  suppleness  borrowed  from 
the  Italians,  and  to  the  energy  of  their 
character  a  subtle  and  shrewd  intelligence. 
Sober,  courageous,  and  hospitable,  but  de- 
ceitful, superstitious,  and  vindictive — such 
were,  and  still  are,  the  people  of  Corsica." 
Circumstances  and  his  marvelous  abilities 
made  Napoleon's  faults  and  virtues  seem  al- 
most colossal ;  but  it  is  perceived  at  once 
that  they  were  the  faults  and  virtues  of  his 
race.  He  was  a  true  type  of  his  people,  as 
well  as  of  the  French. 

His  ancestors  on  his  father's  side  came 
originally  from  Tuscany,  but  had  been  settled 
in  Corsica  for  more  than  one  hundred  years. 
His  mother,  the  beautiful  Lastitia,  was  of 
pure  Corsican  blood.  The  Bonaparte  family 
seems  to  have  been  among  the  principal  ones 
of  the  island ;  but  his  father,  Charles  Bona- 
parte, though  of  the  rank  of  a  noble,  had  not 
sufficient  fortune  to  maintain  and  educate  a 
family.  Married  while  he  and  his  wife  were 
still  very  young,  he  took  an  active  part  in  the 
gallant  struggle  made  by  his  people  for  their 


freedom;  his  wife,  it  is  said,  following  her 
husband  in  the  campaigns  waged  against  the 
French  invaders. 

Two  or  three  children  born  to  the  young 
couple  died  in  infancy.  On  January  7,  1768, 
at  Corte,  a  son  was  born.  A  year  and  a  half 
later,  on  August  15,  1769,  at  Ajaccio,  an- 
other son  was  born.  These  years  witnessed 
the  last  expiring  struggles  of  as  gallant  a  fight 
against  an  overwhelming  invasion  as  was  ever 
made,  and  it  was  during  the  death  struggles 
of  their  country  that  these  two  boys  came 
into  the  world.  Bonaparte's  own  language, 
in  his  letter  to  Paoli,  in  1789,  is  as  follows  : 
"  I  was  born  when  my  country  was  perish- 
ing. Thirty  thousand  Frenchmen  were  vom- 
ited upon  our  soil :  the  throne  of  our  liberty 
was  drowned  in  a  sea  of  blood.  This  was 
the  odious  sight  upon  which  my  eyes  opened. 
Cries  of  the  wounded,  sighs  of  the  oppressed, 
and  tears  of  despair  environed  my  cradle  at 
my  birth." 

One  of  these  boys  was  named  Napoleon, 
and  the  other  Joseph ;  but  which  was  which 
it  is  now  impossible  to  ascertain.  The  future 
conqueror  and  his  family  always  asserted 
that  he  was  born  at  the  later  date,  and  that 
it  was  Joseph  who  was  born  at  Corte,  in  Jan- 
uary, 1768.  But  neither  he  nor  his  relatives 
ever  hesitated  to  lie  about  any  matter,  if  any 
profit  was  to  be  gained  thereby.  The  profit 
of  falsehood  in  this  case,  if  there  was  any, 
consisted  in  the  fact  that  when  his  father 
desired  to  enter  him,  in  1779,  in  tne  Royal 
Military  school  at  Brienne,  admission  to  that 
school  was  limited  to  sons  of  nobles  under 
ten  years  of  age.  The  official  records  of 
the  date  and  place  of  his  birth  are  conflict- 
ing. Colonel  Jung  gives  the  result,  when  he 
says:  "There  are  five  documents  fixing  the 
birth  of  Napoleon  at  Corte,  on  January  7, 
1768,  and  there  is  but  one  which  gives  the 
date  of  August  15,  1769." 

The  father  early  discerned  the  character 
of  one  of  his  sons,  and  desired  to  enter 
him  at  the  military  school.  In  order  to 
bring  him  within  the  requisite  age,  did 
he  mix  those  babies  up  ?  Did  Napoleon 
commence  his  career  in  France  with  a  lie  ? 
One  can  readily  understand  why  the  father 


404 


The  youth,  and  Education  of  Napoleon  Bonaparte. 


[Oct. 


of  these  two  boys  selected  the  military  career 
for  one  instead  of  his  brother.  One  boy  was 
full  of  fire  and  energy ;  the  other  gentle, 
amiable,  and  irresolute. 

All  writers  seem  to  agree  that  the  father, 
Charles  Bonaparte,  was  a  vain,  easy  going 
gentleman,  fond  of  his  pleasures,  who  thought 
more  of  pushing  his  fortunes  by  subserviency 
to  the  great,  than  by  creating  a  career  for 
himself;  while  the  mother,  by  her  ability,  res- 
olution, and  courage,  was  the  source  from 
whence  one  of  her  sons  derived  his  wonder- 
ful force.  Napoleon  himself  seems  to  have 
originated  this  impression  of  his  parents. 
But,  judging  from  the  memoirs,  letters,  etc., 
at  my  disposal,  I  am  inclined  to  think  the 
inference  unwarrantable.  The  father  seems 
to  have  done  all  he  could  to  push  his  fortunes 
and  those  of  his  children.  His  immense  fam- 
ily and  his  pecuniary  resources  did  not  bal- 
ance, and  the  unfortunate  gentleman  early 
succumbed  to  the  increasing  weight  of  one, 
and  the  lightness  of  the  other ;  but  that  he 
made  a  brave  struggle,  appears  from  the 
strenuous  efforts  he  made  to  obtain  positions 
and  an  education  for  his  children. 

The  mother,  beautiful  in  youth,  and  digni- 
fied in  age,  does  not  appear  to  have  been 
other  than  an  average  woman  and  mother, 
either  as  to  character  or  mental  powers. 
That  either  the  burden  of  so  many  children 
was  too  much  for  her,  or  she  was  a  careless 
mother,  is  shown  by  the  way  the  little  Napo- 
leon spent  his  childhood,  and  from  the  wild 
and  wholly  untamed  forces  of  his  character. 
Colonel  Jung  says  of  him,  as  a  child,  that  he 
was  ill-tempered,  and  kept  the  family  in  an 
uproar ;  that  he  was  always  in  the  open  air, 
with  his  shoes  untied,  with  his  hair  blowing 
in  the  wind,  and  greatly  preferred  the  society 
of  herdsmen  and  sailors  to  the  maternal  fire- 
side. Again,  he  says  of  him,  when  at  the 
age  of  ten  he  was  taken  to  France,  that  he 
was  a  perfect  little  savage.  Napoleon,  at 
St.  Helena,  speaking  of  his  childhood,  said : 
"  Nothing  pleased  me.  I  feared  no  one. 
I  fought  with  one,  kicked  another,  scratched 
a  third,  and  made  myself  feared  by  all. 
My  brother  Joseph  was  my  slave.  My 
mother  had  to  restrain  my  bellicose  temper. 


Her  tenderness  was  severe.  She  punished 
and  rewarded  indiscriminately." 

Madame  Junot,  whose  sources  of  infor- 
mation were  Napoleon  himself,  his  mother, 
her  own  mother,  and  Savaria,  the  nurse,  re- 
lates a  curious  anecdote  to  show  the  resolu- 
tion and  obstinacy  of  the  boy  at  seven.  He 
was  wrongfully  accused  of  stealing  some 
fruit,  and  was  whipped  and  confined  three 
days  to  bread  and  moldy  cheese.  He  would 
not  cry,  nor  accuse  his  guilty  sister  and  her 
playmate.  On  the  fourth  day,  the  playmate, 
who  had  been  away,  returned,  and,  more  gen- 
erous than  his  sister,  confessed  the  fault. 
Madame  Junot  also  says  the  habit  of  beating 
children  was  common  in  all  classes  of  Cor- 
sican  society,  but  that  when  the  little  Napo- 
leon was  whipped,  he  would  sometimes  shed 
a  few  tears,  but  would  never  utter  a  word  in 
the  way  of  begging  pardon.  Am  I  not  right 
in  imputing  it  as  a  fault  in  the  mother,  that 
this  wayward  son  should  not  have  been 
amenable  to  gentle  maternal  influences? 

No  wonder  that  when  the  ambitious  father 
saw  an  opportunity  of  obtaining  a  place  for 
one  of  his  sons  at  the  military  school  at  Bri- 
enne,  he  should  want  the  place  for  Napoleon 
rather  than  for  the  amiable,  irresolute  Joseph. 

Corsica  had  been  completely  overrun  by 
the  French,  and  made  a  dependency  of  that 
kingdom.  The  father,  after  becoming  con- 
vinced that  it  was  useless  to  continue  the  fight, 
early  gave  in  his  adhesion  to  France,  and 
was  an  earnest  supporter  of  the  government; 
but  his  little  son,  running  wild  among  the 
mountains  of  his  native  island,  associating 
with  shepherds,  and  his  ears  regaled  with 
tales  of  the  struggle  for  liberty  and  the  ex- 
ploits of  his  people,  his  enthusiasm  and  bel- 
licose nature  aroused  against  the  conquerors 
of  his  native  land,  had  a  hatred  for  France 
which  he  never  concealed  or  attempted  to 
palliate,  until,  in  the  midst  of  revolution  and 
chaos  come  again,  he  saw  an  opportunity 
presented  of  a  great  career  for  himself  in  the 
country  adopted  for  him  by  his  father. 

By  the  aid  and  intercession  of  the  Gov- 
ernor of  the  Island,  an  appointment  was 
procured  in  1778  at  the  school  at  Brienne 
for  the  son  of  Charles  Bonaparte.  The  fa- 


1885.] 


The  Youth  and  Education  of  Napoleon  Bonaparte. 


405 


ther  was  expected  to  present  himself  with 
the  boy  at  the  school,  with  proofs  of  his  no- 
bility ;  and  the  boy  must  be  under  ten,  and 
have  sufficient  knowledge  of  French  to  speak 
and  write  it.  But  Napoleon  did  not  know 
a  word  of  French.  The  only  language  he 
knew  was  the  Corsican  dialect  of  the  Italian. 
In  fact,  out  of  his  obstinate  hate  of  the 
French,  and,  perhaps,  natural  deficiency,  it 
was  not  until  after  manhood  and  his  career 
were  opening  up  before  him,  that  he  acquired 
a  passable  knowledge  of  the  language.  He 
never  did  learn  to  spell  or  write  it  correctly. 

Charles  Bonaparte  left  Corsica  with  his 
two  sons  for  France,  December  15,  1778, 
and  entered  them  both  at  a  school  in  Autun, 
January  i,  1779,  where  they  could  study  the 
language  of  their  new  country,  preparatory  to 
applying  for  admission  for  one  of  them  to 
the  military  school.  One  of  Napoleon's 
teachers,  after  the  death  of  his  pupil,  said  of 
him,  that  at  this  school  he  was  of  a  somber, 
thoughtful  character,  quick  to  learn,  and  in 
receiving  his  lesson  would  fix  his  eyes  on 
his  teacher  and  closely  follow  him ;  but  if 
the  teacher  attempted  to  recapitulate,  the 
pupil  would  say,  with  an  imperious  air,  "  I 
know  it  already,  sir."  One  of  the  most  strik- 
ing characteristics  of  Napoleon  all  through 
life,  was  his  quickness  of  perception.  A 
glance  to.  him  was  as  much  as  patient  inves- 
tigation to  other  men.  A  suggestion  was 
enough  to  create  in  his  mind  the  whole  fab- 
ric of  a  scheme  or  a  system ;  and  while  the 
speaker  thought  he  had  just  begun  to  open 
out  the  matter,  Napoleon,  in  his  own  lan- 
guage, knew  it  already. 

He  found  himself  alone  in  the  school.  If 
he  had  had  the  usual  inclinations  and  desires 
of  boyhood,  he  would  still  have  been  shut  out 
from  companionship  by  inability  to  speak 
the  language  of  his  playmates.  His  life  was 
made  unhappy  by  the  rudeness  of  his  com- 
rades. They  taunted  him  with  his  people 
having  been  conquered.  This  ill-tempered, 
quarrelsome  boy,  whose  love  for  his  moun- 
tains and  hatred  of  the  conquerors  of  his 
home  had  been  nourished  by  legend  and  by 
tales  of  actors  in  the  strife,  was  now  obliged 
to  endure  the  taunts  and  sneers  of  cruel 
school  boys  of  the  conquering  race. 


After  three  months  he  learned  enough 
French  to  enable  him  to  enter  the  military 
school,  which  he  did  on  Sunday,  April  25, 
1779.  His  life  here — -for  a  time,  at  least — 
was  most  unhappy.  It  is  said  that  the  pride 
and  arrogance  of  the  pupils  from  the  military 
schools  made  them  detested  in  the  army  in- 
after  life.  Here  was  the  little  Napoleon, 
hardly  able  to  make  himself  understood  in 
the  language  of  the  country,  with  no  longer 
the  companionship  of  his  brother ;  poor, 
proud,  sensitive,  fearless:  what  charms  had 
life  for  him  with  such  surroundings  ?  All 
his  youth  and  early  manhood  was  embittered 
by  poverty;  but  how  the  iron  must  have  en- 
tered the  soul  of  this  exile  in  a  strange  land, 
possessed  by  a  proud  and  sensitive  spirit,  but 
surrounded  by  opulence  and  arrogance,  sub- 
jected to  taunts  and  sneers,  and  even  his 
name  of  Napoleon  made  a  subject  of  ridi- 
cule! 

Before  he  was  twelve  years,  old  he  wrote, 
in  the  bitterness  of  his  spirit: 

'•  My  Father :  If  you  or  my  protectors  cannot  give 
the  means  of  sustaining  myself  more  honorably  in  the 
house  where  I  am,  please  summon  me  home  as  soon 
as  possible.  I  am  tired  of  poverty,  and  of  the  smiles 
of  the  insolent  scholars  who  are  superior  to  me  only 
in  their  fortune,  for  there  is  not  one  among  them 
who  feels  one  hundredth  part  of  the  noble  sentiments 
by  which  I  am  animated.  Must  your  son,  sir,  be 
continually  the  butt  of  these  boobies,  who,  vain  of  the 
luxuries  which  they  enjoy,  insult  me  by  their  laughter 
at  the  privations  which  I  am  forced  to  endure  ?  No, 
father,  no  !  If  fortune  refuses  to  smile  upon  me, 
take  me  from  Brienne,  and  make  of  me,  if  you  will, 
a  mechanic.  From  these  words  you  may  judge  of 
my  despair.  This  letter,  sir,  please  believe,  is  not 
dictated  by  a  vain  desire  to  enjoy  expensive  amuse- 
ments. I  have  no  such  wish.  I  feel  simply  that  it 
is  necessary  to  show  my  companions  that  I  can  pro- 
cure them,  as  well  as  themselves,  if  I  choose  to  do  so. 
"Your  respectful  and  obedient  son, 

"  BUONAPARTE." 

This  letter  is  the  first  known  utterance  of 
this  wonderful  man.  One  is  inclined  to  doubt 
that  even  Napoleon  could  have  written  such 
a  letter  before  he  was  twelve,  and  that  per- 
haps his  father  did  commit  a  fraud  upon  the 
rules  of  the  school.  But  what  haughty  pride 
and  suffering  it  betrays,  and  what  egotism! 

His  father  did  not  take  him  away,  and 
could  not  increase  his  allowance.  He  v/as 
forced  to  endure  the  humiliations  of  his  po- 


406 


The  youth  and  Education  of  Napoleon  Bonaparte. 


[Oct. 


sition,  and  after  it  was  explained  to  him  that 
he  must  rely  upon  himself  to  make  a  career, 
he  troubled  his  father  with  no  more  com- 
plaints. 

Indeed,  it  would  seem  that  in  time  his  im- 
perious temper  and  energy  gave  him  some 
ascendency  over  his  school-mates,  if  Bouri- 
enne's  celebrated  story  of  the  snow  fort  has 
any  foundation  in  fact.  Undoubtedly  he  at- 
tracted the  attention  of  his  superiors.  He 
had  for  a  short  time  as  teacher  of  arith- 
metic the  afterwards  famous  General  Piche- 
gru.  Little  boy  though  he  was,  he  must 
have  made  a  strong  impression  on  his  tutor, 
for  in  after  life,  when  Pichegru  became  de- 
voted to  the  royal  cause,  and  it  was  supposed 
the  young  general  of  the  Army  of  Italy  might 
be  brought  over :  "  No,"  said  Pichegru,  "  it 
is  useless  to  attempt  it.  From  my  knowl- 
edge of  him  as  a  boy,  I  know  he  has  formed 
his  resolution,  and  he  will  be  inflexible." 

History  has  given  us  no  more  striking  in- 
stance of  obstinancy,  or,  if  you  please,  inflex- 
ibility of  character,  than  we  see  in  Napoleon 
from  beginning  to  end  of  his  career.  A  pur- 
pose once  formed,  an  end  to  be  attained,  was 
followed  with  a  pertinacity  which  is  rarely 
seen,  and  which  finally  led  to  his  ruin.  While 
he  would  vary  the  means  to  attain  an  end, 
the  end  itself  was  always  before  him,  and 
was  steadily  followed. 

While  at  this  school,  he  displayed  other 
characteristics,  good  and  bad,  which  followed 
him  through  life.  Among  the  good,  may  be 
mentioned  his  gratitude  for  favors  shown. 
Napoleon  never  forgot  a  kindness.  The 
teacher  or  the  schoolmate  who  loved  or  es- 
teemed him  was  remembered  and  rewarded. 
Through  life  he  was  faithful  in  his  friendship. 
The  brothers  and  sisters  who  tormented  and 
harassed  him,  in  the  daysof  his  greatness,  with 
their  squabbles,  their  weaknesses,  their  ill-tem- 
per, always  found  in  him  a  generous,  indulgent 
brother.  The  early  companions  in  arms  be- 
came so  necessary  to  him  personally  that  he 
could  not  change  them,  though  sound  policy 
required  it.  Strange  faces  were  always  ob- 
jectionable, and  he  clung  to  his  old  compan- 
ions, because  they  were  familiar  to  him,  and 
he  had  become  attached  to  them.  At  St. 


Helena,  he  said  it  would  have  been  better  by 
far  if  he  had  pensioned  his  brothers  and  sis- 
ters, and  before  Waterloo,  if  he  had  selected 
younger  generals;  but  he  could  not  make  up 
his  mind  to  do  it.  The  faults  which  he  dis- 
played at  school  can  be  easily  accounted  for 
by  considering  his  egotism,  poverty,  and 
pride,  and  his  surroundings. 

At  this  time,  and  before  he  left  home,  it 
was  his  desire  to  become  a  sailor,  and  it 
seems  that  to  become  an  officer  in  the  king's 
navy,  and  not  the  king's  army,  was  the  object 
originally  sought  when  the  place  was  obtained 
for  him  in  this  school,  and  that  the  school 
was  a  preparatory  one  for  the  navy  as  well  as 
the  army.  What  speculations  arise,  as  one 
thinks  of  the  youthful  Bonaparte  entering  the 
French  navy,  at  a  time  when  it  still  disputed 
with  England  the  sovereignty  of  the  seas. 
Would  Aboukir  and  Trafalgar  have  witnessed 
the  exaltation  of  the  English  ? 

In  his  studies,  the  official  report  shows 
that  he  distinguished  himself  by  his  applica- 
tion to  mathematics,  that  he  did  passably  well 
in  history  and  geography,  and  poorly  in  Latin. 
The  report  closes  by  saying  he  will  make  an 
excellent  sailor,  and  deserves  to  be  sent  to  the 
school  in  Paris.  But  the  number  of  appli- 
cations to  the  Marine  Corps  was  so  large, 
that  only  those  boys  with  powerful  patrons 
succeeded,  and  young  Bonaparte  was  obliged 
to  renounce  the  navy  for  the  army.  He  pre- 
ferred the  artillery  or  the  engineer  corps. 
The  cavalry  officers  displayed  too  much  os- 
tentation, and  there  was  too  little  to  do  in 
the  infantry  to  suit  this  incarnation  of  pride, 
energy,  and  industry.  His  father,  therefore, 
chose  for  him  the  artillery,  and  secured  his 
admission  to  the  artillery  school,  when  he 
should  be  able  to  pass  the  requisite  examin- 
ations. 

There  are  a  few  letters  of  his,  written  at 
Brienne,  still  in  existence.  They  are  entirely 
out  of  the  ordinary  run  of  school-boy  letters. 
At  one  time  he  had  had  a  serious  quarrel 
with  a  school-mate,  who  had  spoken  disre- 
spectfully of  Corsica,  and  possibly  of  Napo- 
leon's father.  Whereupon  there  was  such  a 
warlike  display  on  the  part  of  the  little  Cor- 
sican,  that  he  was  confined  to  the  guard- 


1885.] 


The  Youth  and  Education  of  Napoleon  Bonaparte. 


407 


house.  His  pride  was  so  wounded  that  he 
writes  to  the  governor  of  the  island  to  remove 
him  from  the  school,  if  his  liberty  had  been 
taken  away  from  him  justly,  that  his  father 
might  not  be  disgraced  by  the  son's  impetu- 
osity of  temper.  Another  letter,  written  to 
his  father  September  12,  1784,  is  quite  char- 
acteristic of  the  future  emperor.  While 
most  respectful  in  tone,  yet  the  reasons  he 
gives  to  his  father  why  his  brothers,  Joseph 
and  Lucien,  should  be  educated  according 
to  his  views,  sound  like  commands.  This 
letter  also  shows  his  clear  and  methodical 
power  of  statement,  and  his  affection  for  and 
interest  in  his  brothers  and  sisters.  He  begs 
for  books  about  his  native  island,  even  then 
contemplating  a  history  of  Corsica,  which 
should  vindicate  her  and  glorify  the  Corsi- 
cans  in  the  eyes  of  the  French  people. 

Before  his  school  days  were  over,  it  is 
probable  that  he  had  ceased  to  have  the  vio- 
lent hatred  of  the  French  with  which  he  was 
at  first  animated ;  but  he  would  still  say  to 
Bourienne,  when  offended:  "  I  will  do  these 
French  all  the  harm  I  can."  Of  course,  with 
such  feelings,  he  could  not  be  otherwise  than 
unpopular  with  his  classmates.  Therefore 
he  sought  companionship  in  books,  devoting 
himself  to  history  and  biography.  Polybius 
and  Plutarch  were  his  favorites. 

At  last  he  was  ready  for  his  examinations, 
and  after  having  spent  five  years  at  Brienne, 
and  at  the  age  of  fifteen,  reckoning  August 
15,  1769,  as  his  birthday,  he  entered  the 
military  school  in  Paris,  destined  for  the  artil- 
lery branch  of  the  army. 

At  this  time,  he  must  have  been  fully  grown, 
as  his  height  was  given  at  the  equivalent  in 
English  measurement  of  five  feet,  six  and  a 
half  inches. 

At  Paris,  his  sufferings  on  account  of  his 
poverty,  and  the  wealth  and  arrogance  of  his 
classmates,  were  much  greater  than  at  Bri- 
enne. One  of  the  first  things  this  boy  did, 
was  to  draw  up  a  memorial  to  the  authorities 
on  the  useless  luxury  of  the  school.  The 
red  republican  of  1793  was  beginning  to  be 
foreshadowed  in  the  bitter  fight  he  was  mak- 
ing against  the  ostentation  and  extravagance 
of  his  comrades.  An  answer  is  being  formu- 


lated to  the  question  asked  a  while  ago : 
Why  did  he  welcome  the  revolution  ? 

He  had  some  friends  in  Paris,  notably 
Madame  Junot's  mother  and  her  brother, 
who,  on  account  of  friendship  for  his  parents, 
desired  to  be  kind  to  the  lonely  student. 
He  was  evidently  grateful  for  their  attentions, 
but  his  sensitiveness  had  become  morbid. 
His  irritability  was  excessive.  His  sister 
Eliza  was  at  a  free  royal  school  near  Paris, 
for  the  education  of  daughters  of  impover- 
ished nobles,  and  two  more  thoroughly  mis- 
erable pupils  were  never  probably  educated 
at  the  public  expense,  than  this  brother  and 
sister.  Of  course,  any  one  at  all  familiar  with 
the  state  of  society  in  France  at  this  period 
understands  why  these  poor,  haughty  Corsi- 
cans  could  not  be  otherwise  than  unhappy. 

In  February,  1785,  his  father  died,  and  a 
manly,  affectionate  letter  to  his  mother,  on 
hearing  the  distressing  news,  is  extant. 
Though  his  father  had  scarcely  seen  the  boy 
since  he  left  Corsica,  yet  there  is  no  doubt 
his  hopes  had  been  centered  in  the  little 
exile.  In  the  delirium  of  the  last  illness,  he 
incessantly  called  for  Napoleon  to  come  to  his 
aid. 

In  this  school  he  displayed  the  same  disa- 
bilities and  aptitudes  in  regard  to  studies 
which  he  had  evidenced  at  Brienne.  He 
made  such  little  progress  in  German,  that 
the  German  teacher,  Bauer,  formed  a  very 
poor  opinion  of  him.  One  day,  Napoleon 
not  being  in  his  place,  Bauer  inquired  where 
he  was,  and  was  told  he  was  attending  his 
examination  in  the  class  of  artillery.  "  What ! 
does  he  know  anything?"  said  the  teacher. 
Some  one  replied,  that  he  was  the  best  math- 
ematician in  the  school.  "  Ah  !  "  said  Bauer, 
"  I  have  always  heard  it  remarked,  and  I 
have  always  believed,  that  none  but  a  fool 
could  learn  mathematics." 

When  he  was  sixteen — always  supposing 
he  was  born  in  1769 — he  was  entitled  to  ex- 
amination for  a  commission  in  the  artillery. 
The  official  notes  of  his  examination  are  as 
follows  : 

"  Reserved  and  studious.  He  prefers 
study  to  any  amusement,  and  enjoys  reading 
the  best  authors.  Applies  himself  earnestly 


408 


The  Youth  and  Education  of  Napoleon  Bonaparte. 


[Oct 


to  the  abstract  sciences;  cares  little  for  any- 
thing else.  He  is  silent,  and  loves  solitude. 
He  is  capricious,  haughty,  and  excessively 
egotistical ;  talks  little,  but  is  quick  and  en- 
ergetic in  his  replies,  prompt  and  severe  in 
his  repartees.  Has  great  pride  and  ambition, 
aspiring  to  anything.  The  young  man  is 
worthy  of  patronage." 

No  wonder  his  superiors  were  glad  to  get 
rid  of  him,  and  recommended  his  appoint- 
ment to  a  regiment.  They  said  he  possessed 
a  temper  there  was  no  possibility  of  render- 
ing sociable.  And,  yet,  one  cannot  but  feel 
sympathy  for  the  lonely,  egotistical,  ambitious 
boy,  whose  character  was  of  a  quality  which 
was  made  worse  by  influences  that  would  not 
have  affected  duller  natures,  who  was  unut- 
terably miserable  where  others  would  have 
been  reasonably  happy.  One  cannot  but 
sympathize  with  him,  in  his  contest  with  the 
school  and  the  miserable  world  which  sur- 
rounded him. 

What  might  not  have  been  done  for  such 
a  nature  by  a  firm,  conscientious,  affectionate, 
Christian  mother,  in  a  happy  home  !  What 
did  he  know  about  home  ?  How  he  spent 
his  first  nine  years,  we  have  already  seen ; 
and  then,  while  a  little  child,  he  became  an 
exile  among  a  strange  people.  All  his  school- 
boy days  were  spent  without  any  home  influ- 
ences whatever — at  a  military  school,  learning 
to  be  a  soldier — associating  with  soldiers — 
everything  done  by  the  word  of  command. 
Can  you  expect  a  man,  educated  as  he  was, 
to  regard  human  life  ?  Is  it  any  wonder  that, 
with  time  and  opportunity — with  such  unri- 
valed ability — with  such  a  training  and  edu- 
cation— he  should  develop  into  the  conquer- 
or and  despot  ?  The  wonder  is  that  he  was 
not  worse. 

In  October,  1785,  when  a  little  past  six- 
teen, he  received  his  appointment  to  an  ar- 
tillery regiment,  then  stationed  at  Valence, 
in  the  south  of  France.  He  had  made  only 
one  friend  among  his  classmates,  and  he,  too, 
was  appointed  to  the  same  regiment. 

Young  Bonaparte  was  unable  to  raise 
money  to  pay  his  traveling  expenses  to  this 
regiment,  until  his  friend  came  to  his  relief 
and  loaned  him  part  of  his  own  allowance. 


But  before  reaching  their  journey's  end,  the 
supply  gave  out,  and  the  two  friends  were 
obliged  to  complete  their  journey  on  foot. 
Such  was  the  humble  introduction  to  the 
French  Army,  of  the  boy  who  soon  became 
its  pride  and  glory. 

On  the  loth  of  January,  1786,  he  entered 
upon  his  duties  as  sub  lieutenant  of  artillery, 
and  for  the  first  time  since  leaving  his  native 
land,  was  happy.  By  exercising  strict  econ- 
omy, he  found  his  pay  as  an  officer  sufficient 
for  his  support.  Some  of  his  brothers  and 
sisters  had  obtained  places  in  schools,  while 
his  mother  bid  fair  to  succeed  in  some  pecu- 
niary ventures  in  which  his  father  had  failed. 
He  himself  was  free.  His  military  duties 
were  light,  and  when  performed,  he  was  at 
liberty  to  give  way  to  his  inclinations.  It 
happened  that  some  friends  and  patrons  of 
his  family  were  living  in  Valence,  where  his 
regiment  was  quartered.  Through  them  he 
was  introduced  to  the  best  society  of  the 
city.  The  thin,  somber,  sallow  youth  no 
longer  waged  war  with  everything  and  every- 
body around  him,  but  as  he  hastened  every 
day  from  his  military  comrades  as  soon  as 
opportunity  offered,  to  the  more  congenial 
society  of  cultivated  men  and  superior  wo- 
men, a  rapid  change  came  over  his  bellicose 
temper.  With  the  exception  of  the  friend 
who,  by  lending  part  of  his  traveling  allow- 
ance, was  compelled  to  a  pedestrian  compan- 
ionship on  the  way  to  the  regiment,  he  had 
no  friends  in  the  army.  He  sought  his  as- 
sociates from  civil  life;  and  it  is  evident 
that  he  enjoyed  the  change,  and  was  wel- 
comed to  the  friendship  of  some  excellent 
ladies;  for  here  he  began  to  display  that  won- 
derful power  of  fascination  and  seductive 
charm  of  manner,  which,  when  he  chose  to 
exercise  it,  no  one  was  ever  able  to  resist. 
His  manners  became  more  refined,  and  his 
temper  vastly  improved. 

Like  most  youths  of  his  age,  his  thoughts 
ran  a  great  deal  upon  the  ever  new  pas- 
sion ;  but  though  he  himself  tells  the  story 
of  his  first  love,  which  manifested  itself 
by  the  two  meeting  in  the  garden  early  in 
the  morning  to  eat  cherries  together,  yet  I 
doubt  if  he  ever  really  felt  its  influence  until 


1885.] 


The  Youth  and  Education  of  Napoleon  Bonaparte. 


409 


his  meeting  with  Josephine.  Among  his 
papers  of  this  period,  he  has  left  a  Dialogue 
on  Love.  In  this  he  says  :  "  Love  produces 
more  evil  than  good,  and  if  a  protecting  di- 
vinity could  deliver  us  from  its  influence,  it 
would  confer  a  benefit  on  humanity."  This 
was  written  after  the  charming  Mademoiselle 
Colombier  had  been  engaged  by  her  mother 
to  a  captain  in  another  regiment,  which, 
perhaps,  accounts  for  his  cynicism.  Napo- 
leon, when  Emperor,  liked  to  tell  of  his  first 
love,  and  how  they  used  to  meet  at  daylight 
of  summer  mornings  to  eat  "  innocent  cher- 
ries," to  use  his  own  expression,  in  her 
mother's  garden.  Now,  daylight  in  that  lat- 
itude in  June  means  between  three  and  four 
o'clock  in  the  morning.  What  extraordinary 
cherries  those  must  have  been ! 

In  the  days  of  his  greatness,  he  learned 
that  misfortune  had  overtaken  this  lady.  He 
sought  her  out,  and  gave  her  a  position  in 
the  Court.  She  was  then  faded  and  worn, 
but  was,  of  course,  watched  with  curious 
eyes  by  the  courtiers,  for  they  knew  the  story. 
One  of  them  says  that  whenever  the  Em- 
peror came  into  the  room,  she  seemed  unable 
to  take  her  eyes  off  him.  What  thoughts 
must  have  passed  through  the  brain  of  this 
woman  as  she  watched  him  ! 

But,  returning  to  the  days  of  his  struggling 
youth,  we  find  that  society  only  occupied  a 
small  part  of  his  time.  He  read  and  studied 
most  sedulously.  The  notes  of  his  reading 
in  his  own  handwriting  are  voluminous,  and 
show  that  he  led  a  laborious  life  of  study  and 
preparation.  Before  he  was  eighteen  he  had 
written  part  of  his  History  of  Corsica,  the 
work  to  which  he  devoted  so  much  of  his 
youth,  and  which,  he  fondly  hoped,  would 
make  him  famous. 

The  regiment  removed  to  Lyons,  and 
there,  too,  the  young  lieutenant  was  happy  in 
congenial  society;  but  after  a  time  they 
marched  to  the  North  of  France.  But  here 
nothing  was  congenial,  and  his  health  and 
temper  both  failed  him.  Hatred  of  the  op- 
pressors of  his  country,  a  desire  to  impress 
mankind,  and  a  disgust  for  his  surroundings, 
appear  in  his  writings  of  this  period.  His 
family,  too,  is  unfortunate,  and  he  seeks  for 
a  furlough  to  visit  them. 


After  an  absence  of  eight  years  and  two 
months,  his  foot  again  presses  his  native  soil. 
Colonel  Jung  describes  him  then  as  having 
changed  during  these  eight  years  from  a 
sulky,  passionate  boy  to  a  young  officer,  with 
keen,  searching  eyes,  pale  face,  a  quick,  firm 
tread,  speaking  in  monosyllables,  and  wishing 
to  rule  all  about  him.  He  immediately  as- 
sumed direction  of  the  affairs  of  the  family, 
busied  himself  with  and  managed  everything, 
and  worked  hard  on  his  History  of  Corsica. 
He  also  began  a  romance  and  an  historical 
drama.  When  his  five  and  a  half  months' 
furlough  ran  out,  he  got  it  renewed  for  the 
same  length  of  time.  At  last,  after  spending 
ten  months  with  his  family,  he  was  obliged 
to  rejoin  his  regiment.  Almost  immediately 
he  obtained  another  leave,  and  spent  the 
winter  and  spring  of  1787-88  in  Corsica. 
Before  he  was  twenty  the  History  of  Corsica 
was  finished ;  but  subsequently  its  form  was 
changed,  and  when  part  of  it  was  published 
in  1790,  it  had  so  little  merit  as  an  historical 
composition,  that  its  ambitious  young  author 
was  obliged  to  abandon  his  dream  of  fame 
as  a  historian. 

In  1788  he  renewed  his  garrison  life,  ut- 
terly repudiating  the  society  of  his  brother 
officers,  but  reading,  studying,  and  cultivating 
the  society  of  civilians.  The  money  affairs 
of  his  family  were  getting  worse  and  worse,  the 
young  lieutenant  was  becoming  more  haughty 
and  defiant  towards  his  superiors,  the  revolu- 
tion was  approaching.  The  history  which  he 
is  trying  to  get  published  shows  this  young 
officer  in  the  king's  army  indulging  in  violent 
tirades  against  the  king,  nobles,  and  priests. 
But  a  short  time  previously,  and  such  senti- 
ments as  he  then  expressed  with  such  haughty 
confidence  would  have  caused  his  incarcer- 
ation in  the  Bastile.  But  now,  in  the  first 
flush  of  early  manhood,  the  gathered  bitter- 
ness of  these  long  years  of  poverty  and  hu- 
miliation, partly  real  and  partly  fancied,  found 
expression  without  fear  of  immediate  and 
condign  punishment.  They  were  in  sym- 
pathy with  the  bitterness  and  rage  of  the 
French  people ;  and  already  the  authorities, 
warned  by  the  mutterings  of  the  terrible  tem- 
pest about  to  break  upon  them,  felt  no  in- 
clination to  call  this  vehement,  scorching- 


410 


The  Youth  and  Education  of  Napoleon  Bonaparte. 


[Oct. 


tongued  young  officer  to  account.  The  ter- 
rible day  of  accounting  for  them  has  come. 
Ages  of  oppression  and  misrule  are  now  to 
bring  forth  their  legitimate  fruit.  The  great- 
est wreckage  and  upheaval  the  world  has 
ever  seen  begins.  Our  young  officer  of  twen- 
ty, by  character,  by  education,  by  his  alien 
blood,  is  in  thorough  sympathy  with  the  un- 
rest and  the  rebellion  around  him.  The 
electric  currents  vivifying  the  French  people 
thrill  his  soul  with  sympathy.  He  begins  to 
see  in  the  perspective  the  coming  opportunity 
for  power  and  renown.  Even  then  he  has 
that  supreme  confidence  in  himself  which 
ever  distinguished  him.  He  is  excited  and 
eager.  At  this  time  he  writes  to  his  mother : 
"  I  sleep  very  little  ...  I  lie  down  at  ten 
o'clock  and  rise  at  four  in  the  morning.  I 
eat  only  one  meal  in  the  day  —  at  three 
o'clock." 

The  commotion  in  France  increases.  Even 
the  military  are  infected.  Disorder  and  riot- 
ing take  place  among  the  men  of  his  own 
regiment.  As  the  black  clouds  of  revolution 
envelope  France,  his  thoughts  turn  continu- 
ally towards  his  native  island.  There,  in  his 
own  home,  among  his  kinsmen  and  people, 
he  hopes  the  opportunity  for  distinction  has 
come.  The  people  of  France  are  every- 
where organizing  the  National  Guard,  for 
their  protection  and  the  advancement  of  their 
cause.  If  such  a  guard  can  be  organized  in 
Corsica,  and  he  could  be  there,  he  feels  that 
he  could  obtain  high  rank  in  it,  and  distin- 
guish himself  in  the  eyes  of  his  countrymen. 
He  obtains  a  leave  of  absence  from  his  reg- 
iment, and  on  September  16,  1789,  soon 
after  the  taking  of  the  Bastile,  he'leaves  for 
Corsica  and  enters  upon  a  four  years'  struggle 
for  reputation  and  power  in  his  native  land. 

Napoleon  had  now  reached  man's  estate. 
His  small,  slender,  almost  emaciated  form 
supported  a  head  whose  noble,  majestic 
beauty  has  never  been  surpassed.  It  was 
the  head  of  Jove  himself,  molded  to  perfect 
smoothness  and  delicacy  of  outline.  It  was 
animated  by  blue  eyes,  so  clear  and  pene- 
trating that  men  felt  he  read  their  souls. 
His  straight  chestnut  hair  was  worn,  until 
the  Consulate,  long,  and  reaching  almost  to 


his  shoulders.  His  hands  and  feet  were 
small  and  beautifully  formed;  and,  strange 
to  say,  he  was  immensely  vain  of  their  beauty. 
But  for  the  imperial  head  which  crowned  his 
slender  body,  his  appearance  was  feminine 
and  delicate  ;  but,  in  truth,  that  soft  exterior 
enclosed  a  frame  of  steel,  which  no  amount 
of  labor  or  exposure  seemed  to  tire. 

He  left  France  in  the  throes  of  revolution, 
himself  hot  for  the  changes  being  wrought, 
and  thoroughly  imbued  with  the  spirit  of  his 
time.  He  found  Corsica  excited,  it  is  true, 
by  the  revolution  going  on  on  the  mainland, 
but  not  yet  ripe  for  the  overthrow  of  all  ex- 
isting institutions.  Young  and  enthusiastic 
republicans  had  formed  clubs  and  societies  for 
propagating  their  ideas  and  for  organizing 
rebellion,  and  to  these  Bonaparte  was  a  wel- 
come accession.  His  fire  and  energy  soon 
made  him  a  leader  among  them.  His  broth- 
ers, of  course,  yielded  to  his  influence  at 
once,  and  the  Bonaparte  family  were  soon 
reckoned  the  most  enthusiastic  supporters  of 
the  revolution.  A  letter  which  Napoleon 
wrote  to  the  deputy  from  Corsica  to  the 
French  National  Assembly,  early  in  1790, 
was  published,  and  attracted  much  attention 
both  in  Corsica  and  France.  He  pours  the 
vials  of  hot  indignation  upon  the  deputy's 
head,  accusing  him  of  treachery  to  his  na- 
tive country,  and  ends  by  denouncing  him 
to  the  leaders  of  the  French  Revolution  as 
false  to  the  principles  for  which  they  were 
striving.  This  letter,  and  the  article  which 
he  published  shortly  before  the  siege  of  Tou- 
lon, known  as  the  Supper  of  Beaucaire,  are 
the  best  of  all  his  early  productions.  They 
breathe  a  spirit  of  intense  hostility  to  every- 
thing inimical  to  the  revolution,  and  no 
doubt  had  a  wide  influence. 

But  Corsica  was  not  yet  ready.  The  heat- 
ed young  partisan  organized  an  assault  upon 
the  citadel  of  Ajaccio,  hoping  to  take  it  by  sur- 
prise, and  thus  inaugurate  the  revolution  in 
his  native  island.  But  the  authorities  being 
warned  in  time,  the  scheme  ended  in  a  fias- 
co, and  Napoleon's  influence  in  his  native 
town  was  ruined.  A  mob,  headed  by  a  priest, 
attacked  him  on  the  street,  and  he  narrowly 
escaped  being  torn  to  pieces. 


1885.] 


The  Youth  and  Education  of  Napoleon  Bonaparte. 


411 


But  nothing  discouraged  him.  He  ob- 
tained an  extension  of  his  leave  of  absence, 
and  continued  his  efforts  ;  and  in  time,  as 
the  sentiments  of  the  revolution  spread,  his 
influence  again  began  to  be  felt.  But  nearly 
twenty  months  had  elapsed.  He  had  over- 
staid  his  leave,  and  was  obliged  to  rejoin  his 
regiment,  taking  with  him  his  brother  Louis. 

He  rejoined  his  regiment,  and  renewed 
his  habits  of  diligent  study.  He  occupied  a 
little  room,  off  from  which  opened  a  closet, 
where  his  brother  Louis  slept.  His  furni- 
ture consisted  of  a  bed,  a  table  piled  high 
with  books,  and  two  chairs.  Twenty  years 
later,  when  this  brother  Louis,  in  a  fit  of  an- 
ger, abdicated  the  crown  of  Holland,  the  en- 
raged emperor  said:  "This  very  Louis, whom 
I  supported  on  my  miserable  lieutenant's  pay, 
and  God  only  knows  at  the  cost  of  what  pri- 
vations !  I  found  means  to  send  the  money 
to  pay  the  board  of  my  young  brother,  and 
do  you  know  how  I  gained  this  money  ?  It 
was  by  never  entering  a  cafe,  nor  society.  It 
was  by  eating  dry  bread,  and  brushing  my 
own  clothes,  so  that  they  lasted  longer.  In 
order  not  to  be  a  blot  on  my  companions,  I 
lived  like  a  bear,  always  alone  in  my  little 
room  with  my  books,  which  were  my  only 
friends;  and  to  procure  these  books,  what 
privations  I  endured  !  What  rigid  economy 
I  practised  !  When,  through  self-denial,  I 
had  gathered  together  two  crowns,  I  went 
with  childish  joy  to  a  book-stall  near  the  Bish- 
op's palace.  I  often  committed  the  sin  of 
envy,  for  I  coveted  my  books  long  before  I 
could  buy  them.  Such  were  the  joys  and 
the  dissipations  of  my  youth  ?  When  a  mere 
child,  I  was  initiated  into  the  privations  of  a 
numerous  family.  My  father  and  mother 
had  many  anxieties — eight  children." 

It  was  at  this  time  that  he  sent  an  essay 
to  the  Academy  of  Lyons,  hoping  to  obtain 
the  prize  of  one  thousand  five  hundred  livres 
for  the  best  essay  on  "  What  truths  and  what 
sentiments  is  it  best  to  teach  men  for  their 
happiness  ? "  He  did  not  win  the  prize. 
But  his  thoughts  were  continually  turning  to 
Corsica,  and  just  as  soon  as  it  was  possible 
to  again  obtain  a  leave  of  absence,  he  has- 
tened back  to  his  beloved  island. 


In  September,  1791,  he  reaches  Ajaccio, 
and  once  more  addresses  himself  to  political 
intrigues,  speaking,  writing,  and  working  in- 
cessantly. He  finally  procured  his  election 
as  Lieutenant-Colonel  of  the  National  Guard, 
and  then,  with  a  small  body  of  adherents,  he 
attacked  his  native  town,  and,  for  a  time, 
held  possession  for  the  revolutionists.  But 
the  populace  and  the  authorities  rose  against 
him,  and  again  he  was  defeated.  More  seri- 
ous still,  he  had  again  overstaid  his  leave, 
and  his  name  was  dropped  from  the  rolls  of 
his  regiment  as  a  deserter. 

He  goes  to  Paris,  and  solicits  his  restora- 
tion to  his  regiment.  His  poverty  is  extreme, 
and  the  outlook  could  not  be  worse.  After 
months  of  weary  waiting,  by  dint  of  much 
solicitation,  he  obtains  the  restoration  of  his 
name  to  the  muster-roll  of  his  regiment,  and, 
strange  to  say,  on  account  of  the  wholesale 
defection  of  his  superiors  in  rank,  this  man, 
dropped  for  desertion,  is  not  only  restored, 
but  advanced  to  the  rank  of  Captain  From 
1791  to  1793,  no  less  than  five  hundred  and 
ninety-three  generals  in  the  French  Army 
emigrated,  or  were  removed  from  their  com- 
mands. In  Napoleon's  regiment,  out  of 
eighty  officers,  all  but  fourteen  left  it  during 
one  year. 

But  immediately  thereafter,  instead  of  re- 
joining his  regiment,  back  he  goes  to  Corsi- 
ca, the  object  of  all  his  hopes  and  aspirations, 
making,  as  an  excuse  for  doing  so,  the  neces- 
sity of  accompanying  his  sister  going  home 
from  school.  In  Corsica  he  joins  and  largely 
aids  in  organizing  an  expedition  to  capture 
the  island  of  Sardinia.  The  expedition  was  a 
failure.  At  Ajaccio  he  renewed  his  schemes 
and  his  Tntrigues.  At  one  time  he  had  to 
flee  the  town,  and  cross  the  mountains  in  dis- 
guise, but  was  recognized  and  arrested.  He 
escaped,  returned  to  Ajaccio  in  the  dress  of 
a  sailor,  and  got  away  on  a  fishing  vessel; 
proceeded  to  Bastia,  and  there  organized  an 
expedition  to  capture  his  native  town  and  ex- 
pel the  enemies  of  the  revolution.  The  peas- 
antry, under  the  leadership  of  the  priests, 
swarmed  in  from  the  surrounding  mountains 
to  the  assistance  of  Bonaparte's  enemies, 
burned  his  property  and  that  of  his  family, 


412 


Blue  Eyes  and  Black  Eyes. 


[Oct. 


and  proscribed  them.  When  Bonaparte's  ex- 
pedition reached  Ajaccio  by  water,  it  was 
too  late.  The  whole  island  had  arisen 
against  the  revolution,  his  mother  and  her 
family  had  been  driven  away,  and  were  then 
at  Calvi. 

For  four  years,  or  ever  since  the  breaking 
out  of  the  revolution,  Bonaparte  had  striven 
to  carry  Corsica  on  the  same  road  that  France 
was  traveling.  Probably,  he  thought  to 
make  himself  the  leader  of  his  countrymen. 
Certainly,  his  only  ambition  seemed  to  be 
connected  with  his  native  land.  All  his 
thoughts  were  hers.  To  her  alone  he  looked 
for  fame  and  fortune.  While  his  comrades 
in  the  army,  or  such  of  them  as  remained  in 
it,  were  winning  fame  upon  the  battle-field, 
this  soldier,  more  ambitious  than  any  of 
them,  surpassing  them  all  an  hundred  fold 
in  ability,  in  capacity,  and  resources,  cared 
not  one  whit  for  France,  but  desired  to  give 
all  to  Corsica. 

His  only  desire  in  connection  with  France 
was  to  keep  his  place  in  the  army  lists.  By 
death,  and  particularly  by  desertions,  legiti- 
mate promotions  were  exceedingly  rapid,  and 
I  suspect  that  what  little  Bonaparte  did  to 
keep  his  name  on  the  muster  roll  was  mere- 
ly to  preserve  his  position,  in  case  he  should 
finally  fail  in  his  schemes  for  aggrandizement 
in  his  native  land.  With  all  his  daring,  Bon- 
aparte manifested  through  life  a  caution 


which  looked  to  a  reserve  to  fall  back  upon 
in  case  of  defeat.  During  his  early  man- 
hood, that  reserve  was  his  place  in  the  French 
army.  And  now  defeat  of  every  scheme,  of 
every  plan,  to  which  he  had  given  four  years 
of  youthful  energy  and  enthusiasm,  was  upon 
him.  He  dared  not  again  set  foot  upon  his  na- 
tive soil.  His  family  had  followed  his  leader- 
ship, andnowhis  mother,  with  her  army  of  little 
ones,  had  fled  from  their  home,  fired  by  peas- 
ants infuriated  against  her  son.  He  saw  not 
only  his  own  utter  and  humiliating  defeat, 
but  he  saw  want,  exile,  and  wretchedness  in- 
flicted upon  his  mother  and  her  children. 
One  would  suppose  the  stoutest  heart  would 
quail  before  such  a  calamity.  But  no:  Bon- 
aparte, with  courage  unabated,  with  confi- 
dence in  himself  unimpaired,  turned  towards 
France  as  a  place  of  hope  and  refuge,  to  the 
French  army  as  the  means  of  winning  fame 
and  renown. 

The  times  were  propitious.  The  revolu- 
tion had  need  of  his  master  mind  to  grasp 
the  whirlwind,  and  to  direct  the  storm. 
France  and  the  French  people  were  ready 
for  him. 

In  June,  1793,  he  collected  his  family  to- 
gether, and  bade  farewell  to  his  native  land, 
to  enter  upon  that  marvellous  career  in  the 
country  of  his  adoption,  the  like  of  which 
has  not  been  known  since  the  beginning  of 

recorded  time. 

Warren  Olney. 


BLUE  EYES  AND  BLACK  EYES. 

\Imitate4  from  Andalusian   CoplasJ] 
I. 

Two  miracles  are  thy  blue  eyes, 

Haughty  or  tender ; 
Robbing  our  Andalusian  skies 
Of  half  their  splendor. 

Celestial  eyes  of  heaven's  own  hue, 

Twin  thrones  of  glory, 
Whose  glances  every  day  subdue 

New  territory. 


1885.]  Blue  Eyes  and  Black  Eyes.  413 

Blue  were  the  waters  and  the  skies 

Of  happy  Eden, 
And  blue  should  be  a  Christian's  eyes, 

Matron  or  maiden. 

By  heaven  those  peerless  orbs  of  blue 

To  thee  were  given, 
And  all  the  mischief  that  they  do 

Is  known  in  heaven. 

Two  saints  the  blue  eyes  seemed  to  me 

That  wrought  my  ruin  ; 
Who  would  have  thought  that  saints  could  be 

A  soul's  undoing? 


II. 


Black  eyes  are  truer  still,  I  ween, 

Than  any  other; 
Dark  were  the  eyes  of  Eden's  queen 

And  Mary  Mother. 

The  holy  ones  of  sacred  lore 

AH  dark  are  painted ; 
Each  radiant  prophetess  of  yore 

And  maiden  sainted. 

Blue  eyes  are  cold  as  polished  steel, 

For  all  their  splendor, 
While  thine  a  lambent  flame  conceal, 

So  warm  and  tender. 

Dearer  thine  olive  hue,  and  eyes 

Of  raven  brightness, 
Than  all  the  azure  of  the  skies 

And  lily's  whiteness. 

Thine  eyebrows  are  a  Moorish  grove, 

Whence  issuing  fleetly 
Two  winged  archers  lightly  rove, 

Wounding  so  sweetly. 

But  when  their  victims  bleeding  lie, 

Faintly  appealing, 
Two  tender  blackamoors  draw  nigh 

With  balm  of  healing. 

E.  L.  ffuggins* 


414 


Rough  Notes  of  a  Yosemite   Camping  Trip. 


[Oct. 


ROUGH  NOTES  OF  A  YOSEMITE  CAMPING  TRIP.— I. 


ABOUT  a  week  before  the  end  of  the  first 
session  of  the  University  of  California,  sev- 
eral young  men,  students  of  the  University, 
invited  me  to  join  them  in  a  camping  party 
for  the  Yosemite  and  the  high  Sierras.  The 
party  were  to  go  in  regular  pioneer  style,  cook- 
ing their  own  provisions,  and  sleeping  under 
the  open  sky,  wherever  a  convenient  place 
was  found  ;  each  man  was  to  bestride  his 
own  horse,  carry  his  own  bedding  behind  his 
saddle,  and  his  clothing,  with  the  exception 
of  one  change  of  underwear,  on  his  back. 

This  was,  it  is  true,  a  little  rougher  and 
harder  than  anything  I  had  ever  undertaken, 
but  still  I  was  fond  of  adventure,  and  longed 
to  enjoy  the  glories  of  Yosemite  and  the 
beauties  of  the  Sierras  ;  and,  more  than  all, 
to  study  mountain  structure  and  mountain 
sculpture,  as  exhibited  there  on  a  magnifi- 
cent scale.  I,  therefore,  at  once  accepted 
the  offer.  The  party  was  forthwith  organized, 
ten  in  number. 

To  while  away  my  idle  moments  in  camp, 
and  to  preserve  some  souvenir  of  the  party, 
of  the  incidents,  and  of  the  scenery,  I  jotted 
down,  from  time  to  time,  these  wayside  notes. 

July  21,  i8jo. — Amid  many  kind  and 
cheering  words,  mingled  with  tender  regrets  ; 
many  encouragements,  mingled  with  earn- 
est entreaties  to  take  care  of  myself,  and  to 
keep  out  of  drafts  and  damp,  while  sleeping 
on  the  bare  ground  in  the  open  air,  I  left 
my  home  and  dear  ones  this  morning. 
Surely,  I  must  have  a  heroic  and  dangerous 
air  about  me,  for  my  little  baby  boy  shrinks 
from  my  rough  flannel  shirt  and  broad  brim 
hat,  as  did  the  baby  son  of  Hector  from  his 
brazen  corselet  and  beamy  helm  and  nodding 
plume.  I  snatch  a  kiss,  and  hurry  away  to 
our  place  of  rendezvous. 

After  much  bustle,  confusion,  and  noisy 
preparation,  saddling,  sinching,  strapping 
blanket  rolls,  packing  camp  utensils  and 
provisions,  we  are  fairly  ready  at  ten  A.  M. 


Saluted  by  cheers  from  manly  throats,  and 
handkerchief  wavings  by  the  white  hands  of 
women,  we  leave  Oakland  at  a  sweeping  trot ; 
while  the  long  handle  of  our  frying-pan,  stick- 
ing straight  up  through  a  hole  in  the  bag, 
and  the  merry  jingle  of  tin  pans,  tin  cups, 
and  coffee-pot — tin-tin-nabulation — proclaim 
the  nature  of  our  mission. 

We  are  in  high  spirits  ;  although  I  confess 
to  some  misgivings,  when  I  heard  from  the 
Captain  that  we  should  ride  thirty  miles  to- 
day, for  I  have  not  been  on  horseback  for 
ten  years.  But  I  am  determined  not  to  be 
an  incumbrance  to  the  merry  party. 

Our  ride  took  us  over  the  Contra  Costa 
Ridge,  by  Hayward's  Pass,  into  Amador  and 
Livermore  Valleys,  and  then  along  these  val- 
leys, the  noble  outline  of  Mount  Diablo 
looming  finely  in  the  distance  on  our  left.  I 
observe  everything  narrowly,  for  all  is  new 
to  me,  and  so  different  from  anything  in  the 
Eastern  States.  Livermore  Valley  is  an  ex- 
tensive, rich,  level  plain,  separating  the  Con- 
tra Costa  from  the  Mount  Diablo  range.  It 
is  surrounded  by  mountains  on  every  side, 
and  the  scenery  is  really  fine.  Much  pleased 
to  find  the  mountains,  on  their  northern  and 
eastern  slopes,  so  green  and  well-wooded.  I 
have  been  accustomed  to  see  them  from  Oak- 
land only  on  their  southern  and  western 
slopes,  which  are  almost  treeless,  and,  at  this 
season,  brown  and  sere.  Much  interested  in 
watching  the  hab'its  of  burrowing  squirrels 
and  burrowing  owls,  especially  the  amicable 
manner  in  which  they  live  together  in  the 
same  burrows. 

We  arrived,  a  little  before  sunset,  at  Dub- 
lin, a  little  village  of  a  few  houses.  Here  we 
found  tolerable  camping  ground,  and  ought 
to  have  stopped  for  the  night ;  but,  against 
my  advice,  the  party,  buoyant  and  thought- 
less, concluded  to  go  on  to  Laddsville,i 
where  one  of  the  party  would  join  us,  and 
had  promised  to  provide  forage  forour  horses 

1  This  place  is  now  called  Livermore. 


1885.] 


Hough  Notes  of  a  Yosemite   Camping  Trip. 


415 


and  camp  for  ourselves.  It  was  a  foolish 
mistake.  From  this  time,  our  ride  was  very 
tedious  and  fatiguing.  The  miles  seemed  to 
stretch  out  before  us  longer  and  longer.  The 
hilarious  and  somewhat  noisy  spirits  of  the 
young  men  gradually  died  away.  After  some 
abortive  attempts  at  a  song,  some  miserable 
failures  in  the  way  of  jokes,  we  pursued  our 
weary  way  in  silence.  Night  closed  upon  us 
while  we  were  still  many  miles  away  from 
Laddsville.  Lights  ahead  !  Are  these  Ladds- 
ville?  We  hope  so.  Onward  we  press;  but 
the  lights  seem  to  recede  from  us.  Still  on- 
ward, seemingly  three  or  four  miles  ;  but  no 
nearer  the  lights.  Are  these  ignesfatui,  sent 
to  delude  us  ?  But  courage  !  here  comes 
some  onev 

"How  far  to  Laddsville?" 

"  Three  miles." 

Onward  we  pressed,  at  least  three  miles. 
Again  a  wayfarer : 

"How  far  to  Laddsville ? " 

"  Three  and  a  half  miles." 

Again  three  or  four  miles  onward ;  three 
or  four  miles  of  aching  ankles,  and  knees, 
and  hips,  and  back,  but  no  complaint. 

"  How  many  miles  to  Laddsville  ?  " 

"Five." 

Again  three  or  four  miles  of  aching  knees, 
and  hips,  and  back.  Wayfarers  are  becom- 
ing more  numerous. 

"  How  far  to  Laddsville  ?  "—"Two  miles." 

"How  far  to  Laddsville ?"— " A  little 
over  a  mile." 

"  How  far  to  Laddsville  ?  " — "  How  far  to 
Laddsville?"— "To  Laddsville?"— Ah,  here 
it  is  at  last. 

Yes,  at  last,  about  10  p.  M.,  that  now  cel- 
ebrated place  was  actually  reached  ;  but  too 
late  for  good  camping.  The  companion 
who  was  to  join  us  here  was  nowhere  to  be 
found.  We  hastily  made  arrangements  for 
our  horses  in  a  neighboring  stable,  and 
camped  on  the  bare,  dusty  ground,  in  an 
open  space  on  the  outskirts  of  the  town.  A 
good  camp-fire  and  a  hearty  meal  comforted 
us  somewhat.  About  11.30  p.  M.  we  rolled 
ourselves  in  our  blankets,  and  composed 
ourselves  for  sleep. 

To  our  wearied  spirits  we  seemed  to  have 


traveled  at  least  fifty  miles.  From  the  most 
accurate  information  we  can  get,  however, 
the  actual  distance  is  only  about  thirty-five 
miles. 

July  22. — Estimating  the  whole  mamma- 
lian population  of  Laddsville  at  two  hundred, 
I  am  sure  at  least  one  hundred  and  fifty 
must  be  dogs.  These  kept  up  such  an  in- 
cessant barking  all  night,  around  us  and  at 
us,  as  we  lay  upon  the  ground,  that  we  got 
but  little  sleep.  Near  daybreak  I  sank  into 
a  deeper,  sweeter  sleep,  when  whoo !  oo — 
oo—oo — whoo!! — the  scream  of  a  railroad 
train,  passing  within  fifty  feet,  startled  the 
night  air  and  us.  It  is  not  surprising,  then, 
that  we  got  up  reluctantly,  and  rather  late, 
and  very  stiff  and  sore.  Our  breakfast, 
which  consisted  this  morning  of  fried  bacon, 
cheese,  cold  bread,  and  good  tea,  refreshed 
and  comforted  us  greatly.  While  eating  our 
breakfast — whoop,  whoop,  hurrah!  our  ex- 
pected companion  came  galloping  in,  with 
gun  slung  on  shoulder.  He  did  his  best,  by 
whip,  and  spur,  and  noise,  to  make  a  dash- 
ing entry,  but  his  heavy,  sluggish  mare  did 
not  in  the  least  sympathize  with  his  enthusi- 
asm. 

Soon  after  sunrise,  all  the  inhabitants  of 
Laddsville,  including,  of  course,  the  one  hun- 
dred and  fifty  dogs,  came  crowding  around 
us ;  the  men,  to  find  out  who  we  were,  and 
where  bound;  the  dogs,  to  find  out  what  it 
was  they  had  been  barking  at  all  night.  Af- 
t^r  we  had  severally  satisfied  these  our  fellow- 
creatures,  both  biped  and  quadruped — our 
fellow-men  and  Darwinian  cousins — we  sad- 
dled and  packed  up,  determined  to  profit  by 
the  experience  of  yesterday,  and  not  to  go 
more  than  twenty  miles  today. 

We  passed  over  the  summit  of  Corral 
Hollow  Pass,  and  down  by  a  very  steep 
grade,  I  think  about  fifteen  hundred  feet  in 
a  mile,  into  Corral  Hollow,  a  very  narrow 
canon,  with  only  fifty  to  sixty  yards'  width  at 
the  bottom,  with  high,  rocky  cliffs  on  either 
side,  which  cut  through  Mount  Diablo  range 
to  the  base.  The  road  now  ran  in  this  canon 
along  a  dry  stream  bed  for  many  miles,  until 
it  finally  emerged  on  the  San  Joaquin  plains. 

In  Amador  and  Livermore  Valleys,  I  ob- 


416 


Bough  Notes  of  a  Yosemite   Camping  Trip. 


[Oct. 


served  the  soil  was  composed  of  a  drift  of 
rounded  pebbles,  in  stiff  adobe  clay — local 
drift  from  the  mountains.  In  Corral  Hol- 
low the  soil  consists  of  pebbles  and  coarse 
sand,  evidently  river  deposit.  Fine  sections 
showing  cross-lamination  were  observed;  per- 
pendicular cliffs  of  sandstone  and  limestone 
exposed  in  many  places,  sometimes  worn 
into  fantastic  shapes,  and  often  into  caves. 
These  caves,  I  hear,  were  once  the  haunts 
of  robbers.  Near  the  bottom  of  the  gorge 
the  irregularly  stratified  river  sands  are  seen 
lying  unconformably  on  the  sandstone.  We 
passed,  on  our  way,  some  coal  mines,  which 
are  now  worked.  These  strata  are  probably 
cretaceous,  belonging  to  the  same  horizon 
as  the  Mount  Diablo  coal. 

July  23. — The  whole  party  woke  up  this 
morning  in  good  spirits.  We  got  up  at  4 
A.  M.,  cooked  our  breakfast,  and  were  off  by 
5.30.  At  first,  we  really  enjoyed  our  ride  in 
the  cool  morning  air.  In  about  an  hour  we 
emerged  from  Corral  Hollow,  on  the  San 
Joaquin  plains.  There  is  still  a  fine,  cool 
breeze.  "  Why,  this  is  delightful ;  the  San 
Joaquin  plains  have  been  much  slandered," 
thought  we.  As  we  advanced,  however,  we 
changed  our  opinion.  Insufficiency  of  rain 
last  winter  has  produced  utter  failure  of 
crops.  As  far  as  the  eye  can  reach,  in  every 
direction,  only  a  bare  desert  plain  is  seen. 

The  heat  now  became  intense  ;  the  wind, 
though  strong,  was  dry  and  burning.  Over 
the  perfectly  level,  dry,  parched,  dusty,  and 
now  desert  plains,  with  baked  lips  and  bleed- 
ing noses,  we  pressed  on  towards  Grayson, 
where  we  expected  to  noon.  "  Grayson  is 
on  the  San  Joaquin  River.  It  can't  be  far 
off,  for  yonder  is  water."  Yes,  surely  yonder 
is  water ;  do  you  not  see  its  glistening  surface  ? 
its  rolling  billows  running  in  the  direction  of 
the  wind  ?  the  reflection  of  the  trees,  which 
grow  on  the  farther  bank?  Those  white  ob- 
jects scattered  over  the  glistening  surface, 
with  their  images  beneath:  are  these  not 
sails  on  the  river  ?  Alas,  no  !  it  is  all  mirage. 
There  is  no  water  visible  at  all.  The  trees 
are  trees  which  skirt  the  nearer  bank  of  the 
rivjer;  the  white  objects  are  cottages  on  the 
desert  plains.  We  could  hardly  believe  it, 


until  we  had  been  deceived  and  undeceived 
half  a  dozen  times.  Parched  with  heat  and 
thirst,  and  blinded  with  dust,  we  could  easily 
appreciate  the  tantalizing  effect  of  similar 
phenomena  on  the  thirsty  travelers  of  Sa- 
hara. 

Onward,  still  onward,  with  parched  throats, 
baked  lips,  and  bleeding  noses,  we  press. 
But  even  with  parched  throat,  baked  lips  and 
bleeding  nose,  one  may  enjoy  the  ludicrous, 
and  even  shake  his  gaunt  sides  with  laughter ; 
at  least, . I  found  it  so  this  morning.  The 

circumstances  were  these  :  H -,  early  this 

morning,  killed  a  rabbit.  Ph ,  conceiv- 
ing the  idea  that  it  would  relish  well,  broiled 
on  the  glowing  coals  of  our  camp-fire  tonight, 
offered  to  carry  it.  He  did  so  for  some 
time,  but  his  frisky,  foolish,  unsteady  filly, 
not  liking  the  dangling  rabbit,  became  res- 
tive, and  the  rabbit  was  dropped  in  disgust, 

and  left  on  the  road.     S ,  good-natured 

fellow,  in  simple  kindness  of  heart,  and  also 
having  the  delights  of  broiled  rabbit  present 
to  his  imagination,  dismounted  and  picked  it 
up.  But  essaying  to  mount  his  cow-like  beast 
again,  just  when  he  had,  with  painful  effort, 
climbed  up  to.  his  "  saddle  eaves,"  and  was 
about  to  heave  his  long  dexter  leg  over,  and 
wriggle  himself  into  his  seat,  the  beast  afore- 
said, who  had  been  attentively  viewing  the 
operation  out  of  the  external  corner  of  his  left. 

eye,  startedsuddenly  forward,  and  S ,  to  his 

great  astonishment,  found  himself  on  his  own, 
instead  of  his  horse's  back.  Then  commenced 
a  wild  careering  over  the  dusty  plain,  with  the 
saddle  under  his  belly  ;  a  mad  plunging  and 
kicking,  a  general  chasing  by  the  whole  par- 
ty, including  S himself,  on  foot ;  a  laugh- 
ing and  shouting  by  all  except  S ,  until 

sinch  and  straps  gave  way,  and  saddle,  blank- 
et-roll, and  clothing  lay  strewed  upon  the 
ground. 

We  had  hardly  picked  up  S 's  traps, 

and  mended  his  sinch,  and  started  on  our 
way ;  the  agitation  of  our  diaphragms  and  the 
aching  of  our  sides  had  scarcely  subsided, 

when  P ,  sitting  high  enthroned  on  his 

aged,  misshapen  beast,  thinking  to  show  the 
ease  and  grace  of  his  perfect  horsemanship, 
and  also  secretly  desiring  to  ease  the  exquis- 


1885.] 


Hough  Notes  of  a  Yosemite  Camping  Trip, 


417 


ite  tenderness  of  his  sitting  bones,  quietly  de- 
tached his  right  foot  from  its  stirrup,  and 
swung  it  gracefully  over  the  pommel,  to  sit 
awhile  in  woman  fashion.  But  as  soon  as 
the  shadow  of  his  great  top-boots  fell  across 
the  eyes  of  "  Old  67,"  that  venerable  beast, 
whether  in  the  innocency  of  colt-like  play- 
fulness, or  a  natural  malignancy,  made  fran- 
tic by  excessive  heat  and  dust,  began  to  kick, 
and  plunge,  and  buck,  until  finally,  by  a  sud- 
den and  dexterous  arching  of  his*  back,  and 
a  throwing  down  of  his  head,  P —  -  was 
shot  from  the  saddle  like  an  arrow  from  a 
bow,  or  a  shell  from  a  mortar ;  and  sailing 
through  mid-air  with  arms  and  legs  widely 
extended,  like  the  bird  of  Jove,  descended 
in  graceful,  parabolic  curves,  and  fell  into  the 
arms  of  his  fond  mother  earth.  Unwilling  to 
encounter  the  wrath  of  his  master,  Old  67 
turned  quickly  and  fled,  with  his  mouth  wide 
open,  and  his  teeth  all  showing,  as  if  enjoy- 
ing a  huge  horse  laugh.  Then  commenced 
again  the  wild  careering  on  the  hot  plains, 
the  mad  plunging  and  kicking,  the  shouting, 
and  laughing,  and  chasing.  The  horse  at 

last  secured,  P took  him  firmly  by  the 

bit,  delivered  one  blow  of  his  clenched  fist 
upon  his  nose,  and  then  gazed  at  him  stead- 
ily, with  countenance  full  of  solemn  warning. 
In  return,  a  wicked,  unrepentant,  vengeful 
gleam  shot  from  the  corner  of  the  deep-sunk 
eye  of  Old  67. 

Onward,  still  onward,  over  the  absolutely 
treeless  and  plantless  desert,  we  rode  for  fif- 
teen or  more  miles,  and  reached  Grayson 
about  12  M.  4  P.  M.  :  crossed  the  ferry,  and 
continued  on  our  journey  about  eight  or  ten 
miles,  and  camped  for  the  night.  The  San 
Joaquin  plain,  though  the  most  fertile  part  of 
the  State,  is  at  this  time,  of  course,  complete- 
ly dry  and  parched;  nothing  green  as  far  as 
the  eye  can  reach,  except  along  the  river 
banks.  The  only  animated  things  that  en- 
livened the  scene  this  afternoon  were  thous- 
ands of  jack  rabbits  and  burrowing  squirrels, 
and  their  friends,  the  burrowing  owls. 

July  24. — Cool  in  the  morning,  but  hot, 
oh,  how  hot,  as  the  day  advanced.  Made  fif- 
teen miles,  and  nooned  at  a  large  ranch — Mr. 

A 's.  Besides  the  invariable  jack  rabbits, 

VOL  VI,— 27. 


burrowing  squirrels,  and  burrowing  owls,  I 
noticed  thousands  of  horned  frogs  (Phryno- 
soma).  I  observed  here  a  peculiarity  of 

California  life.     Mr.  A is  evidently   a 

wealthy  man.  His  fields  are  immense ;  his 
stables  and  barns  are  very  ample;  his  horses 
and  hired  laborers  are  numerous ;  great  num- 
bers of  cows,  hogs,  turkeys,  chickens — every 
evidence  of  abundance,  good  living,  and  even 
of  wealth,  except  dwelling-house.  This  is  a 
shanty,  scarcely  fit  for  a  cow-house.  He 
doesn't  live  here,  however,  but  in  San  Fran- 
cisco. 

July  23. — After  a  really  fine  night's  rest, 
we  got  up  about  4  A.  M.  The  day  was  just 
breaking,  and  the  air  very  clear  and  trans- 
parent. The  blue,  jagged  outline  of  the  Si- 
erras is  distinctly  and  beautifully  marked, 
above  and  beyond  the  nearer  foothills,  against 
the  clear  sky.  In  fact,  there  seemed  to  be 
several  ridges,  rising  one  above  and  beyond 
the  other ;  and  above  and  beyond  all,  the 
sharp-toothed  summits  of  the  Sierras.  Took  a 
cold  breakfast,  and  made  an  early  start,  5  A.  M. 

At  first  our  ride  was  delightfully  pleasant  in 
the  cool  morning,  but  gradually  the  bare  des- 
ert plains,  now  monotonously  rolling,  became 
insufferably  hot  and  dusty.  The  beautiful  view 
of  the  Sierras,  the  goal  of  our  yearnings,  grad- 
ually faded  away,  obscured  by  dust,  and  our 
field  of  vision  was  again  limited  to  the  des- 
ert plains.  Soon  after  leaving  the  level  part  of 
the  plain,  we  stopped  for  water  at  a  neat  hut, 
where  dwelt  a  real  old  "mammy,"  surrounded 
by  little  darkies.  She  had  come  to  California 
since  the  war.  I  was  really  glad  to  see  the 
familiar  old  face,  and  hear  the  familiar,  low- 
country  negro  brogue ;  and  she  equally  glad 
to  see  me.  She  evidently  did  not  like  Cal- 
ifornia, and  seemed  to  pine  after  the  "  auld 
country."  From  this  place  to  Snelling,  the 
heat  and  dust  were  absolutely  fearful.  We 
are  commencing  to  rise :  there  is  no  strong 
breeze,  as  on  the  plains  ;  the  heated  air  and 
dust  arise  from  the  earth  and  envelope  us, 
man  and  horse,  until  we  can  scarcely  see 
each  other.  After  about  fifteen  miles'  travel, 
arrived  at  Snelling  at  11:30  A.  M.  Snelling 
is  the  largest  and  most  thriving  village  we 
have  yet  seen.  Continued  our  ride  4  P.  M., 


418 


Hough  Notes  of  a  yosemite  Camping  Trip. 


[Oct. 


expecting  to  go   only  to   Merced  Falls  to- 
night. 

Country  beginning  to  be  quite  hilly  ;  first, 
only  denudation  hills  of  drift,  finely  and  hor- 
izontally stratified  ;  then  round  hills,  with 
sharp,  tooth-like  jags  of  perpendicularly- 
cleaved  slates,  standing  out  thickly  on  their 
sides.  Here  we  first  saw  the  auriferous 
slates,  and  here,  also,  the  first  gravel  diggings. 
The  auriferous  gravel  and  pebble  deposit 
underlies  the  soil  of  the  valleys  and  ravines. 

Went  down  the  river  about  one-half  mile 
below  the  Falls,  and  camped.  No  straw 
bank  for  bed  tonight.  On  the  contrary,  we 
camped  on  the  barest,  hardest,  and  bleakest 
of  hills,  the  wind  sweeping  up  the  river  over 
us  in  a  perfect  gale.  Nevertheless,  our  sleep 
was  sound  and  refreshing. 

I  heard  tonight,  for  the  first  time,  of  a 
piece  of  boyish  folly — to  call  it  nothing  worse 
— on  the  part  of  some  of  the  young  men  at 
A 's,  yesterday  noon.  While  I  was  doz- 
ing under  the  shed,  some  of  the  young  men, 
thinking  it,  no  doubt,  fine  fun,  managed  to 
secure  and  appropriate  some  of  the  poultry 
running  about  in  such  superfluous  abundance 
in  the  yard.  While  sitting  and  jotting  down 
notes  under  the  wagon  shed  there,  I  had  ob- 
served C throwing  a  line  to  some  chick- 
ens. When  I  looked  up  from  my  note-book, 
I  did  observe,  I  now  recollect,  a  mischievous 
twinkle  in  his  coal  black  eye,  and  a  slight 
quiver  of  his  scarcely-perceptible,  downy 
moustache;  but  I  thought  nothing  of  it. 
Soon  after,  I  shut  up  my  note-book  and 
went  under  a  more  retired  shed  to  doze.  It 
now  appears  that  a  turkey  and  several  chick- 
ens had  been  bagged.  The  young  rascals 
felicitated  themselves  hugely  upon  their  good 
fortune;  but,  unfortunately,  last  night  and 
this  morning  we  made  no  camp-fire,  and  to- 
day at  noon  we  ate  at  the  hotel  table ;  so  that 
they  have  had  no  opportunity  of  enjoying 
their  ill-gotten  plunder  until  now.  Captain 
Sould  and  myself  have  already  expressed 
ourselves,  briefly,  but  very  plainly,  in  con- 
demnation of  such  conduct.  Tonight  the 
chickens  were  served.  I  said  nothing,  but 
simply,  with  Soule"  and  Hawkins,  refused  the 
delicious  morsel,  and  confined  myself  to 
bacon. 


July  26. — Got  up  at  4:30  A.  M.  Again 
refused  fat  chicken  and  turkey,  though  sore- 
ly tempted  by  the  delicious  fragrance,  and 
ate  bacon  and  dried  beef  instead.  The  young 
men  have  keenly  felt  this  quiet  rebuke.  I 
feel  sure  this  thing  will  not  occur  again. 

The  country  is  becoming  mountainous ; 
we  are  rising  the  foothills.  The  soil  begins 
to  be  well-wooded.  The  air,  though  still 
hot,  is  more  bracing.  Small  game  is  more 
abundant.  We  have,  all  along  the  road  to- 
day, seen  abundant  evidences  of  mining, 
prospecting,  etc.,  but  all  abandoned. 

Enjoyed  greatly  the  evening  ride.  Passed 
through  the  decayed,  almost  deserted,  vil- 
lage of  Princeton.  Witnessed  a  magnificent 
sunset;  brilliant  golden  above,  among  the 
distant  clouds,  nearer  clouds  purple,  shad- 
ing insensibly  through  crimson  and  gold  in- 
to the  insufferable  blaze  of  the  sun  itself. 

July  27. — Created  some  excitement  in  the 
town  of  Mariposa,  by  riding  through  the 
streets  in  double  file,  military  fashion,  and 
under  word  of  command.  Mariposa  is  now 
greatly  reduced  in  population  and  impor- 
tance. It  contains  from  five  to  six  hundred 
inhabitants,  but  at  one  time  two  or  three 
times  that  number.  The  same  decrease  is  ob- 
servable in  all  the  mining  towns  of  California. 
Noticed  many  pleasant  evidences  of  civiliza- 
tion— church  spires,  water-carts,  fire-proof 
stores,  etc. 

In  order  to  avoid  the  heavy  toll  on  the 
finely  graded  road  to  Clark's,  we  determined 
to  take  the  very  rough  and  steep  trail  over 
the  Chowchilla  mountain,  which  now  rose 
before  us.  My  advice  was  to  start  at  3  P.  M., 
for  I  still  remembered  Laddsville,  but  the 
rest  of  the  party  thought  the  heat  too  great. 
The  event  proved  I  was  right.  Started  4.30 
P.M.  We  found  the  trail  much  more  difficult 
than  we  had  expected  (we  had  not  yet  much 
experience  in  mountain  trails).  It  seemed 
to  pass  directly  up  the  mountain,  without 
much  regard  to  angle  of  declivity.  In  order 
to  relieve  our  horses,  we  walked  much  of 
the  way.  The  trail  passes  directly  over  the 
crest  of  the  mountains,  and  down  on  the 
other  side.  Night  overtook  us  when  about 
half  way  down.  No  moon ;  only  starlight. 
The  magnificent  forests  of  this  region,  con- 


1885.] 


'Rough  Notes  of  a  Yosemite  Camping  Trip. 


419 


sisting  of  sugar-pines,  yellow  pines,  and  Doug- 
lass firs  (some  of  the  first  eight  to  ten  feet  in 
diameter,  and  two  hundred  and  fifty  feet 
high) — grand,  glorious,  by  daylight ;  still 
grander  and  more  glorious  in  the  deepening 
shades  of  twilight ;  grandest  of  all  by  night 
— increased  the  darkness  so  greatly  that  it 
was  impossible  to  see  the  trail.  We  gave  the 
horses  the  reins,  and  let  them  go.  Although 
in  serious  danger  of  missing  footing,  I  could 
not  but  enjoy  the  night  ride  through  those 
magnificent  forests.  These  grand  old  trunks 
stand  like  giant  sentinels  about  us.  Were  it 
not  for  our  horses,  I  would  gladly  camp  here 
in  the  glorious  forest.  But  our  tired  horses 
must  be  fed.  Down,  down,  winding  back 
and  forth  ;  still  down,  down,  down,  until  my 
back  ached,  and  my  feet  burned  with  the 
constant  pressure  on  the  stirrups.  Still  down, 
down,  down.  Is  there  no  end  ?  Have  we 
not  missed  the  trail?  No  Clark's  yet.  Down, 
down,  down.  Thus  minute  after  minute,  and, 
it  seemed  to  us,  hour  after  hour,  passed 
away.  At  last,  the  advanced  guard  gave  the 
Indian  yell.  See,  lights  !  lights  !  The  whole 
company  united  in  one  shout  of  joy.  When 
we  arrived,  it  was  near  10  P.M. 

July  28. — Our  trip,  thus  far,  has  been  one 
of  hardship  without  reward.  It  has  been 
mere  endurance,  in  the  hope  of  enjoyment. 
Some  enjoyment,  it  is  true — our  camps,  our 
morning  and  evening  rides,  our  jokes,  etc. — 
but  nothing  in  comparison  with  the  dust 
and  heat  and  fatigue.  From  this  time  we 
expect  to  commence  the  real  enjoyment. 
We  are  delightfully  situated  here  :  fine  pas- 
ture for  horses ;  magnificent  grove  of  tall 
pines  for  camp ;  fine  river — South  Fork  of 
Merced — to  swim  in ;  delightful  air.  We 
determined  to  stop  here  two  days  ;  one  for 
rest  and  clothes-washing,  and  one  for  visit- 
ing the  Big  Trees.  I  cannot  have  a  better 
opportunity  to  describe  our  party. 

We  are  ten  in  number.  Each  man  is 
dressed  in  strong  trowsers,  heavy  boots  or 
shoes,  and  loose  flannel  shirt ;  a  belt,  with 
pistol  and  butcher  knife,  about  the  waist ; 
and  a  broad-brimmed  hat.  All  other  per- 
sonal effects  (and  these  are  made  as  few  as 
possible),  are  rolled  up  in  a  pair  of  blankets, 
and  securely  strapped  behind  his  saddle. 


Thus  accoutered,  we  make  a  formidable  ap- 
pearance, and  are  taken  sometimes  for  a 
troop  of  soldiers,  but  more  often  for  a  band 
of  cattle  or  horse  drovers.  Our  camp  uten- 
sils consist  of  two  large  pans,  to  mix  bread  ; 
a  camp-kettle,  a  tea-pot,  a  dozen  tin  plates, 
and  ten  tin  cups  ;  and,  most  important  of  all, 
two  or  three  frying  pans.  The  necessary 
provisions  are  bacon,  flour,  sugar,  tea. 
Whenever  we  could,  we  bought  small  quan- 
tities of  butter,  cheese,  fresh  meat,  potatoes, 
etc.  Before  leaving  Oakland,  we  organized 
thoroughly  by  electing  Soule  as  our  captain, 
and  Hawkins  his  lieutenant,  and  promised 
implicit  obedience.  This  promise  was  strictly 
carried  out.  All  important  matters,  however, 
such  as  our  route,  how  long  we  should  stay 
at  any  place,  etc.,  were  decided  by  vote,  the 
captain  preferring  to  forego  the  exercise  of 
authority  in  such  matters. 

Our  party  was  divided  into  three  squads 
of  three  each,  leaving  out  Hawkins,  as  he 
helped  everybody,  and  had  more  duties  of 
his  own  than  any  of  the  rest.  Each  squad 
of  three  was  on  duty  three  days,  and  divided 
the  duties  of  cook,  dish-washer,  and  pack 
among  themselves.  On  arriving  at  our  camp 
ground,  each  man  unsaddled,  and  picketed 
his  horse  with  a  lariat  rope,  carried  on  the 
horn  of  his  saddle  for  this  purpose.  In  ad- 
dition to  this,  whoever  attended  to  the  pack- 
horse  that  day  unpacked  him,  and  laid  the 
bags  ready  for  the  cook,  and  picketed  the 
pack-horse.  The  cook  then  built  a  fire  (fre- 
quently several  helping,  for  more  expedition), 
brought  water,  and  commenced  mixing 
dough  and  making  bread.  This  was  a  seri- 
ous operation,  to  make  bread  for  ten,  and 
bake  in  two  frying-pans.  First,  the  flour  in 
a  big  pan ;  then  yeast  powder ;  then  salt ; 
then  mix  dry  ;  then  mix  with  water  to  dough  ; 
then  bake  quickly ;  then  set  up  before  the 
fire  to  keep  hot.  Then  use  frying  pans  for 
meat,  etc.  In  the  meantime,  the  "dish-wash  " 
must  assist  the  cook  by  drawing  tea.  Our 
first  attempts  at  making  bread  were  lament- 
able failures.  We  soon  found  that  the  way 
to  make  bread  was  to  bake  from  the  top  as 
well  as  the  bottom  ;  in  fact,  we  often  baked 
entirely  from  the  top,  turning  over  by  flip- 
ping it  up  in  the  frying-pan,  and  catching  it 


420 


Rough  Notes  of  a  Yosemite  Camping  Trip. 


[Oct. 


on  the  other  side.  Bake  then  as  follows : 
spread  out  the  dough  to  fill  the  frying-pan, 
one-half  inch  thick,  using  a  round  stick  for 
rolling-pin,  and  the  bottom  of  the  bread  pan 
for  biscuit  board  ;  set  up  the  pan,  at  a  steep 
incline,  before  the  fire,  by  means  of  a  stick. 
It  is  better,  also,  to  put  a  few  coals  beneath, 
but  this  is  not  absolutely  necessary.  (This 
account  of  bread-making  anticipates  a  little  ; 
at  this  time,  we  had  not  yet  learned  to  make 
it  palatable.)  It  is  the  duty  now  of  the  dish- 
wash  to  set  the  table.  For  this  purpose,  a 
piece  of  Brussels  carpet  (used  during  the  day 
to  put  under  the  pack-saddle,  but  not  next  to 
the  horse)  is  spread  on  the  ground,  and  the 
plates  and  cups  are  arranged  around.  The 
meal  is  then  served,  and  each  man  sits  on 
the  ground,  and  uses  his  own  belt  knife  and 
fork,  if  he  has  any.  After  supper  we  smoke, 
while  Dish-wash  washes  up  the  dishes ;  then 
we  converse  or  sing,  as  the  spirit  moves  us, 
and  then  roll  ourselves  in  our  blankets,  only 
taking  off  our  shoes,  and  sleep.  Sometimes 
we  gather  pine-straw,  leaves,  or  boughs,  to 
make  the  ground  a  little  less  hard.  In  the 
morning,  Cook  and  Dish-wash  get  up  early, 
make  the  fire,  and  commence  the  cooking. 
The  rest  get  up  a  little  later,  in  time  to  wash, 
brush  hair,  teeth,  etc.,  before  breakfast.  We 
usually  finish  breakfast  by  6  A.M.  After 
breakfast,  again  wash  up  dishes,  and  put 
away  things,  and  deliver  them  to  Pack,  whose 
duty  it  is,  then,  to  pack  the  pack-horse,  and 
lead  it  during  the  day.  We  could  travel 
much  faster  but  for  the  pack.  The  pack- 
horse  must  go  almost  entirely  in  a  walk,  oth- 
erwise his  pack  is  shaken  to  pieces,  and  his 
back  is  chafed,  and  we  only  lose  time  in  stop- 
ping and  repacking.  By  organizing  thor- 
oughly, dividing  the  duties,  and  alternating, 
our  party  gets  along  in  the  pleasantest  and 
most  harmonious  manner. 

Soon  after  breakfast  this  morning,  Pro- 
fessors Church  and  Kendrick,  of  West 
Point,  called  at  our  camp  to  see  Soul£  and 
myself.  I  found  them  very  hearty  and  cor- 
dial in  manner,  very  gentlemanly  in  spirit, 
polished  and  urbane,  and,  of  course,  very 
intelligent.  I  was  really  very  much  delighted 
with  them.  They  had  just  returned  from 
Yosemite,  and  are  enthusiastic  in  their  ad- 


miration of  its  wonders.  These  gentlemen, 
of  course,  are  not  taking  it  in  the  rough  way 
we  are.  They  are  dressed  cap-a-pie,  and 
look  like  civilized  gentlemen.  They  seem 
to  admire  our  rough  garb,  and  we  are  not  at 
all  ashamed  of  it. 

About  ten  o'clock,  we  all  went  down  to 
the  river,  provided  with  soap,  and  washed 
under  flannels,  stockings,  handkerchiefs, 
towels,  etc.  It  was  really  a  comical  scene 
— the  whole  party  squatting  on  the  rocks  on 
the  margin  of  the  river,  soaping,  and  scrub- 
bing, and  wringing,  and  hanging  out. 

While  we  were  preparing  and  eating  our 
supper,  two  ladies,  now  staying  at  Clark's, 
called  at  our  camp-fire,  and  were  introduced. 
They  seemed  much  amused  at  our  rough  ap- 
pearance, our  rude  mode  of  eating,  and  the 
somewhat  rude  manners  of  the  young  men 
towards  each  other.  Their  little  petticoated 
forms,  so  clean  and  white  ;  their  gentle  man- 
ners; and,  above  all,  their  sweet,  smooth,  wo- 
manly faces,  contrasted,  oh,  how  pleasantly, 
with  our  own  rough,  bearded,  forked  appear- 
ance. They  tasted  some  of  our  bread,  and 
pronounced  it  excellent.  Ah,  the  sweet,  flat- 
tering, deceitful  sex !  It  was  really  execrable 
stuff;  we  had  not  yet  learned  to  make  it 
palatable. 

July  29. — Started  for  the  Big  Trees  at  7  A. 
M.  Five  of  the  party  walked,  and  five  rode. 
I  preferred  riding,  and  I  had  no  cause  to 
regret  it.  The  trail  was  very  rough,  and  al- 
most the  whole  way  up-mountain ;  the  dis- 
tance about  six  miles,  and  around  the  grove 
two  miles,  making  about  fourteen  miles  in 
all.  The  walkers  were  very  much  heated 
and  fatigued,  and  drank  too  freely  of  the 
ice-cold  waters  of  the  springs.  The  abun- 
dance and  excessive  coldness  of  the  water 
seem  closely  connected  with  the  occurrence 
of  these  trees. 

My  first  impressions  of  the  Big  Trees  were 
somewhat  disappointing,  but,  as  I  passed 
from  one  to  another ;  as,  with  upturned  face, 
I  looked  along  their  straight,  polished  shafts, 
towering  to  the  height  of  three  hundred  feet ; 
as  I  climbed  up  the  sides  of  their  prostrate 
trunks,  and  stepped  from  end  to  end ;  as  I 
rode  around  the  standing  trees,  and  into 
their  enormous  hollows;  as  we  rode  through 


1885.] 


Rough  Notes  of  a  Yosemite   Camping  Trip. 


421 


the  hollows  of  some  of  these  prostrate  trunks, 
and  even  chased  one  another  on  horse-back 
through  these  enormous  hollow  cylinders,  a 
sense  of  their  immensity  grew  upon  me. 
If  they  stood  by  themselves  on  a  plain, 
they  would  be  more  immediately  striking. 
But  they  are  giants  among  giants.  The 
whole  forest  is  filled  with  magnificent  trees, 
sugar  pines,  yellow  pines,  and  spruce,  eight 
to  ten  feet  in  diameter,  and  two  hundred  to 
two  hundred  and  fifty  feet  high.  The  sugar 
pine,  especially,  is  a  magnificent  tree  in  size, 
height,  and  symmetry  of  form. 

Of  the  big  trees  of  this  grove,  and,  there- 
fore, of  all  the  trees  I  have  ever  seen,  the 
Grizzly  Giant  impressed  me  most  profoundly; 
not,  indeed,  by  its  tallness,  or  its  symmetry, 
but  by  the  hugeness  of  its  cylindrical  trunk, 
and  by  a  certain  gnarled  grandeur,  a  fibrous, 
sinewy  strength,  which  seems  to  defy  time 
itself.  The  others,  with  their  smooth,  straight, 
tapering  shafts,  towering  to  the  height  of 
three  hundred  feet,  seemed  to  me  the  type 
of  youthful  vigor  and  beauty,  in  the  plenitude 
of  power  and  success.  But  this,  with  its 
large,  rough,  knobbed,  battered  trunk,  more 
than  thirty  feet  in  diameter — with  top  broken 
off  and  decayed  at  the  height  of  one  hun- 
dred and  fifty  feet — with  its  great  limbs,  six 
to  eight  feet  in  diameter,  twisted  and  broken 
— seemed  to  me  the  type  of  a  great  life,  de- 
caying, but  still  strong  and  self-reliant.  Per- 
haps my  own  bald  head  and  grizzled  locks — 
my  own  top,  with  its  decaying  foliage — made 
me  sympathize  with  this  grizzled  giant ;  but 
I  found  the  Captain,  too,  standing  with  hat 
in  hand,  and  gazing  in  silent,  bareheaded 
reverence  upon  the  grand  old  tree. 

On  the  way  back  to  camp,  stopped  at 
Clark's,  and  became  acquainted  with  Presi- 
dent Hopkins  and  his  family.  He  goes  to 
Yosemite  tomorrow.  After  supper,  the  young 
men,  sitting  under  the  tall  pines,  sang  in  cho- 
rus. The  two  ladies  already  spoken  of,  hear- 
ing the  music,  came  down  to  our  camp,  sat  on 

the  ground,  and  joined  in  the  song.  C 's 

noisy  tenor,  fuller  of  spirit  than  music; 
P—  — 's  bellowing  baritone,  and,  especially 
— 's  deep,  rich,  really  fine  bass,  harmon- 
ized very  pleasantly  with  the  thin  clearness 
of  the  feminine  voices.  I  really  enjoyed  the 


song  and  the  scene  very  greatly.  Women's 
faces  and  women's  voices,  after  our  rough 
life,  and  contrasted  with  our  rough  forms — 
ah!  how  delightful!  About  9.30  p.  M.  they 
left,  and  we  all  turned  in  for  the  night.  For 
an  hour  I  lay  upon  my  back,  gazing  upwards 
through  the  tall  pines  into  the  dark,  starry 
sky,  which  seemed  almost  to  rest  on  their 
tops,  and  listening  to  the  solemn  murmuring 
of  their  leaves,  which,  in  the  silent  night, 
seemed  like  the  whispering  of  spirits  of  the 
air  above  me. 

July  30. — Got  up  at  4  A.  M.  My  turn  to 
play  cook.  But  cooking  for  ten  hungry 
men,  in  two  frying  pans,  is  no  play.  It  re- 
quires both  time  and  patience.  We  did  not 
get  off  until  seven. 

No  more  roads  hereafter ;  only  steep, 
rough  mountain  trails.  We  are  heartily  glad, 
for  we  have  no  dust.  President  Hopkins  and 
party  started  off  with  us.  Together,  we  made 
a  formidable  cavalcade.  The  young  men 
were  in  high  spirits.  They  sang  and  hallooed 
and  cracked  jokes  the  whole  way.  Rode 
twelve  miles,  up-hill  nearly  all  the  way,  and 
camped  for  noon  at  Westfall's  Meadows, 
over  seven  thousand  feet  above  sea-level. 

In  the  afternoon  we  pushed  on,  to  get  our 
first  view  of  Yosemite  this  evening,  from 
Sentinel  Dome  and  Glacier  Point.  Passing 
Paragoy's,  I  saw  a  rough-looking  man  stand- 
ing in  an  open  place,  with  easel  on  thumb 
and  canvas  before  him,  alternately  gazing  on 
the  fine  mountain  view  and  painting. 

"  Hello,  Mr.  Tracy ;  glad  to  see  you." 

"  Why,  Doctor,  how  do  you  do  ?  Where 
are  you  going  ?  " 

"  Yosemite,  the  High  Sierras,  Lake  Mono, 
and  Lake  Tahoe." 

"  Ah,  how  I  wish  I  could  go  with  you." 

After  a  few  such  pleasant  words  of  greet- 
ing and  inquiry,  I  galloped  on  and  overtook 
our  party  on  the  trail  to  Glacier  Point.  The 
whole  trail  from  Westfall's  Meadows  to 
Glacier  Point  is  near  eight  thousand  feet 
high.  About  5  P.  M.  we  reached  and  climbed 
Ostrander's  Rocks.  From  this  rocky  promi- 
nence the  view  is  really  magnificent.  It  was 
our  first  view  of  the  peaks  and  domes  about 
Yosemite,  and  of  the  more  distant  High 
Sierras,  and  we  enjoyed  it  beyond  it  expres- 


422J 


Rough  Notes  of  a  Yosemite   Camping  Trip. 


[Oct. 


sion.  But  there  are  still  finer  views  ahead, 
which  we  must  see  this  afternoon — yes,  this 
very  afternoon.  With  increasing  enthusiasm 
we  pushed  on  until,  about  6  p.  M.,  we  reached 
and  climbed  Sentinel  Dome.  This  point  is 
four  thousand  five  hundred  feet  above  Yo- 
semite Valley,  and  eight  thousand  five  hun- 
dred feet  above  the  sea. 

The  view  which  here  burst  upon  us  of  the 
Valley  and  the  Sierras,  it  is  simply  impossi- 
ble to  describe.  Sentinel  Dome  stands  on 
the  south  margin  of  the  Yosemite,  near  the 
point  where  it  branches  into  three  canons. 
To  the.  left  stands  El  Capitan's  massive,  per- 
pendicular wall;  directly  in  front,  and  dis- 
tant about  one  mile,  Yosemite  Falls,  like 
a  gauzy  veil,  rippling  and  waving  with  a 
slow,  mazy  motion  ;  to  the  right,  the  mighty 
granite  mass  of  Half  Dome  lifts  itself  in  sol- 
itary grandeur,  defying  the  efforts  of  the 
climber ;  to  the  extreme  right,  and  a  little 
behind,  Nevada  Falls,  with  the  Cap  of  Lib- 
erty ;  in  the  distance,  innumerable  peaks  of 
the  High  Sierras,  conspicuous  among  which 
are  Cloud's  Rest,  Mount  Starr  King,  Cathe- 
dral Peak,  etc.  We  remained  on  the  top  of 
this  dome  more  than  an  hour,  to  see  the 
sun  set.  We  were  well  repaid — such  a  sun- 
set I  never  saw;  such  a  sunset,  combined 
with  such  a  view,  I  had  never  imagined. 
The  gorgeous  golden  and  crimson  in  the 
west,  and  the  exquisitely  delicate,  diffused 
rose-bloom,  tinging  the  cloud  caps  of  the 
Sierras  in  the  east,  and  the  shadows  of  the 
grand  peaks  and  domes  slowly  creeping  up 
the  valley — I  can  never  forget  the  impres- 
sion. We  remained  enjoying  this  scene  too 
long  to  think  of  going  to  Glacier  Point  this 
evening.  We  therefore  put  this  off  until 
morning,  and  returned  on  our  trail  about 
one  and  a  half  miles  to  a  beautiful  green 
meadow,  and  there  made  camp  in  a  grove  of 
magnificent  spruce  trees  (Picea  grandis). 

July  31. — I  got  up  at  peep  of  day  this 
morning  (I  am  dish-wash  today),  roused 
the  party,  started  a  fire,  and  in  ten  minutes 
tea  was  ready.  All  started  on  foot,  to  see 
the  sun  rise  from  Glacier  Point.  This  point 
is  about  one  and  a  half  miles  from  our  camp, 
about  three  thousand  two  hundred  feet  above 
the  valley,  and  forms  the  salient  angle  on  the 


south  side,  just  where  the  valley'divides  into 
three.  We  had  to  descend  about  eight  hun- 
dred feet  to  reach  it.  We  arrived  just  be- 
fore sunrise.  Sunrise  from  Glacier  Point !  No 
one  can  appreciate  it  who  has  not  seen  it.  It 
was  our  good  fortune  to  have  an  exceedingly 
beautiful  sunrise.  But  the  great  charm  was 
the  view  of  the  valley  and  surrounding  peaks, 
in  the  fresh,  cool,  morning  hour,  and  in  the 
rosy  light  of  the  rising  sun;  the  bright,  warm 
light  on  the  mountain  tops,  and  the  cool 
shade  in  the  valley.  The  shadow  of  the 
grand  Half  Dome  stretches  clear  across  the 
valley,  while  its  own  "bald,  awful  head"  glit- 
ters in  the  early  sunlight.  To  the  right,  Ver- 
nal and  Nevada  Falls,  with  their  magnificent 
overhanging  peaks,  in  full  view ;  while  di- 
rectly across,  see  the  ever  rippling,  evet  sway- 
ing, gauzy  veil  of  the  Yosemite  Fall,  reach- 
ing from  top  to  bottom  of  the  opposite  cliff, 
two  thousand,  six  hundred  feet.  Below,  at 
a  depth  of  three  thousand  two  hundred  feet, 
the  bottom  of  the  valley  lies  like  a  garden. 
There,  right  under  our  noses,  are  the  hotels, 
the  orchards,  the  fields,  the  meadows,  the 
forests,  and  through  all,  the  Merced  River 
winds  its  apparently  lazy,  serpentine  way. 
Yonder,  up  the  Tenaya  Canon,  nestling  close 
under  the  shadow  of  Half  Dome,  lies  Mirror 
Lake,  fast  asleep,  her  polished  black 'surface 
not  yet  rippled  by  the  rising  wind.  I  have 
heard  and  read  much  of  this  wonderful  val- 
ley, but  I  can  truly  say  I  had  never  imagined 
the  grandeur  of  the  reality. 

After  about  one  and  a  half  hour's  raptur- 
ous gaze,  we  returned  to  camp  and  breakfast- 
ed. At  breakfast  I  learned  that  two  of  the 
young  men  had  undertaken  the  foolish  en- 
terprise of  going  down  into  the  valley  by  a 
canon  just  below  Glacier  Point,  and  return- 
ing by  4  P.  M.  Think  of  it !  Three  thous- 
and three  hundred  feet  perpendicular,  and 
the  declivity,  it  seemed  to  me,  about  forty- 
five  degrees  in  the  canon.1 

After  breakfast,  we  returned  to  Glacier 
Point,  and  spent  the  whole  of  the  beautiful 
Sunday  morning  in  the  presence  of  grand 
mountains,  yawning  chasms,  and  magnificent 
falls.  What  could  we  do  better  than  allow 
these  to  preach  to  us  ?  Was  there  ever  so 

1  There  is  now  a  good  trail  up  to  Glacier  Point. 


1885.] 


Rough  Notes  of  a  Yosemite   Camping  Trip. 


423 


venerable,  majestic,  and  eloquent  a  minister 
of  natural  religion  as  the  grand  old  Half 
Dome?  I  withdrew  myself  from  the  rest  of 
the  party,  and  drank  in  his  silent  teachings 
for  several  hours.  About  i  P.  M.  climbed  Ca- 
thedral Dome,  and  enjoyed  again  the  match- 
less panorama  view  from  this  point  ;  and 
about  2  P.  M.  returned  to  camp. 

Our  camp  is  itself  about  four  thousand  feet 
above  the  valley,  and  eight  thousand  above 
the  sea  level.  By  walking  about  one  hun- 
dred yards  from  our  camp-fire,  we  get  a  most 
admirable  view  of  the  Sierras,  and  particu- 
larly a  most  wonderfully  striking  view  of  the 
unique  form  of  Half  Dome,  when  seen  in 
profile. 

Our  plan  is  to  return  to  Paragoy's,  only 
seven,  miles,  this  afternoon,  and  go  to  Yo- 
semite tomorrow  morning. 

Ever  since  we  have  approached  the  region 
of  the  High  Sierras,  I  have  observed  the  great 
massiveness  and  grandeur  of  the  clouds,  and 
the  extreme  blueness  of  the  sky.  In  the  di- 
rection of  the  Sierras  hang  always  magnifi- 
cent piles  of  snow-white  cumulus,  sharply 
defined  against  the  deep-blue  sky.  These 
cloud  masses  have  ever  been  my  delight.  I 
have  missed  them  sadly,  since  coming  to 
California,  until  this  trip.  I  now  welcome 
them  with  joy.  Yesterday  and  today  I  have 
seen,  in  many  places,  snow  lying  on  the 
northern  slopes  of  the  high  peaks  of  the 
Sierras. 

August  i. —  Yosemite  today!  Started  as 
usual,  7  A.  M.  President  Hopkins  and  fam- 
ily go  with  us.  They  had  stayed  at  Para^ 
goy's  over  Sunday.  I  think  we  kept  Sunday 
better.  Glorious  ride  this  morning,  through 
the  grand  spruce  forests.  This  is  enjoyment 
indeed.  The  trail  is  tolerably  good  until  it ' 
reaches  the  edge  of  the  Yosemite  chasm. 
On  the  trail  a  little  way  below  this  edge,  there 
is  a  jutting  point  called  "Inspiration  Point," 
which  gives  a  good  general  view  of  the  low- 
er end  of  the  valley,  including  El  Capitan, 
Cathedral  Rock,  and  a  glimpse  of  Bridal 
Veil  Fall.  After  taking  this  view,  we  com- 
menced the  descent  into  the  valley.  The 
trail  winds  backward  and  forward  on  the  al- 
most perpendicular  sides  of  the  cliff,  making 
a  descent  of  about  three  thousand  feet  in 


three  miles.  It  was  so  steep  and  rough'that 
we  preferred  walking  most  of  the  way,  and 
leading  the  horses.  At  last,  10  A.  M.,|we 
were  down,  and  the  gate  of  the  valley  is  be- 
fore us,  El  Capitan  guarding  it  on  the  left 
and  Cathedral  Rock  on  the  right;  while, 
over  the  precipice  on  the  right,  the  silvery 
gauze  of  the  Bridal  Veil  is  seen  swaying  to 
and  fro. 

We  encamped  in  a  fine  forest,  on  the 
margin  of  Bridal  Veil  Meadow,  under  the 
shadow  of  El  Capitan,  and  about  one  quar- 
ter of  a  mile  from  Bridal  Veil  Falls.  Turned 
our  horses  loose  to  graze,  cooked  our  mid- 
day meal,  refreshed  ourselves  by  swimming 
in  the  Merced,  and  then,  4:30  P.M.,  started 
to  visit  Bridal  Veil.  We  had  understood 
that  was  the  best  time  to  see  it.  Very 
difficult  clambering  to  the  foot  of  the  falls, 
up  a  steep  incline,  formed  by  a  pile  of  huge 
boulders  fallen  from  the  cliff.  The  enchant- 
ing beauty  and  exquisite  grace  of  this  fall 
well  repaid  us  for  the  toil.  At  the  base  of  the 
fall  there  is  a  beautiful  pool.  As  one  stands 
on  the  rocks  on  the  margin  of  this  pool, 
right  opposite  the  falls,  a  most  perfect,  un- 
broken circular  rainbow  is  visible.  Some- 
times it  is  a  double  circular  rainbow.  The 
cliff  more  than  six  hundred  feet  high  ;  the 
wavy,  billowy,  gauzy  veil,  reaching  from  top 
to  bottom ;  the  glorious  crown,  woven  by  the 
sun  for  this  beautiful  veiled  bride — those  who 
read  must  put  these  together,  and  form  a 
picture  for  themselves. 

Some  of  the  young  men  took  a  swim  in 
the  pool  and  a  shower  bath  under  the  fall. 
After  enjoying  this  exquisite  fall  until  after 
sunset,  we  returned  to  camp.  On  our  way 
back,  amongst  the  loose  rocks  on  the  stream 
margin,  we  found  and  killed  a  rattlesnake. 
This  is  the  fourth  we  have  killed.  After 
supper  we  lit  cigarettes,  gathered  around  the 
camp-fire,  and  conversed.  Some  question  of 
the  relative  merits  of  novelists  was  started, 
and  my  opinion  asked.  By  repeated  ques- 
tions I  was  led  into  quite  a  disquisition  on 
art  and  literature,  which  lasted  until  bed- 
time. Before  retiring,  as  usual,  we  piled 
huge  logs  on  the  camp-fire,  then  rolled  our- 
selves in  our  blankets,  within  reach  of  its 
warmth. 

Joseph  Le  Conte. 


424 


Free  Public  Libraries. 


[Oct. 


FREE  PUB], 1C  LIBRARIES: 
ESPECIALLY  THAT  OF  SAN  FRANCISCO. 


THERE  are  in  the  United  States  about  five 
thousand  public  libraries  of  three  hundred 
volumes  or  more.  Returns  of  their  present 
condition  are  very  imperfect,  and  must  there- 
fore be  summed  in  the  following  crude  way  : 

Books  in  them,  many  more  than 13,000,000 

Books  added  yearly,  many  more  than 500,000 

Books  used  yearly,  many  more  than 10,000,000 

Annual  cost,  much  more  than $1,500,000 

These  institutions,  therefore,  represent  a 
large  money  investment,  and  a  very  exten- 
sive and  active  educational  machinery.  Not 
all  of  them  are  "  free  public  libraries,"  /.  e., 
libraries  supported  by  the  tax-payers  or  by 
endowments  for  the  use  of  all.  But  a  con- 
siderable proportion  of  them  are,  insomuch 
that  it  may  now  be  justly  said  that  no  town 
of  importance  is  respectably  complete  with- 
out a  free  public  library,  any  more  than  any 
town  whatever  without  a  school. 

THE  San  Francisco  Free  Public  Library 
was  founded  in  1879,  an^  was  advancing 
with  creditable  speed  towards  a  size  and  use- 
fulness corresponding  to  the  position  of  San 
Francisco  among  American  cities,  until  the 
city  government  this  year  stopped  the  pur- 
chase of  books,  either  to  increase  the  libra- 
ry, or  to  replace  volumes  worn  out,  by  cutting 
down  the  annual  allowance  to  the  bare 
amount  of  running  expenses. 

This  library  is  not  a  collection  of  mum- 
mies of  decayed  learning,  which  will  be  no 
drier  a  thousand  years  hence  than  they  are 
now.  It  has  thus  far  consisted  of  live  books 
for  live  people.  But  a  library  of  this  prac- 
tically useful  kind,  if  it  stops  buying  new 
books,  quickly  becomes  dead  stock,  unat- 
tractive, obsolete,  useless.  In  belles-lettres, 
literature,  history,  mechanic  arts,  engineering, 
applied  science,  for  instance,  it  is  equally  in- 
dispensable to  have  the  new  books.  The 
photographer,  the  druggist,  the  electrician, 


as  much  as  the  reader  of  novels,  poetry,  trav- 
els, or  history,  want  this  year's  discoveries, 
for  last  year's  are  already  obsolete.  The 
life  of  General  Grant  is  going  to  be  asked  for 
this  next  year — and  in  vain,  apparently — not 
the  first  volume  of  Elaine's  "Twenty  Years  in 
Congress  " — a  last  year's  book.  But  a  thous- 
and examples  would  not  make  the  case  any 
clearer. 

This  prohibition  of  new  books,  on  pre- 
tense (say)  of  economy,  would  be  the  natu- 
ral first  step  of  shrewd  opponents,  intending 
to  shut  up  the  place  altogether,  as  soon  as 
the  books  should  be  dead  enough.  It  is  gird- 
ling the  tree  now,  so  as  to  destroy  it  more 
easily  next  year. 

It  is  understood  that  at  least  two  promi- 
nent members  of  the  present  city  govern- 
ment are  distinctly  opposed  to  the  library, 
and  to  free  public  libraries,  on  principle.  It 
is  not  known  that  any  member  of  it  is  a  par- 
ticularly energetic  friend.  The  library  staff 
is  small  in  number  (seven  boys  and  eight 
adults) ;  the  salaries  (omitting  the  librarian's) 
are  exceptionally  scanty;  and  even  this  small 
patronage  and  expenditure  are  wholly  con- 
trolled by  the  Board  of  Trustees  of  the  libra- 
ry, and  wholly  out  of  reach  of  the  Board  of 
Supervisors.  When  this  is  remembered,  it 
is  easy  to  understand  both  the  probable  firm- 
ness of  any  opposition,  and  the  probable  luke- 
warmness  of  any  friendship  by  the  supervis- 
ors to  the  library.  This  is  perfectly  natural. 
Governing  bodies  always  desire  to  keep  and 
increase  their  authority  over  persons  and  pay- 
ments, and  never  let  go  of  them  when  they 
can  help  it.  Accordingly,  the  supervisors  of 
the  city  insisted  on  controlling  all  the  de- 
tails of  library  management  and  expenditures, 
until  a  decision  of  a  court  of  law  forced  it  out 
of  their  hands. 

Whether  such  a  closing  of  the  library  as 
above  suggested  be  actually  intended  or  not, 


1885.] 


Free  Public  Libraries. 


425 


the  obvious  first  step  towards  it  is  to  stop 
the  'supply  of  books,  and  its  closing  will  in 
due  season  be  the  result  if  this  policy  be  con- 
tinued. If  the  voters  of  San  Francisco 
choose  to  have  it  so,  there  is  no  more  to  be 
said,  for  the  library  belongs  to  them.  Per- 
haps they  could  lawfully  divide  the  books 
among  themselves,  and  so  close  out  the  en- 
terprise. The  "divvy"  would  be  not  far 
from  one  volume  to  each  household  in  town. 
But  if  not,  if  they  wish  the  library  to  be  con- 
tinued, this  early  notice  is  due  them. 

Further  :  the  custom  here  in  respect  to 
the  contents  of  municipal  public  documents 
prohibits  such  discussions  of  library  matters 
as  are  usual  in  the  annual  reports  of  other 
city  libraries ;  so  that  a  view  of  tfie  princi- 
ples and  practices  of  and  about  such  institu- 
tions as  a  class  must,  if  it  is  to  be  laid  before 
the  public  at  all,  be  submitted  unofficially. 

THE  following  table  chows  the  financial, 
and  some  of  the  literary,  relations  between 
public  libraries  and  the  cities  supporting 
them,  in  San  Francisco,  in  four  other  large 
cities,  and  in  six  small  cities.  The  cases 
were  taken  as  they  came  conveniently  to 
hand,  and  the  dates  are  the  latest  available, 
but  are  all  within  a  few  years.  New  York 
has  no  free  public  library;  movements  to  es- 
tablish one  there  have  been  repeatedly  con- 
templated, and  have  been  abandoned,  be- 
cause the  men  who  wished  for  the  library 
would  not  encounter  the  practical  certainty 
of  its  becoming  merely  one  more  corruption- 
ist  engine  in  the  hands  of  the  city  rulers. 
Philadelphia  has  none,  for  reasons  not  known 
to  the  present  writer,  but  very  likely  the  same 
as  in  New  York.  St.  Louis  has  none  now, 
although  its  excellent  Public  School  Library 
may  very  likely  become  one.  New  Orleans 
has  none,  apparently  because  it  doesn't  want 
any.  Louisville  has  none,  because  the  devil 
cannot  set  up  a  true  church  :  the  enormous 
lottery  swindle,  which  was  worked  off  there 
a  few  years  ago  was  ostensibly  to  establish 
and  endow  one,  but  where  did  the  money  go? 
The  six  small  cities  tabulated  are  all  in  Mas- 
sachusetts— because  their  reports  came  most 
punctually  to  hand  for  latest  dates. 


3 

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Assessed  Value  in 
millions  (1880). 

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Total  Year's  City 
Tax  (1880). 

oo 

M 

M                           M        *  Cn   10 

00  M   to   ON  M   ONVI   O  Co    Q 
ONO  Co    ON*  ^O  CO    w  CO    Q 
O  Cn   M    M   OOVI   O   ON  O   O 

•  •<  * 

to 

£,0 

CO  *  CO    ONVI  Cn  Cn   OOVI    ON 
OOMVI*    ONM    OOtoCn   O 

if 

v  c 

X  £, 

B 

ON 

4- 

VI 

M    M    OOVI  Cn  *    10  CO    M    CO 

tOMOOCOO*OOO  ONCn 
O^OCo   10   O   OOOVl    to^O 

?i 

Cn  Cn  Cn  Cn  Cn  Cn 

ft? 

CO 
E 

M 

H                                    VI    ON  O 
*O  Cn  CT        VI    OOvO  CO    ONCn 
*    OOVI  ~  M  CO    O    O  *    ON 

CO  \O   H  '  —  'VI   O  CO  Cn   OOMD 
to    to  Cn        *O  Cn  Co  *•    ON  O 
MOM          OOtOO-f^VlON 

Circulation 
per  year. 

x" 

COIOM      co       tocoMCo 

3    "        ~^  3    3  "3    ^          3 

8*2. 
£.«. 

3 

IOCOM                        MCOtOtOM 

Vo\s.  circ'd 
per  dollar 
of  Salaries. 

g  ^  CO  CO     M     M             tO     10     M  *  Cn     ON 
(T^  "        99.M(OV|*.*VltOMt04* 

c/i    >^,       O  VI  VO  4*  *•  VI    ON  to    OOVI 
in  Q<-°  en  M  vj   M   oo  oo*   O   O   oo 

Volumes  added 
per  year. 

OF  various  comparisons  which  could  be 
formulated  from  the  above  figures,  the  fol- 
lowing are  most  pertinent  now  : 

i.  Of  the  five  large  cities  named,  four,  viz, 
Boston,  Chicago,  Cincinnati,  and  Milwaukee, 


426 


Free  Public  Libraries. 


[Oct. 


give  from  one  fifty-first  to  one  eighty-second 
part  of  their  tax  levies  for  their  public  libra- 
ries; San  Francisco,  one  one  hundred  and 
twenty-seventh  part. 

2.  Of  the"actual  sums  thus  given  by  these 
cities:  Boston,  with  half  as  many  more  peo- 
ple, givesjiearly  seven  times  as  much  ;  Chi- 
cago, with  twice  as  many,  gives  three  times 
as  much ;  Cincinnati,  with   one-tenth  more, 
gives   two   and  two -thirds    times  as  much  ; 
Milwaukee,  with  just  more  than  half  as  many, 
gives  nearly  as  much  (three  hundred  dollars 
less). 

3.  Accordingly,  San  Francisco  would  ap- 
propriate yearly  for  its  library,  if  it  were  as 
liberal  per  head  in  that  matter  as  Boston, 
about  eighty-four  thousand  dollars  ;  if  as  lib- 
eral as  Chicago,  twenty-seven  thousand  dol- 
lars ;  and  so  on. 

4.  The  comparative  size  of  their  libraries 
is  :  Boston,  seven  times  as  great  as  San  Fran- 
cisco ;    Chicago,    nearly  twice ;    Cincinnati, 
twice  and  a  half;  and    Milwaukee    only  is 
smaller,  being  somewhat  more  than  one-third 
as  large. 

5.  The   rate  of  increase  is  from  16,478 
volumes  a  year  at  Boston,  down  to  2,778  at 
Milwaukee,  and  in  San  Francisco,  for  the 
coming  year,  none  (for  the  loss  by  worn-out 
volumes  will  more  than  equal  any  gain  by 
gifts). 

6.  The  number  of  volumes  circulated  in  a 
year  for  each  dollar  of  salaries  paid  is,  in  this 
city,  more  than  twice  as  great  as  in  Boston 
or  Milwaukee,  and  decidedly  larger  than  in 
Chicago  or  Cincinnati.     It  may  be  added, 
although  the  figures  are  not  in  the  table,  that 
a  much  more  striking  evidence  of  the  strin- 
gent economy  of  the  library  administration 
here,  is  the  fact  that  there  is  paid  at  the  Bos- 
ton Public  Library  in  salaries  to  the  cata- 
loguing department  alone  (without  allowing 
anything  for  printing),  about  as  much  as  the 
whole  of  this  year's  library  appropriation  by 
the  city  of  San  Francisco. 

7.  Similar  comparisons  with  the  six  smaller 
cities  listed  would  give  results  generally  simi- 
lar, but  showing  a  still  more  liberal  rate  per 
head  and  dollar  of  expenditure  for  libraries. 

In  addition  to  this  exposition  of  compara- 


tive parsimony,  a  feature  of  it  should  be  re- 
membered which  might  easily  escape  notice: 
that  while  the  money  for  running  expenses  is 
all  gone  at  the  end  of  the  year,  nearly  all  of 
the  allowance  above  running  expenses  re- 
mains in  existence  as  permanent  property. 
Thus,  if  the  year's  allowance  for  this  library 
had  been  twenty-eight  thousand  dollars  in- 
stead of  eighteen  thousand  dollars,  it  would 
not  have  cost  a  cent  more  to  run  the  library, 
and  at  the  year's  end,  about  ten  thousand 
dollars  worth  of  books  would  be  added  to 
the  permanent  property  of  the  city. 

Another  result  of  the  present  economy 
should  be  mentioned  :  its  absolute  preven- 
tion of  the  printing  of  any  catalogue  of  the 
recent  additions  to  the  library  ;  so  that  there 
is,  practically,  no  access,  even  to  the  public 
who  own  them,  to  the  books  which  have 
been  added  to  this  library  since  June,  1884, 
being  some  four  or  five  thousand  titles.  It 
is  needless  to  point  out,  that  if  there  were  to 
be  the  hypothesis  of  an  unfriendly  purpose 
entertained  against  the  library,  that  purpose 
would  be  as  directly  served  by  concealing  the 
names  of  the  books  that  are  in  the  library, 
as  by  preventing  the  addition  of  more  books, 
or  the  replacing  of  those  worn  out. 

These  brief  statements  sufficiently  show 
what  our  city  is  doing,  and  what  other  cities 
are  doing,  for  and  against  public  libraries. 
It  is  not  within  the  scope  of  this  paper  to 
discuss  the  question  of  what  may  be  the  real 
reasons  for  the  stop  put  to  the  increase  of 
the  San  Francisco  Public  Library.  One  hy- 
pothesis is,  that  it  was  done  in  order  to  help 
persuade  the  public  that  the  "  dollar  limit " 
to  the  rate  of  city  taxes  is  too  low,  and  that 
higher  taxation  must  be  submitted  to.  As, 
however,  the  money  saved  from  last  year's 
amount  is  only  $6,000,  the  economy  is  not 
great  in  itself,  being  about  one  four-hun- 
dredth part  of  the  city  tax  levy.  If  the  effect 
was  expected  to  be  produced  by  continuously 
annoying  and  dissatisfying  the  citizens,  there 
is  more  reason  in  the  scheme ;  for  the  library 
is  frequented  by  more  than  a  thousand  per- 
sons daily,  and  about  twenty-six  thousand 
cards  have  been  issued  to  authorize  home 
use  of  books ;  and  at  any  given. moment  there 


1885.] 


Free  Public  Libraries. 


427 


are  always  between  five  thousand  and  six 
thousand  volumes  from  the  library  in  use  in 
as  many  homes  all  over  the  city.  To  incon- 
venience and  disoblige  so  large  a  constitu- 
ency as  this  may  naturally  produce  some 
effect.  This  paper  need  not  attempt  to  de- 
cide whether  that  effect  will  probably  be 
approval  or  disapproval  of  the  treatment  of 
this  library,  enthusiasm  for  or  against  the 
proposed  increase  of  taxation,  unpopularity 
or  popularity  of  the  library  itself,  or  of  those 
whose  action  so  effectually  cripples  its  use- 
fulness. Nor  will  it  discuss  the  still  larger 
question  of  the  "one  dollar  limit"  itself; 
however  decisively  important  these  inquiries 
are  for  the  future  of  the  library,  and  however 
interesting  and  clear  the  arguments  and  con- 
clusions on  the  subject  may  be.  But  what 
it  may  properly  do  is,  to  state  without  any 
pretense  of  novelty,  but  simply  in  order  to 
refresh  the  public  memory,  the  chief  heads 
of  a  doctrine  of  free  public  libraries,  from  a 
practical  point  of  view. 

First  (to  limit  the  discussion):  What  a 
free  public  library  is  not  for.  It  is  not  for  a 
nursery;  a  lunch-room  ;  a  bedroom;  a  place 
for  meeting  a  girl  in  a  corner  and  talking 
with  her  ;  a  conversation  room  of  any  kind  ; 
a  free  dispensary  of  stationery,  envelopes,  and 
letter-writing ;  a  campaigning  field  for  beg- 
gars, or  for  displaying  advertisements;  a  free 
range  for  loiterers ;  a  haunt  for  loafers  and 
criminals.  Indeed,  not  to  specify  with  inel- 
egant distinctness,  such  a  library,  like  any 
other  place  of  free  public  -resort,  would,  if 
permitted,  be  used  for  any  purpose  whatever, 
no  matter  how  private  or  how  vicious,  which 
could  be  served  there  more  conveniently 
than  by  going  to  one's  own  home,  or  than 
by  having  any  home  at  all.  It  would  be  so 
used  systematically,  constantly,  and  to  a  de- 
gree of  intolerable  nuisance ;  and  its  puri- 
fication from  such  uses,  if  they  had  been 
set  up,  would  be  met  with  clamor,  abuse, 
and  with  any  degree  of  even  violent  resist- 
ance which  might  be  thought  safe,  or  likely  to 
succeed.  Let  it  not  be  supposed  that  this  is  an 
imaginary  picture.  It  is  in  every  point  tak- 
en from  actual  and  numerous  instances,  and 
could  be  illustrated  by  any  librarian  of  large 


experience,  by  a  sufficiently  ridiculous  series 
of  adventures.  Open  public  premises  for 
some  of  the  above-specified  purposes  might 
conceivably  be  properly  supplied  by  the  pub- 
lic. What  is  here  affirmed  is,  that  public 
libraries  are  not  at  present  proper  for  them. 

Second  :  What  such  a  library  is  for.  Its 
first  object  is  to  supply  books  to  persons 
wishing  to  improve  their  knowledge  of  their 
occupations.  Books  like  Nicholson's,  Burn's, 
RiddelPs,  Tredgold's,  Dwyer's,  Waring's, 
Holly's,  etc.,  on  architecture,  building,  car- 
pentry, or  branches  of  them;  the  numerous 
books  of  plans  and  details  of  domestic  and 
other  architecture ;  Masury  on  house-paint- 
ing; Kittredge's  metal-workers'  patterti  book ; 
Percy's,  Phillips's,  and  other  works  on  metal- 
lurgy and  mining;  Dussauce's,  Piesse's,  and 
similar  books  on  soap-making,  perfumery, 
and  other  branches  of  applied  chemistry; 
Lock  on  sugar  refining;  manuals  of  brewing 
and  distilling;  Burgh's,  Roper's,  and  other 
handbooks  and  advanced  works  on  steam 
engineering  and  locomotives ;  works  on  ma- 
chinery and  mechanical  engineering  gener- 
ally; Hospitalier,  Preece,  Noad,  and  others 
on  applications  of  electricity ;  Gilbart  on 
banking;  Gaskell's,  Hill's,  and  other  business 
manuals;  manuals  of  letter-writing,  book- 
keeping, and  phonography:  in  short,  books 
of  instruction  in  all  departments  of  commer- 
cial and  industrial  occupations,  are  of  the  first 
importance  in  a  free  public  library,  and  are 
constantly  and  eagerly  used  in  this  one.  The 
study  of  such  books  puts  money  directly  into 
the  pocket  of  the  student,  and  promotes  his 
success  in  life,  and  thus  promotes  the  pros- 
perity of  the  city.  A  library  which  furnishes 
such  books  raises  the  value  of  every  piece  of 
real  estate  in  the  city  where  it  is,  by  making 
it  a  place  where  there  is  assistance  towards 
earning  a  good  living  To  furnish  this  prac- 
tical evidence  of  money  value,  and  thus  to 
show  to  practical  men  an  actual  financial 
usefulness,  is  the  first  purpose  of  a  free  public 
library. 

Second  in  importance,  is  the  supply  of 
books  to  those  who  wish  to  acquire  or  pur- 
sue an  education,  or  complete  or  continue  a 
knowledge  of  general  literature:  and  third, 


428 


Free  Public  Libraries. 


[Oct. 


to  assist  students  who  are  working  on  special 
lines  of  research  of  any  kind. 

Such  is  the  more  solid  part  of  what  may 
be  called  the  distributing  or  book-circulating 
activity  of  a  library.  The  other  part  of  this 
activity,  the  fourth  item  in  this  list,  is  at  least 
as  indispensable,  and  is  always  numerically 
the  most  popular.  It  is  the  supply  of  light 
literature  to  readers  for  rest  or  amusement. 
Whether  books  of  this  class  constitute  one- 
half  the  library,  or  (as  in  our  own)  one-tenth 
of  it,  it  may  be  depended  on  that  from  one- 
half  to  four-fifths  of  all  the  reading  done  will 
be  done  on  that  part.  The  justification  of 
the  supply  of  such  books  by  a  public  library 
is,  that-"it  is  important  also,  if  not  likewise,  to 
afford  mental  relaxation,  as  well  as  to  feed 
mental  effort ;  that  even  light  reading  is  a 
very  important  improvement  over  and  safe- 
guard from  street  and  saloon  life ;  that  such 
books  introduce  to  more  useful  books,  by 
forming  the  habit  of  reading ;  and  that  the 
public,  who  pay  for  the  library,  choose  to 
have  books  of  this  sort  as  much  as,  if  not  even 
more  than,  they  do  even  the  more  useful 
sort. 

There  is  still  another,  a  fifth  department 
of  usefulness  for  public  libraries,  quite  un- 
known until  within  a  few  years,  which  makes 
them  actual  and  vital  members  of  the  public 
school  system,  and  further  justifies  the  name, 
"  People's  Universities,"  which  has  often 
been  applied  to  them.  This  is  the  arrange- 
ment of  courses  of  illustrative  study  and 
reading  for  teachers,  or  scholars,  or  both.  A 
collection  of  books,  relating  to  some  part  of 
the  regular  school  course,  is  laid  out  at  the 
library ;  the  teachers,  and  perhaps,  some- 
times, one  of  the  higher  classes,  together 
with  the  librarian,  examine  them,  and  such 
information  as  they  afford  is  selected  and 
put  in  order,  so  as  to  be  used  in  the  class- 
room to  illustrate  and  fill  out  the  outline  in 
the  school  text  books.  The  practice  is  per- 
haps easiest  in  geography  and  history.  It  is 
easy  to  see  how  a  capable  teacher  could 
intensify  and  enrich  the  interest  of  schol- 
ars in  the  geography  of  the  East  Indian 
Archipelago,  by  introducing  them  to  the  viv- 
id narrative  and  abundant  illustration  of  Wal- 


lace's entertaining  book  on  that  region  ;  and 
how  Palgrave's  "Year  in  Arabia,"  Palmer's 
"  Desert  of  the  Exodus,"  Lady  Duff  Gor- 
don's "  Letters  from  Egypt,"  O'Donovan's 
"Merv  Oasis,"  Hue's  "Travels  in  Tartary 
and  China,"  Atkinson's,  Kennan's  and  Lans- 
dell's  books  on  Siberia,  and  a  hundred  oth- 
er works,  each  on  its  separate  locality,  might 
be  used  to  render  clear  and  strong  a  child's 
impressions  about  the  landscapes  and  peo- 
ples of  all  the  earth. 

It  is  not  too  much  to  say  that  the  study  of 
geography,  in  the  San  Francisco  public 
school  course,  illustrated  as  it  could  easily  be 
from  books  of  travels  now  in  the  public  li- 
brary, could  be  made  from  beginning  to  end 
as  fascinating  as  any  romance,  while  it  would 
store  the  children's  minds  with  a  kind  and 
quantity  of  distinct  knowledge  about  the 
earth  and  its  peoples,  as  much  beyond  the 
results  of  ordinary  geographical  study  as  gold 
is  better  than  mud.  This  is  no  mere  specu- 
lation. Such  collateral  instruction  is  already 
regularly  given  by  Mr.  Green,  of  Worcester 
(the  pioneer  in  this  work),  Mr.  Poole,  of  Chi- 
cago, and  others,  and  with  entire  success. 

This  method,  besides  opening  and  enrich- 
ing the  minds  of  scholars,  will  naturally  train 
them  in  habits  of  reading  of  the  very  best 
kind,  by  teaching  them  research,  the  habit 
of  selecting  books,  and  the  practice  of  com- 
parative thinking. 

To  sum  up  this  theory  of  a  free  library 
within  a  few  words  : 

1.  As  to  manners  :  It  is  a  parlor,  not  a 
bar-room  ;  a  place  where  not  only  working 
men  and  business  men,  but  where  ladies  and 
young  girls  can  safely   and  commodiously 
come   and    abide :    while   not   expressly   a 
school  of  manners  and  morals,  it  is  much 
and  closely  concerned  in  maintaining  a  high 
standard  in  both. 

2.  As  to  objects  :  It  is  to  furnish  good 
books,  not  bad  ones  ;  to  satisfy  within  this 
limit  all  demands  on  it  as  far  as  may  be,  and 
in  particular   to  be  progressive — that  is,  to 
supply  for  intelligent  readers  what  they  most 
require — the  new  good  books. 

3.  As  to   method  :  It  should  keep  the 
books  in  the  best  possible  condition,  for  the 


1885.] 


Recent  Social  Discussions. 


429 


longest  possible  term  of  use ;  and  should  not 
allow  them  to  be  scattered,  lost,  abused,  mu- 
tilated, or  stolen. 

It  is  needless  to  add  under  these  heads 
any  of  the  numerous  technical  details  which 
crowd  the  work  of  an  active  library  ;  but 
this  exposition  would  be  inexcusably  imper- 
fect without  a  reference  to  the  absolute 
indispensableness  of  proper  accommoda- 
tions for  successful  library  administration. 
Somewhat  more  may  be  said  about  the  un- 
businesslike payment  by  the  city  of  a  heavy 
insurance  on  $50,000  worth  of  its  property, 
because  the  library  io  in  the  same  building 
with  a  theater.  Theaters  burn  down  on  an 
average  once  in  seventeen  years ;  and  a  thea- 
ter risk,  although  not  absolutely  uninsurable, 
like  a  gunpowder  mill,  is  what  insurance 
men  call  "extra  hazardous";  so  that  not  only 
is  the  insurance  rate  high,  but  the  destruc- 
tion of  the  San  Francisco  Free  Public  Li- 
brary by  fire  (in  its  present  location),  may  be 
looked  upon  as  a  certainty,  the  only  question 
being,  How  soon?  And  a  difficulty  less  ob- 
vious and  less  dangerous,  but  still  a  source 
of  incessant  difficulty  and  annoyance,  is  the 
arrangement  of  the  library  as  one  collection, 
and  with  but  one  place  for  delivering  books. 
This  difficulty  becomes  nothing  in  a  small 
library  with  a  small  business,  but  in  one  as 
large  and  energetically  active  as  ours,  it  is  a 


serious  disadvantage.  Such  a  library  should 
be  divided  into  two  sections.  In  one  should 
be  put  all  the  books  which  may  be  delivered 
out  to  all  authorized  borrowers  without  dis- 
crimination. In  the  other  should  be  all 
books  which  call  for  a  special  care,  either 
more  or  less.  Very  many  books  might  be 
trusted  with  a  scholar  or  a  student  or  a  me- 
chanic, which  it  would  be  folly  to  deliver  over 
to  a  small  boy  or  girl.  And  the  places  for 
delivering  and  receiving  the  two  classes  of 
books  should  be  separate  and  should  be 
roomy.  In  the  present  library  room,  there 
is  insufficient  space  both  for  the  library  staff 
and  for  the  public  ;  and  the  result  is,  crowd- 
ing, interruption,  delay,  error,  and  dissatis- 
faction. And  it  is  no  less  obvious  that  be- 
sides a  public  reading-room  open  to  all 
comers,  some  accommodations  should  be 
provided  for  students  who  need  special  facil- 
ities and  assistance,  and  for  ladies,  so  that 
they  need  not  crowd  and  struggle  about 
among  children  and  masculine  strangers. 

An  entertaining  series  of  facts  and  anec- 
dotes from  the  actual  life  of  this  library 
could  be  easily  marshalled  in  establishment 
of  every  one  of  the  foregoing  points ;  but 
these  can  not  be  given  here.  Enough  has 
been  said  to  direct  the  attention  of  thinking 
citizens  to  the  apparent  quiet  beginning  of  a 
movement  against  the  library. 


RECENT  SOCIAL  DISCUSSIONS. 


WE  have  before  us  some  half-dozen  mon- 
ographs upon  sociological  subjects.  It  is 
instructive  to  note  that  every  one  of  these 
bears  upon  some  phase  of  the  problem  of  pov- 
erty, and  four  of  them  with  special  reference 
to  recent  American  socialism.  Recent  Amer- 
ican Socialism^-  is,  in  fact,  the  title  of  one,  Pro1 
fessor  Ely's  pamphlet  (one  of  the  Johns  Hop- 
kins University  studies),  which  is  a  sort  of 
summary  of  the  present  status  of  socialism 

1  Recent  American  Socialism.  By  Richard  T.  Ely, 
Ph.  D.  Johns  Hopkins  University  Studies,  Third  Ser- 
ies, IV.  Baltimore:  N.  Murray.  1885. 


in  this  country.  Early  American  commun- 
ism, as  illustrated  in  Brook  Farm,  or  in  the 
Moravian  and  Shaker  settlements,  is  declin- 
ing, and  practically  passed  by  as  a  social  in- 
fluence. To  quote  Professor  Ely  :  "  Amer- 
ican communism  is  antiquated ;  it  exists  only 
as  a  curious  and  interesting  survival.  Yet, 
it  has  accomplished  much  good  and  little 
harm.  Its  leaders  have  been  actuated  by 
noble  motives,  have  many  times  been  men 
far  above  their  fellows  in  moral  stature,  even 
in  intellectual  stature,  and  have  desired  only 
to  benefit  their  kind.  Its  aim  has  been  to 


430 


Recent  Social  Discussions. 


[Oct. 


elevate  man,  and  its  ways  have  been  ways  of 
peace." 

There  was  very  little  socialism — if  any — 
about  these  gentle  experiments  in  voluntary 
communism.  Their  inspiration  was  mainly 
French,  of  the  Fourier  type.  It  is,  accord- 
ing to  Dr.  Ely,  only  within  half  a-dozen  years 
that  German  socialism,  and  that  ugly  con- 
fusion of  socialism,  communism,  and  an- 
archy, of  German,  Irish,  and  French  type, 
known  as  "  International  Socialism,"  arose 
in  America  ;  and  he  attributes  their  definite 
beginning  to  Henry  George's  book,  "Pro- 
gress and  Poverty." 

We  must  pause  here  to  draw  the  distinc- 
tion, which  Dr.  Ely  makes  very  clear,  between 
the  two  classes  of  so-called  "socialism" 
now  existing  in  this  country  and  elsewhere. 
These  are  :  the  true  German  socialists  of  the 
Karl  Marx  school,  who  call  themselves  the 
"  Socialistic  Labor  Party  " ;  and  the  "  Inter- 
national Workingmen's  Association,"  who  are 
more  properly  anarchists  than  socialists. 
The  true  socialists  are  a  respectable  body  of 
men,  chiefly  Germans,  probably  some  twelve 
thousand  in  organized  numbers,  and  able  to 
command  sympathizers  enough  to  give  them 
a  vote  of  perhaps  twenty-five  thousand  in  the 
whole  country.  There  are  men  of  education 
among  them,  and  their  spirit  seems  sincere, 
and  doubtless  often  entirely  unselfish  ;  they 
repudiate  violent  methods,  and  propose  to 
carry  out  their  ideas  by  peaceful  agitation 
and  constitutional  means.  They  are  well  or- 
ganized, in  Chicago,  Philadelphia,  and  other 
cities,  occasionally  electing  a  minor  official ; 
and  they  have  a  distinct  plan — and  one  not 
unworthy  of  respectful  consideration  — for 
the  new  social  order  to  which  the  present  is 
to  give  way.  They  do  not  seem  to  win  con- 
verts to  any  extent  among  "Americans," 
and  are  rather  declining  than  gaining  strength, 
as  a  body ;  but  their  ideas,  in  a  vague  way, 
influence  powerfully  a^reat  number  among 
the  working-classes  who  are  not  organically 
with  them.  They  have  no  quarrel  with  the 
present  social  order  in  anything  but  the  in- 
dustrial and  governmental  side ;  they  believe 
in  the  family,  in  education  after  the  best 
and  highest  type,  in  all  morality  and  order- 


liness; Christianity  they  repudiate,  though 
without  violent  hostility,  because  they  be- 
lieve it  holds  out  false  hopes  of  an  impossi- 
ble heaven,  and  so  induces  men  to  submit  to 
wrongs  in  this  life  which  they  would  other- 
wise remedy. 

A  treatise  by  an  enthusiastic  disciple  of 
this  socialism,  a  young  German  lawyer  in 
Philadelphia,  gives  us,  in  The  Cooperative 
Commonwealth,1  a  fuller  account  of  it  than 
Dr.  Ely's  brief  summary  can  do.  One  need 
only  turn  from  Dr.  Ely's  pamphlet  to.  Mr. 
Gronlund's  to  realize  that,  while  the  socialist 
organization  undoubtedly  contains  a  fair 
amount  of  education,  and  is  far  enough  from 
the  ignorance  of  the  Anarchists,  it  cannot 
command  really  scholarly  thought  or  exposi- 
tion. The  author  of  The  Cooperative  Com- 
monwealth regards  himself  as  especially  tem- 
perate in  his  statements,  and  repeatedly  insists 
that  it  is  not  men,  but  the  system,  that  he 
attacks,  and  that  any  bitterness  he  may  ex- 
press is  to  be  regarded  as  entirely  impersonal. 
He  is,  in  the  main,  fair,  and  though  not  en- 
tirely free  from  bitterness,  shows  it  no  more 
than  is  excusable  in  one  who,  seeing  the 
miseries  of  poverty  and  the  harsh  inequali- 
ties of  life,  believes  that  these  are  due  to  no 
fatal  necessity,  but  to  a  defect  in  the  organi- 
zation of  society,  which  may  be  remedied  if 
people  will  but  see  and  consent.  Mr.  Gron- 
lund  sketches  out  a  rough  plan  of  the  "  coop- 
erative commonwealth,"  which  is,  in  all  de- 
tails, merely  his  own  notion,  but  in  the  main 
principles  the  design  of  the  socialists.  The 
fundamental  principle,  as  of  all  true  social- 
ism— it  ought  not  to  be,  but  is,  necessary  to 
say — is  the  paternal  function  of  the  state. 
The  kernel  of  the  laissez-faire,  or  individual- 
istic doctrine,  is,  that  government  is  a  neces- 
sary evil ;  that  each  individual  has  a  right  to 
do  absolutely  as  he  chooses,  provided  he  in- 
terferes with  no  one  else's  right  to  do  the 
Same;  and  as  people  will  not  refrain  from 
infringing  on  their  neighbors'  rights,  it  be- 
comes necessary  to  have  governments  to  se- 
cure a  fair  field  for  the  exercise  of  individual 

1  The  Cooperative  Commonwealth.  By  Laurence 
Gronlund.  Boston:  Lee  &  Shepard ;  New  York: 
Charles  T.  Dillingham. 


1885.] 


Recent  Social  Discussions. 


431 


rights.  Having  secured  this  fair  field,  the 
state  should  leave  individuals  to  work  out 
their  own  salvation ;  in  an  ideal  society> 
where  no  one  tried  to  encroach  on  his  neigh- 
bor's rights,  no  government  would  be  neces- 
sary. This  is  very  elementary,  but  we  venture 
to  repeat  it,  for  the  sake  of  clearly  defining 
the  opposite  of  the  laissez-faire  doctrine, 
that  is,  socialism,  whose  essential  principle 
seems  so  crudely  understood  by  all  but  spec- 
ial students  of  the  subject.  The  kernel  of 
socialism,  then,  we  take  to  be  the  doctrine 
that,  so  far  from  an  unfortunately  necessary 
outgrowth  of  the  defects  of  human  nature, 
government  is  properly  the  highest  activity 
of  healthy  society,  being  the  collective,  coop- 
erative action  of  human  beings  organized 
for  the  purpose  of  mutual  help.  Thus  far 
toward  socialism  many  go  who  are  not  so- 
cialists; the  doctrine  is  perfectly  respectable, 
and  that  of  a  great  number  of  the  most  com- 
petent people;  but  it  is  not  "orthodox,"  and 
is  put  at  a  disadvantage  by  having  the  very 
weighty  name  of  Spencer  avowedly  against 
it.  The  true  "  socialist "  draws  the  corolla- 
ries from  this  doctrine,  and  argues  that  to 
government,  to  this  corporate  action  of  soci- 
ety, by  means  of  which  each  member  of  so- 
ciety cooperates  with  all  the  others  to  achieve 
the  general  good,  should  be  intrusted  the 
fare  of  all  society's  concerns ;  so  far  from 
government's  disappearing  in  a  millennial 
state,  in  such  a  state  everything  would  be 
done  by  government — that  is,  by  all,  work- 
ing together  through  appointed  means  of 
cooperation.'  According  to  this  view,  there- 
fore, Gronlund  outlines  his  personal  scheme 
of  a  cooperative  commonwealth.  The  state 
shall  own  all  property — all  railroads,  facto- 
ries, capital,  materials,  land — all  the  means  of 
production.  Every  citizen  must  then  be  em- 
ployed in  some  useful  labor — it  may  be  in 
hod-carrying,  it  may  be  in  philological  re- 
search, it  may  be  in  overseeing  a  government 
factory.  He  will  be  paid  in  checks  certify- 
ing the  number  of  hours'  works  done.  Possi- 
bly some  distinction  will  be  made  between 
an  hour's  work  of  mere  manual  labor  and  one 
requiring  mental  effort,  anxiety,  and  nervous 
expenditure;  or  possibly  the  worker  in  the 


higher  order  of  work  will  find  himself  suffi- 
ciently recompensed  by  the  loftier  and  more 
agreeable  nature  of  his  work.  Now  all  the 
products  of  labor  (made  with  the  utmost 
economy  of  forces  in  great  government  fac- 
tories, into  which  all  small  factories,  village 
blacksmiths  or  cobblers,  etc.,  are  to  be  COHT 
solidated)  will  be  gathered  together  in  great 
government  storehouses  and  bazars,  to  the 
extinction  of  middle-men  and  retailers.  Every 
commodity  will  be  priced  by  the  number  of 
hours'  labor  it  cost  to  produce  it ;  and  upon 
these  reservoirs  of  the  common  property 
any  one  may  call,  up  to  the  full  amount  of 
service  rendered  by  him,  as  certified  by  his 
checks  of  "hours'  labor."  We  infer  that 
non-material  commodities  are  not  to  be  val- 
ued in  the  same  way,  for  the  purchasing 
power  of  every  hour's  labor  is  to  be  docked  a 
little,  to  "  support  the  government,"  and,  we 
suppose,  the  teachers,  doctors,  musicians, 
and  so  forth,  whose  wares  cannot  well  be 
ticketed  with  their  price  in  "days'  works," 
and  gathered  into  government  bazars.  This 
all-potent  government  is  to  consist  of  a  coun- 
sel of  the  elected  heads  of  the  different  occu- 
pations— the  chief  of  the  judges,  of  the  schol- 
ars, of  the  manufacturers,  of  the  land-tillers, 
etc.,  and  of  a  graded  system  under  them,  by 
which  each  such  guild  has  absolute  author- 
ity in  its  own  affairs,  each  factory  under  it  in 
its  own,  and  so  each  department  of  each  fac- 
tory. Under  this  system,  Mr.  Gronlund 
hopes,  products  enough  to  keep  every  one 
comfortable  could  be  made  with  four  hours' 
daily  work  apiece;  the  criminal  classes  would 
disappear,  and  the  "riddle  of  the  painful 
earth  "  would  be  solved. 

This  gives  a  fair  idea  of  the  hopes  and 
plans  of  the  more  moderate  and  intelligent 
socialists.  Over  against  these  stand  the 
Anarchists — some  fifty  thousand,  all  told, 
Doctor  Ely  thinks.  Their  own  figures, 
which  are  very  wild  and  hap-hazard,  make 
out  much  greater  strength.  Their  leader  is 
Herr  Most,  but  they  are  not  preeminently  a 
German  organization.  They  seem  to  be 
growing  in  strength,  and  attracting  working 
men  toward  them.  They  are  the  destruc- 
tives, the  dynamiters,  the  rioters :  their  Ian- 


432 


Recent  Social  Discussions. 


[Oct. 


guage  is  violent,  even  foul,  invective ;  their 
press  and  speeches  filled  with  instigations 
to  murder  and  destroy.  They  have  de- 
clared war  not  merely  upon  capital,  but  upon 
all  law  and  order  and  morality  :  the  family 
relation  is  to  be  abolished  ;  government  is 
to  exist  only  so  far  as  individual  small  com- 
munities choose  to  establish  voluntary  gov- 
ernments for  themselves,  or  to  cooperate 
with  each  other,  when  desirable,  by  some 
loose  bond  of  bargain  between  them.  The 
only  socialistic  element  in  their  plans  is  that 
they  demand,  like  the  Marx  socialists,  that  all 
the  property  shall  be  held  in  common,  the  pro- 
ducts of  labor  to  be  paid  into  a  common  accu- 
mulation, and  paid  out  thence  in  proportion 
to  "  days'  works."  Yet  so  averse  are  they  to 
governmental  checks,  and  so  utterly  without 
any  clear  conception  of  what  they  do  in- 
tend, that  they  have  no  plan  for  any  machin- 
ery for  carrying  out  even  this  one  require- 
ment ;  and  their  scheme,  if  realized,  would 
mean  little  beyond  the  rule  of  the  stron- 
gest fists — "tempered,"  doubtless,  "  by  assas- 
sination." But  they  do  not  greatly  trouble 
themselves  to  consider  what  the  new  order 
shall  be  :  their  chief  concern  is  the  destruc- 
tion of  the  present  order.  Dynamite,  assas- 
sination, fire,  rioting — any  means  by  which 
all  present  wealth  may  be  destroyed  and  all 
present  order  overthrown,  are  preached. 
There  is  not  the  least  evidence  of  any  defin- 
ite plan,  even  for  destruction ;  still  less  of 
any  secret  plotting  on  a  large  scale.  There 
is  not  even  any  organization  among  the 
different  "  Internationalist  "  clubs,  so  averse 
are  they  to  restriction  or  government.  Each 
club  is  independent,  and  their  sole  action 
seems  to  consist  of  meeting  to  listen  to  in- 
flammatory but  vague  harangues,  stirred  up 
by  which  they  contribute  considerable  sums 
of  money,  which,  there  is  reason  to  sup- 
pose, constitute  a  good  part  of  the  reason 
for  existence  of  the  harangues.  Their  utter 
aimlessness,  confusion  of  mind  and  of  moral 
sense,  inability  to  see  what  they  are  aiming 
at  or  to  work  consistently  toward  it,  seems 
incredible  to  the  observer  at  first. 

A  little  tract  on  the  plan  of  the  "  Battle 
of  Dorking,"  called    The  \Fall  of  the  Great 


Republic^  represents  them  as  laying  deep  and 
wide  conspiracies,  which  embrace  the  whole 
country  in  a  net-work  of  perfect  organization, 
ready  for  simultaneous  outbreak  at  a  given 
signal.  This  is  impossible  to  the  Anarchists. 
The  essence  of  their  movement  is  in  noise 
and  passion.  They  do  not  submit  to  con- 
trol from  any  central  authority  ;  even  their 
local  meetings  sometimes  break  up  in  fist- 
icuffs. There  is  every  reason  to  believe  that 
their  leaders,  so  far  from  being  cool,  far- 
planning  men,  devoted,  heart  and  life,  to 
bringing  about  the  movement  they  preach, 
are  merely  vulgar  self-seekers,  who  find  that 
a  command  of  'lurid  language,  directed  in 
invective  against  the  rich,  supplies  to  them- 
selves a  very  easy  livelihood,  compared  to 
any  which  their  really  slender  capacities 
could  otherwise  gain. 

The  socialist  principle  of  a  common  stock 
of  property,  paid  out  in  proportion  to  labor, 
and  the  hostility  to  the  existing  system  of 
free  private  competition,  interest-bearing 
capital,  and  wages,  served  as  a  bond  of 
union  between  the  true  socialists  and  the  An- 
archists at  first;  but  the  essential  incompati- 
bility of  their  character  and  aims  naturally 
led  to  wider  and  wider  breach,  until  last 
spring  they  came  to  blows  over  the  dyna- 
mite outrages  in  London  ;  and  according  to 
Doctor  Ely,  now  hate  each  other  as  bitterly* 
as  they  do  the  capitalist.  Their  plans,  both 
of  destruction  and  reconstruction,  are  abso- 
lutely opposite.  The  true  socialist  would 
encourage  the  concentration  of  property  in  a 
few  hands,  and  increase  the  power  of  the 
present  government;  meanwhile,  by  educa- 
tion, peaceful  agitation,  and  the  ballot,  pre- 
paring the  public  to  alter  the  character  of 
government  when  the  time  shall  come,  with- 
out ever  relaxing  its  restraints.  They  do 
not  expect,  it  is  true,  that  this  revolution  will 
take  place  without  violence;  but  they  desire 
to  be  themselves  the  constitutional  party  in 
this  crisis,  compelling  property  to  rebel  by 
aggressions  under  due  form  of  law,  and 
then  obtaining  full  control  as  suppressors  of 

1  The  Fall  of  the  Great  Republic.  Boston :  Roberts 
Brothers.  1885.  For  sale  in  San  Francisco  by  Strick- 
land &  Pierson. 


1885.] 


Jiecent  Social  Discussions. 


433 


rebellion,  not  as  rebels.  Or,  in  case  revolu- 
tion should  be  brought  about  by  dynamite 
rebellion,  they  would  hope  to  interpose  and 
direct  the  revolution  to  their  ends.  This 
they  could  not  do  until  their  educational 
propaganda  has  reached  a  much  more  ad- 
vanced point  than  at  present.  Therefore 
nothing  can  be  more  ruinous  to  their  plans 
than  the  method  of  destroying  the  present 
order  urged  by  the  Anarchists.  Again, 
the  two  parties'  ideas  of  the  new  order  are 
at  opposite  extremes :  the  one  desires  the 
maximum  of  government,  the  other  no  gov- 
ernment. It  is  therefore  not  to  be  expect- 
ed that  any  coalition  can  take  place  again 
between  these  two  bodies. 

But  it  is  only  the  minor  part  of  socialism 
in  the  United  States  that  is  to  be  found  by 
enumerating  the  enrolled  socialists  and  those 
whose  alliance  they  can  directly  command. 
The  two  bodies,  with  a  combined  voting 
force  of  not  more  than  seventy-five  thousand, 
and  a  fighting  force  of  much  less,  would  con- 
stitute a  very  sligfit  threat  to  society,  even 
if  they  were  united.  With  one  body  accom- 
plishing little  in  its  propaganda,  and  much 
dominated  by  peaceful  and  semi-reasonable 
theorists,  and  the  other  disorganized,'  un- 
manageable, duped  by  loud-mouthed  cow- 
ards as  leaders,  and  numbering  doubtless  a 
considerable  proportion  of  loud-mouthed 
cowards  in  its  ranks,  their  ability  to  stir  the 
institutions  of  the  country  is  hardly  worth 
considering.  It  is  true,  that  the  anarchist 
wing  do  win  converts  and  increase  their  num 
bers  ;  but  a  disorganized  horde,  even  if  it 
include'd  half  the  people  of  a  country,  cannot 
seriously  or  permanently  control  organized 
opposition — and  this  horde  at  present  does 
not  include  more  than  a  thousandth  part  of 
the  people  of  the  country.  It  is  in  the  spread 
of  socialistic  ideas  outside  of  the  socialist  or- 
ganizations that  the  great  danger  to  present 
institutions  lies :  that  is,  in  the  enormous 
number  of  people  who,  while  not  accepting 
the  socialist  creed,  yet  hold  many  doctrines 
taken  from  it.  In  this  direction  socialism 
is  in  the  United  States  powerful  and  increas- 
ing. There  have  always  been  socialistic  ten- 
dencies in  our  government — as  in  the  whole 
VOL.  VI.— 28. 


protective  system,  for  instance  ;  but  there  has 
also  been  so  strong  a  bent  toward  individ- 
ualism, that  probably  our  government  remains 
less  socialistic  than  that  of  any  other  consti- 
tutional country. 

But  among  the  working  classes,  and  even  to 
a  considerable  extent  among  the  classes,  not 
wage-takers,  whose  property  is  small,  the 
genuine  root-doctrine  of  socialism  is  taking 
possession,  viz:  that  it  is  the  business  of 
government  to  look  out  for  the  weak,  and  to 
secure  for  every  man,  so  far  as  possible, 
comfort  and  happiness.  When  a  leading 
English  statesman  recently  announced  this 
doctrine,  it  was  looked  on  as  a  most  signif- 
icant sign  of  the  times :  but  one  would  not 
be  in  much  danger  of  exaggeration  in  saying 
that  every  wage-taker  in  the  country,  and  a 
large  part  of  the  other  poor  men,  hold  it  with 
all  their  hearts.  The  reason  that  Henry 
George's  book  is  a  gospel  to  these  men,  is 
because  they  do  not  own  any  land  :  but  they 
do  not  really  care  much  about  the  confisca- 
tion of  land ;  they  simply  want  something 
done  to  better  their  condition,  and  will  fall 
in  with  almost  any  remedy  suggested  at  all 
plausibly.  Any  party  which  proposes  gov- 
ernment action  for  their  benefit  is  pretty  sure 
of  their  support;  any  agitator,  preaching 
against  capital,  is  pretty  sure  of  a  certain 
sympathy  from  them.  They  have  no  espe- 
cial objections  to  the  present  social  order,  if 
only  it  could  be  fixed  so  that  their  wages 
should  always  be  high,  work  steady,  and 
hours  short ;  and  they  feel  sure  that  govern- 
ment could  fix  it  so,  if  it  only  would.  Ac- 
cordingly, in  a  blind  sort  of  way,  step  by 
step,  and  measure  by  measure,  they  are  cer- 
tainly pushing  toward  some  sort  of  socialism. 
Their  voting  force  is  sufficient  to  carry  any- 
thing they  unanimously  and  persistently  fix 
upon  as  their  desire.  In  various  guises, 
their  demand  for  the  guardianship  of  gov- 
ernment has  carried  State  elections  repeated- 
ly, sometimes  by  their  holding  the  balance 
of  power  between  parties,  sometimes  by  direct 
"labor"  vote.  It  happens  constantly  that 
the  man  or  measure  they  advocate  proves  to 
be  really  against  their  interests  as  a  class,  as 
in  the  greenback  movement ;  and  this  want  of 


434 


Recent  Social  Discussions. 


[Oct. 


political  knowledge  and  judgment,  this  readi- 
ness to  be  deceived,  and  so  to  fight  against 
their  own  ends,  has  always  been  an  efficient 
check  against  their  gaining  much  ground. 
Their  best  organization,  and  their  most  sober 
judgment,  are  to  be  found  in  the  trades' 
unions,  whose  leaders  are  often — perhaps 
usually — men  of  fair  sense  and  moderation, 
sincere  in  seeking  the  interests  of  their 
class,  instead  of  personal  ends,  and  disposed 
to  study  seriously  the  economic  questions 
they  deal  with.  -But  those  whom  they  lead 
are  not  thus  moderate,  and  are  deeply  im- 
bued with  an  unreasoning  conviction  that 
something  is  wrong  in  a  frame  of  things  which 
permits  them  to  be  poor  and  weak,  while 
others  are  rich  and  strong.  Not  only  the 
honest  and  sober  workman,  but  the  worthless 
idler,  the  drunken  waster  of  his  wages,  the 
criminal,  all  have  very  strongly  this  feeling  that 
society  owes  them  better  provision,  and  that 
either  government  must  undertake  to  secure 
it  for  them,  or  they  must  snatch  it  by  force. 
There  is,  thus,  a  vast  body  whose  steady 
pressure  toward  a  socialist  government,  blun- 
dering and  self-defeating  though  it  is,  may  in 
time  accomplish  substantial  results ;  but  also  a 
body  unreasoning,  and  containing  very  many 
vicious  and  turbulent  elements,  and  disposed 
to  a  half  sympathy  with  incendiary  agitation. 
In  the  class  that  lies  between  that  of  wage- 
takers  and  large  employers,  there  is  a  sort  of 
easy-going  sympathy  with  all  poor  and  dis- 
contented men,  and  an  impression  that  there 
is  something  unrighteous  in  one  man's  being 
rich  and  another  poor.  From  this  class  come 
many  theorists,  who,  without  adopting  the 
whole  socialist  scheme,  have  various  specifics 
to  offer,  all  socialistic  in  bearing.  George 
himself  is  of  this  class.  We  have  this  month 
a  somewhat  crazy  little  treatise1  to  review, 
evidently  from  some  one  of  the  same  class, 
proposing  a  quaint  enough  modification  of 
George's  doctrine  (to  the  effect  that  as  the 
whole  earth  changes  hands  once  in  a  gener- 
ation, each  person  should  pay,  in  the  form  of 
taxes,  in  the  course  of  his  life-time,  his  pro- 

l  Man's  Birthright;  or  The  Higher  Law  of  Property. 
By  Edward  H.  G.  Clark.  New  York  and  London :  G. 
P.  Putnam's  Sons.  1885. 


portion  of  the  total  value  of  the  earth  ;  which 
will  come  to  about  two  per  cent,  a  year ; 
the  establishment  of  this  rate  of  taxation 
on  land  ownership  will  remove  all  evils 
from  the  earth).  And  lastly  there  exists, 
distinct  from  the  anarchists,  the  political 
agitators'  group  of  Rossa  and  his  fellows, 
whose  dynamite  methods,  though  directed 
to  a  political  purpose,  affect  the  minds  of 
men  to  other  ends. 

What,  then,  are  we  to  look  for  in  the  way 
of  danger  to  our  institutions  ?  Obviously, 
nothing  in  the  way  of  organized  and  syste- 
matic effort.  Nothing  in  any  future  we  need 
look  to  see,  of  powerful  armed  rebellion. 
The  authors  of  such  writings  as  "The  Fall  of 
the  Great  Republic  "  underestimate  the  tre- 
mendous resisting  power  suchrebellion  would 
meet.  Careless  of  danger  up  to  the  last  mo- 
ment, criminally  negligent  of  the  signs  of  the 
times,  yet  when  the  last  moment  does  come, 
the  American  people  rises  in  one  fierce  flash 
to  its  own  defense,  as  we  have  before  now 
seen  it  do  in  San  Francisco.  One  fears  in 
the  forecast  the  easy-going  American  toler- 
ance, the  tendency  to  sympathize  with  the 
wrong-doer  ;  but  where  have  these  always 
disappeared  to  when  the  crisis  has  actually 
come  ?  In  some  distant  future,  the  quality 
of  our  population  may  become  so  greatly 
changed  by  foreign  infusion,  that  this  power 
of  defending  our  institutions  at  need  may  be 
lost;  but  even  the  present  great  deterioration 
cannot  bring  this  about  within  a  generation 
or  two. 

The  danger  that  we  are  to  look  for  is  none 
the  less  real,  and  perhaps  near.  It  fs  of  an 
era  of  riots,  incendiarism,  increase  of  crime, 
explosions  of  violence  and  class-hatred.  A 
very  few  men,  utterly  unorganized,  incapable 
of  really  gaining  their  point,  are  perfectly  capa- 
ble of  making  a  great  deal  of  bloodshed  and 
destruction  in  futile  efforts  to  obtain  it.  In- 
dian border  warfare,  though  absolutely  hope- 
less of  success,  makes  a  monstrous  condition 
of  things  to  live  under ;  and  to  some  such 
condition  of  being  exposed  to  irregular  at- 
tacks and  outrages  we  might  very  possibly 
come. 

Professor  Ely  belongs  ardently  to  the  school 


1885.] 


Recent  Social  Discussions. 


435 


of  so-called  "Christian  Socialists" — those 
who  urge  that  the  only  solution  of  labor  and 
class  troubles  is  in  the  voluntary  action  of 
the  well-to-do  classes  in  improving  the  con- 
dition of  the  poor,  on  the  Christian  principle 
of  human  brotherhood.  It  is  an  obvious 
misnomer  to  call  this  doctrine  socialism,  the 
very  essence  of  socialism  being  dependence 
upon  government  to  do  what  the  Christian 
socialists  believe  should  be  done  by  in- 
dividual, voluntary  effort — so  that  the  lead- 
er of  the  "  Christian  Socialist "  cooper- 
ative movement  in  England  protested  in 
alarm  against  Mr.  Chamberlain's  statement 
of  the  duty  of  government  towards  the  weak- 
er classes,  seeing  in  such  a  view  destruction 
to  the  system  of  self-help  his  school  has  been 
building  up  :  still,  it  is  easy  to  see  wherein 
the  "  Christian  Socialists  "  are  at  one  with 
true  socialists,  viz:  in  the  belief  that  the  strong 
must  look  out  for  the  weak,  whether  volun- 
tarily, by  individual  effort,  or  through  their 
coordinate  action  in  government.  A  gen- 
eral and  genuine  effort  to  improve  the  con- 
dition of  the  poor,  along  lines  of  "  Christian 
Socialism,"  Professor  Ely  therefore  thinks 
will  avert  most  of  the  danger  that  is  now 
gathering.  It  is  certain  that  the  removal  of 
all  genuine  grievances  may  check  even  men 
resolved  upon  revolution,  and  in  a  few  years 
or  generations  cause  them  to  forget  their  re- 
solve; much  more  when  the  majority  of  those 
from  whom  disorder  is  to  be  expected  are,  as 
we  have  seen,  not  bent  especially  upon  any- 
thing but  having  life  made  a  little  more  com- 
fortable to  them. 

What  permanent  solution  there  can  be  of 
the  problem  of  inequality,  we  are  not  pre- 
pared to  conjecture  ;  but  that  the  best  wis- 
dom for  the  present  lies,  at  least,  in  the  gen- 
eral line  suggested  by  Professor  Ely,  we  do 
not  doubt.  Not,  perhaps,  in  the  special 
ways  advised  by  the  "  Christian  Socialists"; 
although  the  stand  their  school  has  taken 
against  alms-giving  methods  removes  it  total- 
ly from  the  dangerous  region  of  medieval 
Christian  charity.  Still,  it  is  probable  that 
the  genuine  grievances  of  the  poor  in  this 
country  arise  from  deeper  causes  than  direct 
effort  upon  wage  systems  or  laborers'  homes 


can  reach.  It  is  curious  to  note  how  uni- 
formly any  evil  in  society  tells  upon  the  poor; 
so  that  wages  may  be  lowered  and  men 
thrown  out  of  work  for  reasons  that  seem  to 
have  no  connection  at  all  with  labor.  We 
have,  for  instance,  little  doubt  that  the  most 
fruitful  source  of  wage  fluctuations  and  like 
miseries  in  this  country  is  corrupt  politics. 
Every  student  knows  that  a  depreciated  mon- 
ey tells  heaviest  upon  wage-takers.  Upon 
them  fall  the  penalties  of  inflated  speculation. 
And  so  we  might  continue  to  illustrate. 
Other  classes  must  suffer  the  results  of  their 
own  sins  and  follies  ;  the  laborer,  the  results 
of  his  own  sins  and  follies,  and  in  a  far  high- 
er degree  than  does  any  one  else,  of  those  of 
'all  classes  outside  his  own.  Very  rational, 
therefore,  is  the  position  of  most  clergymen, 
who,  when  confronted  with  the  problem  of 
poverty  and  discontent,  say  that  if  all  men 
were  sincere  Christians,  these  troubles  would 
disappear ;  and  that  they  are  therefore  wise  in 
paying  no  attention  to  relieving  symptoms, 
but  in  going  to  the  root  of  the  matter  by  trying 
to  make  as  many  men  as  possible  Christians, 
and  to  keep  them  so ;  and  their  failure  in  deal- 
ing with  the  question,  as  evinced  by  the  alien- 
ation from  them  of  the  laboring  classes,  is  due 
in  part  to  over-theological  conception  of  what 
it  is  they  are  to  make  of  men,  and  in  part  to 
too  exclusive  absorption  in  one  method  of 
ameliorating  society.  Rational,  too,  is  the 
position  of  temperance  reformers,  who  point 
out  the  relation  between  the  expenditure  of 
the  poor  upon  drink  and  their  suffering, 
from  time  to  time,  for  want  of  savings  in 
time  of  need,  or  of  enough  wages  over  and 
above  the  drink  expenditure  for  comfort  ; 
and  emphasize  such  significant  incidents  as 
that  of  the  socialist  picnic  the  other  day  in 
Chicago,  where  banners  were  carried  bearing 
such  mottoes  as  "Our  childrencry  for  bread," 
and  the  expenditure  for  liquor  during  the 
day  amounted  to  hundreds  of  dollars.  Most 
rational  of  all  is  the  trust — and  it  is  happily 
a  general  one — in  education,  as  the  great 
means  of  improvement  for  the  poor,  even 
those  of  a  stratum  lower  than  it  directly 
touches.  In  the  active — and,  above  all,  the 
intelligent — prosecution  of  all  measures  that 


436 


.Recent  Poetry. 


[Oct. 


tend  to  improve  general  society,  as  well  as  of 
those  that  specifically  affect  the  poorer  class- 
es, must  lie,  then,  the  immediate  protection  of 
society  against  class  discontent.  Not  by  con- 
cessions to  "demands  of  labor" — concessions 
are  generally  mere  cowardice  and  self-seeking, 
and,  in  this  particular  case,  as  likely  to  tell 
against  as  for  the  interest  of  those  who  de- 
mand— but  by  sincere  effort  to  remove  all  real 
grievances  of  any  class,  all  injustices  in  social 
action,  will  the  "  discontent  of  labor  "  be  per- 
suaded to  subside.  Undoubtedly,  the  best 
means  to  this  end  is  often  a  resolute  opposi- 
tion to  some  demanded  concession ;  the 
courage  to  offend  a  class  may  often  be  neces- 
sary to  benefit  a  class ;  the  courage  to  with- 
hold, in  order  to  help. 

Several  of  these  various  means  of  benefi- 


cent social  action  form  the  subjects  of  mon- 
ographs before  us  for  review  in  the  present 
article.  The  consideration  of  these,  how- 
ever, must  be  postponed  for  the  present;  we 
only  linger  to  note  that  their  range  of  subject 
indicates  a  general  impulse  of  reform  all 
along  the  line  of  society,  which  is  certainly 
encouraging,  regarded  as  an  accompaniment 
of  that  other  general  impulse  to  discontent 
and  disorder  now  so  visible.  If  the  tendency 
to  the  preservation  and  improvement  of 
society  only  keeps  pace  with  the  tendency  to 
disintegration  for  a  generation  or  two,  we 
may  look  forward  with  much  greater  courage 
to  those  final  tests  of  human  society  that 
must  come  from  causes  deeper  than  present 
human  effort,  for  good  or  ill,  can  greatly 
affect. 


RECENT  POETRY. 


THE  summer  has  been  by  no  means  bar- 
ren of  poetry ;  indeed,  it  is  a  little  surprising, 
when  one  considers  the  great  decline  of  in- 
terest in  poetry,  that  people  should  be  found 
ready  to  supply  so  steadily  the  stream  that 
runs  out,  year  by  year,  from  the  publishing 
houses.  Were  it  not  for  the  inexorable  evi- 
dence of  booksellers'  ledgers,  one  would  be 
tempted  to  believe  that  it  is  only  the  critical 
class,  the  class  who  express  their  tastes  in 
print  and  in  literary  clubs,  that  have  grown 
tired  of  poetry,  and  that  the  great  silent  pub- 
lic still  welcomes  every  new  volume.  An 
eminent  American  critic  has  but  now  ex- 
pressed a  belief  that  the  present  apathy  in 
poetry — the  temporary  interval  of  rest  and 
re-gathering  of  forces,  as  we  all  believe  it  to 
be,  between  two  great  poetic  eras — already 
nears  its  end.  We  are  not  disposed  to  agree 
with  him  ;  we  look  to  see  a  close  and  serious 
pressure  of  social  problems  restrain  the  po- 
etic mood  through  a  longer  or  shorter  period; 
nor  has  the  highly  unpoetic  impetus  of  ex- 
cessive industrialism  yet  spent  itself.  Mean- 
while, there  is  never  a  year  that  does  not 
produce  some  poetry  worthy  to  live.  We 


have  this  month — representing  nearly  a  half- 
year's  accumulation — two  names  of  high  po- 
etic rank :  Miss  Ingelow  and  Mr.  Aldrich ; 
besides  one  of  a  sort  of  fictitious  high  rank, 
by  virtue  of  his  great  popularity — that  is,  the 
Earl  of  Lytton,  "Owen  Meredith."  The  other 
books  are  two  maiden  volumes,  and  a  group 
of  Grant  poems,  which  last,  ambitious  beyond 
its  fellows,  has  risen  to  the  dignity  of  covers 
— card  covers,  that  is,  tied  with  black  ribbon. 
This  semi-book,  An  Elegy  for  Grant J- 
would  indicate  that  the  poet  has  been  for 
years  following  with  his  pen  the  great  sol- 
dier's career,  for  it  has  the  following  contents : 
Proem  ;  Elegy ;  "  Push  Things,"  a  Cam- 
paign Song ;  Hymn  for  President  Grant's 
Inauguration ;  "  Pax  Vobiscum,"  on  the 
Great  Treaty ;  General  Grant  restored  to 
Rank.  The  publishers  have,  with  ques- 
tionable enough  taste,  secured  some  sound- 
ing telegrams  from  R.  H.  Stoddard  and 
others,  lauding  the  verse.  But  we  prefer 
illustrating  it  to  criticizing  it : 

l  An  Elegy  for  Grant,  Patriot,  Conqueror,  Hero.  By 
George  Lansing  Taylor.  New  York  and  London: 
Funk  &  Wagnalls.  1885 . 


1885.] 


fieeent  Poetry^ 


437 


"  Like  an  iron  tower,  whose  arms 

Swing  the  quarry's  granite  block; 
Swing,  secure  from  tilts  and  harms, 
Dahlgrens,  at  a  navy's  dock  ; 

"  So  stood  he,  with  sphinx-like  lips, 

Based  to  swing,  with  hands  and  pen, 
On  his  left,  a  thousand  ships, 
On  his  right,  a  million  men." 

This  figure  is  bolder,  however,  than  the  rest 
of  the  poem.  The  closing  stanza,  upon  Wash- 
ington, Lincoln,  and  Grant,  is  a  fairer  sam- 
ple : 

"Bid  our  foes  match  these  !     Enough  ! 

On  such  names  can  scorn  be  hurled  ? 
Tried  they  stand,  the  sturdiest  stuff 
Of  that  Race  that  rules  the  world !  " 

Of  the  two  "  maiden  volumes  "  we  spoke 
of,  one  is  maiden  only  in  the  sense  of  being 
the  first  appearance  of  its  author's  work  be- 
tween covers  ;  for  Mrs.  Sherwood  has  long 
been  a  favorite  poet  of  memorial  days,  sol- 
diers' reunions,  and  like  occasions.  The  re- 
vival of  war  memories  in  the  shape  of  litera- 
ture has  suggested  a  collection  of  these  vari- 
ous lyrics.  They  are  admirably  adapted  to 
their  purpose,  having  a  good  deal  of  spirit 
and  of  tenderness,  and  more  or  less  beauty. 
They  often  approach  the  ballad  in  matter  and 
manner,  but  no  one  of  them  is  really  a  ballad. 
There  is,  of  necessity,  much  repetition  among 
them,  and  they  will  be  dearer  to  the  old  sol- 
dier, who  cares  greatly  for  the  memories  they 
stir,  than  to  any  one  who  reads  merely  for 
literary  pleasure;  yet,  by  him,  too,  they  may 
be  enjoyed,  in  a  degree.  We  think  that,  re- 
garded merely  as  poetry,  there  is  nothing 
among  them  quite  as  good  as  "  The  Black 
Regiment  at  Port  Hudson  "  : 

"There  on  the  heights  were  the  guns — 
The  blood-hounds  of  battle — 
The  dark,  growling  packs  crouching  low, 
To  start  at  a  word  from  the  master, 
And  roar  and  rend  in  the  trail 
Of  reeling  disaster. 
Under  the  guns  is  the  bayou, 
A  marge  of  luxuriant  grasses — 
And  here  are  the  tawny  long  lines, 
Where  the  orderly  passes  ; 
And  their  eyes  are  aflame 
As  they  charge  and  take  aim, 
Down  where  the  bayou  runs  red 
With  the  blood  of  the  dead. 


"  '  Fonvard,  double-quick,  march!  ' 
The  scoff  and  the  jeer 

Are  swift  to  pursue, 
But  the  scoff  and  the  jeer 

No  hero  may  rue. 
So,  steady  and  still, 
They  stride  down  the  hill, 
Till  the  blood-hounds  awake 
On  the  brow  of  the  brake — 
There  to  show  their  wide  maws, 
There  to  rend  with  fierce  jaws, 
While  their  clamor  and  blare 
Cleave  the  pestilent  air. 

"  Through  the  shot  and  the  shell, 

Through  the  gloom  and  the  glare, 
For  the  conquest  lies  here, 

And  the  glory  lies  there. 
Alas  for  Planciancoix  ! 

Alas  for  Cailloux  ! 
For  the  heroes  who  fall 

In  the  ranks  of  the  Blue  ! 
For  the  gallant  Black  Regiment 

Under  the  guns 
In  the  charge  at  Port  Hudson  ! 

"What  did  they  wrest  from  the  breach 
Under  the  guns  at  Port  Hudson  ? 
From  the  rage  of  retreat, 
In  the  pangs  of  defeat  ? 

The  right  to  be  men  ;  to  stand  forth 
Clean-limbed  in  the  fierce  light  of  freedom, 
And  say :  '  We  are  men  !     We  are  men  !  ' 

Out  of  the  awful  abyss, 
Up  from  the  guns  at  Port  Hudson, 
Out  of  the  smoke  and  the  flame, 
Shattered  and  scattered  they  came — 

One  on  the  rolls  of  the  brave, 

One  in  the  glory  to  be — 

The  gallant  Black  Regiment  !  " 

There  is  an  echo  here  of  "  The  Charge  of 
the  Light  Brigade,"  but  there  is  no  harm  in 
that.  The  following  is  a  more  characteristic 
selection : 

"Oh,  there  was  brave  maneuver  in  sight  of  foe  and 
friend, 

And  toss  of  plume  and  feather,  and  marching  with- 
out end; 

And  there  were  banners  waving,  and  there  were 
songs  and  cheers; 

And  for  the  patriot,  praises,  and  for  the  coward, 
jeers. 

And  here,  the  splendid  infantry,  accoutered  bright 
and  blue, 

And  there,  the  gleaming  trappings  of  cavalry  in 
view; 


438 


Recent  Poetry. 


[Oct. 


And  flash  of  scarlet  gunners  and  riders  in  the  line, 
With  gorgeous  spreading  epaulettes  and  sashes  red 

as  wine; 
And  lo,  the  long  processions  of  maidens  drawing 

nigh, 

With  kisses  and  with   flowers,  to  say  a  last  good- 
bye; 

And  lo,  the  wives  a-lifting  their  babies  to  the  sun — 
And  so  our  great  Grand  Army  beheld  its  work 
begun." 

There  are  a  few  poems  besides  the  war 
lyrics,  but  they  are  scarcely  as  good ;  they  are 
rather  commonplace,  and  upon  such  subjects 
as  "A  Friend's  Souvenir,"  "The  Old  Gnarled 
Apple  Tree,"  "  Watching  for  Me  at  the  Win- 
dow " ; — yet  a  very  good  note  is  occasionally 
struck. 

More  venturesome  is  Lilith,*  a  narrative 
poem  in  five  books,  whose  author  has  already 
printed  a  good  deal  of  fugitive  verse  in 
Western  papers.  Mrs.  Collier  has  several 
times  been  a  contributor  to  THE  OVERLAND. 
There  is  a  quality  of  much  promise  in  her 
verse — a  certain  affluence  and  sense  of  beau- 
ty, which  is  a  relief  from  the  cold  neutrality 
of  most  current  poetry.  If  this  excellent 
quality  could  be  united  in  her  with  a  mas- 
tery of  the  poetic  art,  as  art,  equal  to,  say, 
that  of  Miss  Thomas,. her  rank  as  a  writer 
should  be  very  high  ;  but  such  a  mastery  is 
scarcely  to  be  acquired  after  a  poetic  career 
has  begun.  Even  with  more  thorough  con- 
trol of  the  poetic  art,  the  poems  could  not 
be  really  memorable  without  more  power 
and  originality — for  though  often  original 
enough  in  fancy,  they  have  no  great  original- 
ity in  thought  or  feeling ;  and  while  intelli- 
gent enough,  and  full  of  earnest  emotion, 
they  have  not,  intellectually  or  emotionally, 
anything  that  could  properly  be  called  power. 
It  would  be  foolish  to  call  attention  to  what 
they  have  not,  were  it  not  for  what  they  have 
— a  sufficient  portion  of  beauty  to  make  them 
worthy  of  serious  criticism.  Lilith  is,  as  the 
name  indicates,  a  version  of  the  legend  of 
Adam's  first  wife.  Mrs.  Collier  makes  very 
free  with  the  legend,  and  it  must  be  confessed, 

2  Camp-fire,  Memorial  Day,  and  other  Poems.  By 
Kate  Brownlee  Sherwood.  Chicago;  Jansen,  McClurg 
&  Co.  1885. 

8  Lilith.  By  Ada  Langworthy  Collier.  Boston:  D. 
Lothrop  &  Co.  1885. 


free  with  the  unities  of  her  own  story  ;  for  it 
is  full  of  internal  inconsistencies  in  narrative, 
and  anachronisms  even  beyond  what  is  per- 
missible in  a  legend  of  this  nature.  The 
liberty  taken  with  the  subject-matter  is  not 
merely  legitimate,  but  the  chief  beauty  of  the 
poem.  The  legend  (doubtless  made  to  recon- 
cile the  two  accounts  in  Genesis  of  the  crea- 
tion of  woman,  the  first  of  which  represents 
her  made  with  man,  and  by  implication,  co- 
equal ;  and  the  other  as  created  second  and 
subordinate),  is,  it  will  be  remembered,  to  the 
effect  that  the  Lord  first  created  Adarn  and 
Lilith,  equal  in  authority;  that  the  clashing 
this  led  to  was  so  great,  that  Lilith  was  cast 
out  from  Eden,  and  the  marital  experiment 
tried  again,  on  a  different  principle,  by  the 
creation  of  Eve.  Lilith  thereafter  wedded 
Eblis,  the  prince  of  devils,  and  became  the 
mother  of  demons  and  specters;  and  in  ven- 
geance upon  her  rival,  Eve,  the  mother  of 
mankind,  became  the  special  enemy  of  babes, 
whom  she  strangles  with  a  thread  of  her  gold- 
en hair.  The  obvious  injustice  to  Lilith  — 
who  seems  to  have  asked  no  more  than  her 
fair  half,  while  Adam  was  the  encroacher,  on 
the  assumption  that  they  were  created  equal 
—has  inspired  Mrs.  Collier's  version  of  the 
legend,  according  to  which  Lilith  leaves  Eden 
voluntarily,  rather  than  submit  to  domin- 
ance, but  loses  thereby  the  blessing  of  moth- 
erhood. This  alone,  not  either  Adam  or 
Eden,  she  envies  Eve,  and  at  last  steals  the 
coveted  first  human  baby,  which  dies,  bereft 
of  its  mother,  and  so  gives  Lilith  the  repu- 
tation in  legend  of  being  a  child-murderess. 
It  is  a  pretty  and  pathetic  idea,  and  developed, 
though  imperfectly,  still  not  without  beauty 
and  pathos.  We  illustrate  its  manner  by  an 
extract  or  two : 

"  And  dusky  trees  shut  in  broad  fields  beyond, 
And  hung  long,  trembling  garlands,  age-grown- 

gray, 

P'rom  topmost  boughs  adown  athwart  the  day, 
And  sweet  amid  these  wilds,  bright  dewy  bells 
Sing  summer  chimes.     And  soft  in  fragrant  dells, 
'Mong  tender  leaves,  great  spikes  of  scarlet  flaunt, 
Among  the  pools — the  errant  wild  bees'  haunt. 
And  thick  with  bramble  blooms' pink  petals  starred, 
And  dew-stained  buds  of  blue,  the  velvet  sward. 
Scarce  ripple  stirred  the  sea;  and  inland  wend 


1885.] 


Recent  Poetry. 


439 


Far  bays  and  sedgy  ponds;  and  rolling  rivers  bend. 

A  land  of  leaf  and  fruitage  in  the  glow 

Of  palest  glamours  steeped.     And  far  and  low 

Great  purple  isles;  and  further  still  a  rim 

Of  sunset-tinted  hills,  that  softly  dim 

Shine  'gainst  the  day." 


"  A  luring  strain 

She  sang,  sweet  as  the  pause  of  summer  rain. 
So  soft,  so  pure,  her  voice,  the  child  it  drew 
Still  nearer  that  green  rift;  and  low  therethrough, 
She  laughing  stroked  the  down-bent  golden  head, 
With  her  soft  baby  hands.     And  parting,  spread 
The  silken  hair  about  her  little  face, 
And  kissed  the  temptress  through  the  green-leaved 

space. 

Whereat  fell  Lilith  snatched  the  babe  and  fled, 
Crying,  as  swift  from  Eden's  bounds  she  sped, 
And  like  a  fallen  star  shone  on  her  breast 
The  child,  '  At  last,  at  last!'  " 

A  vastly  more  pretentious  poem,  but  one 
really  not  as  good,  is  Lord  Lytton's  last, 
Glenaveril^  a  rhymed  romance  which  is  not 
without  some  interest,  and  has  about  it  a 
certain  neatness  in  the  construction  of  verse, 
and  an  occasionally  ingenious  fancy.  Other- 
wise, it  seems  to  us  devoid  of  much  virtue. 
Even  the  narrative  is  hampered  by  a  great 
quantity  of  very  thin  "  moralizing,"  which 
covers  the  whole  ground  of  life  and  society, 
attempting  political  satire  among  other  things. 
It  would  appear  to  be  written  for  the  same 
class  of  readers  who  have  found  "  Lucile  " 
so  delightful,  but  we  do  not  think  it  will 
please  them.  "Lucile,"  with  all  its  weak- 
nesses, had  qualities  that  made  people  really 
care  for  it;  but  this  book  is  pasteboard  in 
feeling,  in  thought,  in  rhetoric.  The  follow- 
ing stanza  shows  its  best,  in  the  neatness  of 
verse  and  the  ingenuity  of  fancy  we  have 
spoken  of: 

"Born  on  the  day  when  Lord  Glenaveril  died, 
Was  Lord  Glenaveril ;  and  the  sire's  last  sigh, 

Breathing  a  premature  farewell,  replied 
To  the  son's  first  petitionary  cry. 

On  that  dim  tract  which  doth  two  worlds  divide 
And  yet  unite,  they  passed  each  other  by 

As  strangers,  though  each  bore  the  self-same  name, 

The  one  departing  as  the  other  came." 

8  Glenaveril;  or  the  Metamorphoses.  By  the  Earl  of 
Lytton  (Owen  Meredith).  New  York:  D.  Appleton  & 
Co.  1885.  For  sale  in  San  Francisco  by  James  T. 
White. 


And  this  is  about  the  manner  of  the 
pages  upon  pages  of  wise  reflections  strewed 
through  the  book: 

"  And  here  awhile  will  I,  too,  pause,  to  plead 
My  right  of  calling  every  spade  a  spade. 

I  wish  each  knight  would  saddle  his  own  steed 
Whene'er  the  Press  proclaims  its  next  crusade. 

Men's  virtues  should  not  on  men's  vices  feed. 
But  counterfeited  feeling  's  now  a  trade 

That  all  compete  in.     Who  can  say  (not  I!) 

This  Age's  signature  's  no  forgery?" 

With  what  sense  of  relief  one  steps  across 
the  broad  interval  and  takes  up  Mr.  Aldrich. 
His  publishers  have  just  issued  a  cheap  edi- 
tion 4  of  his  poems,  containing  all  that  have 
hitherto  been  printed  in  separate  volumes, 
and,  in  addition,  his  more  recent  magazine 
verse.  The  perfect  expression  of  these  poems, 
the  subtle  perception  of  moods  and  senti- 
ments, the  hovering  between  trifling  and  pa- 
thos, is  admirable  beyond  words;  and  if  a 
dozen  or  so  of  the  lyrics  comprise  all  of  Mr. 
Aldrich's  poetry  that  possesses  in  the  highest 
degree  these  qualities,  the  others  all  have 
them  to  a  very  considerable  extent.  It  must 
be  an  unceasing  delight  to  readers  of  poetry 
that  he  has  written.  And  yet,  when  all  is 
said,  one  is  aware  of  a  certain  somewhat 
conspicuous  effect  of  lack  and  unsatisfactori- 
ness  in  Mr.  Aldrich's  verse.  It  is  very 
dainty  and  very  perfect ;  but,  after  all,  it  is 
only  the  daintiest  and  most  perfect  of  dilettant 
poetry.  The  best  of  the  lyrics — "  Palabras 
Carinosas,""The  One  White  Rose,"  "  Name- 
less Pain,"  and  a  dozen  more — must  first  be 
counted  out,  before  one  can  make  any  such 
criticism  with  entire  faith  in  it  himself;  but 
when  these  are  omitted,  there  becomes  evi- 
dent an  unsatisfying  emptiness  about  Mr. 
Aldrich's  poetry ;  a  preponderance  of  form 
over  matter ;  an  excess  of  the  virtue  of  reti- 
cence ;  a  too  unfailing  artistic  consciousness, 
never  by  any  chance  lost  in  artistic  im- 
pulse. So  valuable  is  the  high  artistic  con- 
science that  belongs  to  this  artistic  conscious- 
ness, and  so  great  the  defect  in  this  respect 
in  almost  all  poetry  writing  outside  of  the 
literary  centers — so  entirely  is  this  the  side 

4  The  Poems  of  Thomas  Bailey  Aldrich.  Boston 
Houghton,  Mifflin  &  Co.  1885.  For  sale  in  San  Fran- 
cisco by  Chilion  Beach. 


440 


Recent  Poetry. 


[Oct. 


on  which  writers  should  be  advised  to  err,  if 
error  must  be — that  we  hesitate  to  make  the 
criticism.  And,  indeed,  it  is  not  excess  of 
manner,  but  deficiency  of  matter,  that  is  the 
real  fault.  For  instance: 

The  Parcce. 
In  their  dark  house  of  cloud 

The  three  weird  sisters  toil  till  time  be  sped: 
One  unwinds  life;  one  ever  weaves  the  shroud; 
One  waits  to  cut  the  thread. 

There  seems  to  be  no  sufficient  reason 
why  these  lines  should  have  been  written, 
and  they  are  by  no  means  solitary  instances. 
Mr.  E.  C.  Stedman  has  lately  called  atten- 
tion to  the  lack  of  spontaneity  and  the  atten- 
uation of  thought  to  which  current  poetry 
tends,  as  well  as  its  excellent  taste  and  finish. 
Mr.  Aldrich  is  to  be  regarded  as  the  best  of 
this  recent  school,  possessing  all  its  virtues, 
but  none  the  less  illustrating  plainly  enough 
its  limitations. 

Nothing  could  better  illustrate  what  Mr. 
Aldrich  is  not,  than  turning  to  Miss  Ingelow's 
new  volume8 — a  rare  pleasure  of  late  years; 
and,  indeed,  at  no  time  has  she  given  forth 
poems  in  great  abundance  and  rapid  succes- 
sion. Yet  they  show  no  sign  of  having  been 
withheld  for  long  polishing  and  finishing ; 
nothing  could  be  more  spontaneous,  more 
frank,  more  unconscious  of  art.  Art  there 
must  be,  of  course ;  never  without  it  came 
so  much  beauty ;  but  Miss  Ingelow  has  the. 
final  gift — the  inspiration — call  it  what  you 
will — that  breathes  into  poetry  the  breath  of 
free,  unstudied  life.  It  is  one  of  the  mys- 
teries of  literature  that  this  unique  and  beau- 
tiful poetry  remains  so  little  read ;  that  since 
a  few  of  her  early  lyrics — chiefly  "  Divided," 
« Songs  of  Seven,"  and  "The  High  Tide  on 
the  Coast  of  Lincolnshire" — Miss  Ingelow 
seems  to  be  forgotten.  She  is  like  no  one 
else;  she  is  full  of  beauty  and  tenderness  and 
thought ;  she  is  even  great ;  and  she  has  all 
those  qualities  of  freshness  and  spontaneity 
that  are  so  rare  just  now,  and  that  readers 
weary  for  :  and  yet  she  is  not  read  nor  talked 
about.  The  few  lyrics  by  which  she  is  known 
are  not  better  than  many  other  poems  of  hers. 

6  Poems  of  the  Old  Days  and  the  New.  By  Jean  In- 
gelow. Boston:  Roberts  Brothers.  1885.  For  sale  in 
San  Francisco  by  Strickland  &  Pierson. 


Who  reads,  quotes,  or  talks  about  "Brothers 
and  a  Sermon,"  or  "  A  Story  of  Doom  "?  and 
yet  where  in  all  our  literature  is  the  same 
sort  of  thing  done  so  well  ?  Who  knows  Miss 
Ingelow's  sonnets  ?  and  yet  they  are  beauti- 
ful ones,  with  a  sort  of  quaint  and  grave 
sweetness  entirely  their  own.  She  does  all 
the  things  that  other  people  cannot  do  now- 
adays— ballads  that  are  not  forced  ;  country- 
side idyls  of  the  "Walking  to  the  Mail"  sort 
that  are  not  crude  nor  artificially  simple;  med- 
itative poetry  that  is  not  dull.  She  has  sin- 
gular originality,  a  voice  all  her  own,  and 
an  ever  fresh  and  sweet  voice  it  is.  The  pe- 
culiar charm  of  it  baffles  analysis.  Much  of 
it  is  due  to  the  great  sincerity  of  her  verse, 
which  has  preserved  it  from  any  of  the  com- 
mon vices,  such  as  imitating  herself,  or  for- 
getting matter  for  manner ;  yet  one  does  not 
find  breaches  of  taste  nor  lack  of  reticence  in 
her.  The  nearest  approach  that  she  makes 
to  any  such  fault  is  in  over-use  of  refrains  and 
obscure  phrases — apparently  not  in  any  Ros- 
setti-like  affectation,  but  because  she  tried  to 
make  the  poetry  take  too  far  the  function  of 
music,  that  of  rendering  indefinite  feeling;  so 
that  her  poetry  laid  itself  justly  open  to  the 
clever  parody 

"(Butter  and  eggs  and  a  pound  of  cheese,)" 

and  the  others  scarcely  less  clever,  in  "Fly- 
Leaves." 

In  the  present  volume,  it  would  not  be 
possible  to  say  that  there  is  anything  equal  to 
the  best  of  her  earlier  work ;  yet  it  is  Jean  In- 
gelow still,  without  any  sign  of  weakening  or 
failing  ;  it  is  Jean  Ingelow,  as  "  Aftermath  " 
was  Longfellow,  or  as  the  later  work  of  Whit- 
tier  and  Holmes  shows  no  "  Snow-bound  " 
or  "  One-Hoss  Shay,"  and  yet  nothing  that 
seems  a  failing  of  the  powers.  There  is 
much  meditative  verse  ;  much  idyllic,  with 
the  special  appreciativeness  of  child-life  that 
Miss  Ingelow  has  always  had ;  something 
of  dramatic  monologue.  It  is  all  worth 
having  and  reading.  Here  is  a  bit  out  of 
the  child  world  : 

"Ay,  Oliver!  I  was  but  seven  and  he  was  eleven  ; 
He  looked  at  me  pouting  and  rosy.     I  blushed  where 
I  stood. 


1885.] 


Recent  Poetry. 


441 


They  had  told  us  to  play  in  the  orchard  (and  I  only 

seven! 
A  small  guest  at  the  farm);  but  he  said,  'Oh,  a  girl 

was  no  good.' 
So  he  whistled  and  went,  he  went  over  the  stile  to 

the  wood. 

It  was  sad,  it  was  sorrowful!    Only  a  girl — only  seven! 
At  home,  in  the  dark   London  smoke,   I  had    not 

found  it  out. 
The  pear  trees  looked  on  in  their  white,  and  blue 

birds  flashed  about. 
And  they,  too,  were  angry  as  Oliver.     Were   they 

eleven? 
I  thought  so.  Yes,  every  one  else  was  eleven — eleven! 

"So  Oliver  went,  but  the  cowslips  were  tall  at  my 

feet, 
And  all  the  white  orchard  with  fast-falling  blossom 

was  littered; 
And  under  and  over  the  branches  those  little  birds 

twittered, 
While  hanging  head  downwards  they  scolded  because 

I  was  seven. 

A  pity.     A  very  great  pity.     One  should  be  eleven. 
But  soon  I  was  happy,  the  smell  of  the  world  was  so 

sweet. 
And  I  saw  a  round  hole  in  an  apple  tree  rosy  and 

old. 
Then  I    knew!  for  I  peeped,  and  I  felt  it  was  right 

they  should  scold ! 
Eggs  small  and  eggs  many.     For  gladness   I  broke 

into  laughter; 
And  then  someone  else — oh,  how  softly! — came  after, 

came  after 
With  laughter — with  laughter  came  after." 

This  was  Echo;  and  when,  years  after, 
Katie,  in  the  same  orchard,  is  on  the  eve  of 
going  over  to  the  little  low  church,  in  white, 
and  with  Oliver, 

"  For  gladness  I  break  into  laughter 
And  tears.     Then  it  all  comes  again,  as  from  far-away 

years; 
Again  some  one  else — ob,  how  softly! — with  laughter 

comes  after, 
Comes  after — with  laughter  comes  after." 

Here  again : 

"In  the  beginning — for  methinks  it  was — 
In  the  beginning,  but  and  if  you  ask 
How  long  ago,  time  was  not  then,  nor  date 
For  marking.     It  was  always  long  ago, 
E'en  from  the  first  recalling  of  it,  long 
And  long  ago. 

"  And  I  could  walk,  and  went, 
Led  by  the  hand  through  a  long  mead  at  morn, 
Bathed  in  a  ravishing  excess  of  light. 
It   throbbed,  and  as  it  were  fresh   fallen  from 

heaven, 
Sank  deep  in  the  meadow  grass.     The  sun 


Gave  every  blade  a  bright  and  a  dark  side, 
Glittered  on  buttercups  that  topped  them,  slipped 
To  soft,  red  puffs,  by  some  called  holy-hay. 
The  wild  oaks  in  their  early  green  stood  still, 
And  took  delight  in  it.    Brown  specks  that  made 
Very  sweet  noises  quivered  in  the  blue  ; 
Then  they  came  down,  and  ran  along  the  brink 
Of  a  long  pool,  and  they  were  birds. 

' '  The  pool, 

Pranked  at  the  edges  with  pale  peppermint, 
A  rare  amassment  of  veined  cuckoo-flowers, 
And  flags  blue-green,  was  lying  below.   This  all 
Was  sight ;  it  condescended  not  to  words, 
Till  memory  kissed  the  charmed  dream. 

"  The  mead, 

Hollowing  and  heaving,  in  the  hollows  fair 
With  dropping  roses,  fell  away  to  it. 
A  strange,  sweet  place  ;  upon  its  further  side, 
Some  people  gently  walking  took  their  way 
Up  to  a  wood  beyond  ;  and  also  bells 
Sang,  floated  in  the  air,  hummed — what  you  will. 

"  It  was  sweet, 

Full  of  dear  leisure  and  perennial  peace, 
As  very  old  days  when  life  went  easily, 
Before  mankind  had  lost  the  wise,  the  good 
Habit  of  being  happy. 

"  For  the  pool, 

A  beauteous  place  it  was,  as  might  be  seen, 
That  led  one  down  to  other  meads,  and  had 
Clouds,  and  another  sky.     I  thought  to  go 
Deep  down  in    it,  and  walk  that  steep,  clear 
slope." 

This  thought  of  child-life  comes  constantly 
in  the  volume.  But  here  is  a  different  mood  : 

"  '  To  show  the  skies,  and  tether  to  the  sod  ! 
A  daunting  gift ! '  we  mourn  in  our  long  strife, 
And  God  is  more  than  all  our  thought  of  God  ; 
E'en  life  itself  more  than  our  thought  of  life, 
And  that  is  all  we  know — and  it  is  noon, 
Our  little  day  will  soon  be  done — how  soon. 

"  O,  let  us  to  ourselves  be  dutiful: 

We  are  not  satisfied,  we  have  wanted  all. 
Not  alone  beauty,  but  that  Beautiful; 
A  lifted  veil,  an  answering  mystical. 
Ever  men  plead  and  plain,  admire,  implore, 
'Why  gavest  thou  so  much,  and  yet — not  more  ?' " 

We  do  not  feel  disposed  to  pass  over  the 
volume  without  saying  that  it  is,  we  believe, 
absolutely  the  worst  punctuated  that  we  have 
ever  seen  from  a  respectable  house.  It  looks 
as  if  there  had  been  no  proof-reading  on  it. 
Commas  and  periods  are  disposed  quite  ac- 
cidentally, and  as  the  constructions  are  not 
seldom  quite  involved,  the  resulting  confu- 
sion to  the  mind  is  considerable. 


442 


Etc. 


[Oct. 


ETC. 


THERE  is  no  reason  why  California  should  feel  hu- 
miliated by  the  Wyoming  outrage,  committed,  so  far 
as  we  can  learn,  by  the  worst  class  of  European  im- 
migrants upon  Asiatic  immigrants.  No  one  has  a 
right  to  hold  California's  demand  for  exclusion  of 
Chinese  laborers  responsible—  as  some  of  the  Eastern 
journals  are  disposed  to  do — for  any  one's  abuse  of 
them.  Our  State  has  no  re  ason,  we  repeat,  to  feel 
humiliated  by  the  massacre;  and  we  repeat  it  in  or- 
der to  add:  It  has  cause  for  deep  humiliation  that 
this  monstrous  occurrence  has  received  only  lukewarm 
condemnation  among  us.  Is  it  impossible  for  men  as 
open  to  reason  as  the  typical  American  is  supposed  to 
be,  to  realize  what  would  be  his  tone  of  comment  if 
a  gang  of  Indians  had  done  to  the  whites  what  these 
Wyoming  miners  have  done  to  the  Chinese  ?  And 
yet,  what  has  the  European  immigrant  upon  our  shores 
suffered  from  Asiatic  competition,  compared  with 
what  these  "red  demons,"  "fiends  in  human  form," 
have  suffered  from  white  competition  ?  The  world  is 
old  enough  to  have  learned  at  least  common  decency 
injustice  of  judgment,  to  have  outgrown  an  absolute- 
ly frank  and  simple  belief  that  the  raising  of  a  hand 
against  us  is  of  course  a  monstrous  and  unpardonable 
crime,  but  the  infliction  of  any  torture  by  us  on  an- 
other, the  most  proper  and  natural  thing  in  the  world. 
The  Roman  historian  tells  with  complacency  of  the 
admirable  stratagems  practiced  by  the  Romans  upon 
the  Carthaginians;  but  when  the  Carthaginians  did  the 
same  sort  of  thing,  he  calls  attention  to  the  treacher- 
ous and  wicked  Punic  character.  It  is  to  be  wished  that 
we  had  outgrown  this  sort  of  obtuseness  in  two  thous- 
and years.  The  journal  or  the  person  that  indulges  in 
it,  or  is  so  far  timid  before  those  who  do  as  to 
pretend  to,  should  remember  that  generations  goby, 
and  policies  are  settled,  and  evils  removed,  but  a 
stain  of  this  kind  never  fades  from  the  scutcheon  of  a 
people.  It  grows  darker  and  darker  in  history  year 
after  year.  How  gladly  would  Massachusetts  now 
wipe  out  the  Salem  witch  episode  from  her  annals  ! 
or  Connecticut  the  Prudence  Crandall  affair !  or  the 
England  that  wishes  to  revere  the  memory  of  Wil- 
liam of  Orange,  the  record  of  one  massacre  !  The 
cruel  and  monstrous  act  of  a  set  of  ruffians  in  a  re- 
mote community  need  be  no  stain  on  our  national 
good  fame,  nor  even  on  that  of  the  section  which  is  in 
distinct  opposition  to  Chinese  immigration,  provided 
that  we  disavow  and  condemn  it,  in  good  faith,  and 
that  as  a  nation  we  use,  and  as  a  section  encourage, 
every  effort  to  punish  it  rigidly.  Demonstrations  of 
brutality  on  the  part  of  the  baser  elements  of  society 
are  so  closely  related  to  an  attitude  of  apology  and  tol- 
erance and  covert  sympathy  on  the  part  of  the  bet- 
ter classes,  that  it  would  be  almost  fair  to  say  they 
are  the  direct  product  of  it. 


Two  significant  facts  are  thus  far  disclosed  by  the 
investigation  in  progress:  first,  that  there  was  no 
question  of  wages  involved — the  Chinese  were  not 
underbidding  white  laborers,  but  displacing  them 
because  they  did  better  work;  and,  second,  that  not 
one  single  person  concerned  in  the  massacre  was  a 
native-born  American,  some  of  them  not  being  even 
citizens.  Both  these  things  point  to  the  same  con- 
clusion: that  we  have,  in  the  Wyoming  murders,  no 
passionate  outbreak  of  illegal  and  barbarian  resist- 
ance to  danger,  but  simply  the  savagery  of  that  class 
of  human  beings  who,  in  the  midst  of  every  civilized 
society,  especially  that  of  old  countries,  have  man- 
aged to  remain  savages  still,  possibly  depraved  and 
brutalized  the  more  by  their  artificial  life  in  the  midst 
of  civilization.  Such  men  come  from  Europe  to  our 
new  land  abundantly,  and  become  citizens  in  good 
and  regular  standing;  they  never  doubt  that,  with  all 
their  coarse  ignorance  and  brutality,  they  are  by  di- 
vine right  superior  to  the  most  learned  and  virtuous 
Chinaman  or  Japanese  that  ever  spent  his  days  and 
nights  in  study,  or  sacrificed  his  whole  fortune  to  a 
scruple  of  honor,  or  an  impulse  of  patriotism.  They 
would  feel  that  they  exercised  the  right  of  a  superior  in 
assailing  with  coarse  insult  the  scholarly  and  honor- 
able gentlemen  who,  from  time  to  time,  as  ministers, 
students,  once  as  professor  in  an  American  university, 
have  come  to  us  from  China  and  Japan.  To  such  men 
it  is  reason  enough  for  deliberately  going  in  force  to 
shoot  or  burn  to  death  unarmed  men,  that  they  are  of 
another  race,  and  an  unpopular  and  therefore  ill- 
defended  one,  at  that.  The  cowardice  of  these  mas- 
sacring exploits,  when  performed  by  Europeans,  is 
one  of  their  distinguishing  features,  and  one  that 
places  them  below  the  level  of  Indian  massacres;  for 
in  however  cowardly  a  way  the  immediate  act  of  In- 
dian massacre  may  be  done,  the  attackers  have  nev- 
er been  loth  to  follow  it  up  in  a  manner  that  showed 
there  was  no  lack  of  courage  in  them.  All  this  goes 
to  confirm  what  THE  OVERLAND  has  consistently  said: 
that  wise  though  the  general  policy  of  exclusion  would 
seem  to  be,  it  is  a  mistake  to  draw  the  lines  by  race 
instead  of  class.  This  was  recognized,  in  a  somewhat 
bungling  way,  by  the  distinction  of  classes  made  in 
the  Exclusion  Act.  It  must  be  evident  to  any  can- 
did person,  that  a  farther  recognition  of  it,  which 
should  admit  that  the  base  and  brutal  element  of  Eu- 
ropean society  may  be  a  danger,  as  well  as  the  whole 
poorer  class  of  Asiatic  society,  would  put  us  in  a 
more  logical  position.  It  is  just  and  reasonable  for 
patriotic  American  citizens,  native-born  or  foreign- 
born,  to  protect  American  society  against  any  immi- 
gration that  may  be  decided  injurious;  it  is  not  just 
nor  reasonable  to  fight  the  battle  of  offensive  and  un- 
desirable foreigners  from  one  direction  against  the 


1885.] 


Etc. 


443 


competition  of  the  same  class  from  another  direction; 
to  go  through  an  infinite  amount  of  labor  to  get  the 
Chinaman  out,  and  carefully  hold  his  place  open  for 
the  worst  of  our  own  race  or  group  of  races,  and  wel- 
come them  to  it  with  open  arms.  This  is  deliberate- 
ly courting  the  condition  of  the  man  who,  when  the 
devil  was  cast  out,  kept  his  house  empty,  swept,  and 
garnished,  and  open  to  the  entrance  of  seven  other 
devils,  worse  than  the  first. 

IT  is  a  very  serious  difficulty  in  the  way  of  rational 
consideration  of  this  point,  that  every  one  is  so  prone 
to  judge  men  by  races,  instead  of — as  is  a  much  truer 
way— by  classes.  Gentlemen  have  discovered  that  a 
gentleman  is  a  gentleman,  the  world  over  ;  scholars, 
that  the  fellowship  of  science  or  of  letters  produces  a 
far  closer  community  of  traits  than  identity  of  race — 
so  that  sages  of  ancient  Egypt,  China,  Persia,  India, 
Greece,  speak  to  the  heart  and  mind  of  the  wise  to- 
day, with  a  directness  that  the  next-door  neighbor 
in  Athens  or  in  Concord  could  never  imitate ;  and 
Emerson  and  Confucius  could  go  fishing  together,  or 
go  into  partnership  in  business,  with  infinitely  more 
satisfaction  than  the  one  could  with  Herr  Most,  or 
Sullivan,  or  the  other  with  Ah  Sin.  A  failure  to  re- 
alize that  the  true  lines  of  human  fellowship  lie  only 
in  part  along  the  lines  of  race,  crossing  them  in  part 
by  lines  of  character,  makes  our  foreign  born  citizens 
over-sensitive  in  behalf  of  their  own  nationality;  so 
that  Irish  or  German  gentlemen  are  too  disposed  to 
wince  when  Irish  or  German  knaves  and  brutes  are 
inveighed  against.  Every  people  has  developed  a 
depraved  class — the  American  possibly  not  to  a  great 
extent,  save  by  importation,  but  America  is  still  very 
young — and  neither  English,  French,  German,  nor 
Irish  should  shut  their  eyes  to  that  fact,  nor  let  a  clan- 
feeling  range  them  on  the  side  of  Englishman, 
Frenchman,  German,  or  Irishman  indiscriminately. 
By  the  very  fact  of  becoming  American  citizens,  they 
have  abjured  that  sort  of  allegiance. 

New  Goethe  Papers. 

THE  lovers  of  Goethe  literature  everywhere,  and 
all  educated  people  in  Germany,  are  nota  little  ex- 
cited over  the  new  revelations  which  are  to  result 
from  the  opening  to  public  investigation  of  the  art- 
treasures,  collections,  and  manuscripts  of  Goethe, 
and  not  a  few  admirers  of  the  immortal  poet  in  this 
country  will  be  looking  with  longing  expectancy 
across  the  waters  to  behold  the  new  light  illumining 
the  great  master.  Ever  since  the  death  of  Goethe 
the  eyes  of  the  literary  world  of  Germany  had 
been  directed  toward  these  repositories  which  were 
in  the  possession  of  the  last  scion  of  the  Goethe 
family,  a  grandson  of  the  poet,  who  guarded  the 
treasure  with  argus  eyes,  never  admitting  any  person 
to  the  sanctum  sanctorum  where  they  were  kept  un- 
der lock  and  key.  The  last  bearer  of  this  proud 
name,  Walter  von  Goethe,  died  in  the  month  of 


April  of  this  year,  bequeathing  to  the  Grand  Duke 
and  Grand  Duchess  of  Saxe-Weimar  all  these  collec- 
tions and  manuscripts  of  Goethe.  The  Grand  Duke 
is  making  preparations  to  open  the  Goethe  house, 
with  all  its  valuable  contents,  to  the  interested  pub- 
lic, while  the  Grand  Duchess  has  called  three  of  the 
ablest  literary  men,  Loeper,  Scherer,  and  Erich 
Schmidt,  to  Weimar,  to  assist  her  in  the  literary  la- 
bors connected  with  the  arranging  and  publishing  of 
these  papers.  She  herself  does  not  intend  to  be  an 
idle  looker-on  in  all  this  work,  but,  on  the  contrary, 
wishes  to  be  considered  as  one  of  the  most  active 
members  of  the  Goethe  Society,  whose  enviable  task 
it  will  be  to  explore  the  precious  mine.  Erich  Schmidt 
at  once  resigned  his  professorship  at  the  University 
of  Vienna,  that  he  might  devote  himself  entirely  to 
this  new  and  important  undertaking. 

Nobody  can  at  present  fully  estimate  the  import  of 
the  new  disclosures,  but  we  may  safely  predict  a  re- 
construction of  a  thousand  ideas  connected  with  the 
life  and  the  works  of  the  poet.  More  important  than 
all  the  materials  that  bear  upon  the  purely  literary 
subjects,  will  be  those  which  may  help  us  to  a  better 
understanding  of  Goethe's  private  life  and  character. 
The  writer  of  these  lines  has  always  been  of  the 
opinion  that  a  somewhat  morbid  tendency  existed  in 
the  world,  particularly  in  this  country,  to  charge 
Goethe  with  all  sorts  of  wrongs  upon  very  insufficient 
and  indirect  evidence,  and  without  a  deeper  under- 
standing of  the  man.  It  has  been  the  writer's  cher- 
ished hope,  then,  that  some  clay  the  man  Goethe 
might  be  raised  more  nearly  to  a  level  with  his  works. 
In  these  respects  the  new  discoveries  must  operate 
beneficially.  Goethe,  as  a  private  individual,  ap- 
peared to  those  who  were  inclined  to  construe  mere 
suspicions  into  actual  accusations  in  the  worst  possi- 
ble light ;  it  is  hoped  that  some  of  these  suspicions 
will  have  to  be  abandoned  in  the  near  future,  when 
the  truth  shall  have  become  known. 

Already  these  hopes  have  to  some  extent  been  re- 
alized. It  has  generally  been  supposed,  and  fre- 
quently asserted,  that  Goethe's  wife  was  a  somewhat 
coarse  nature,  and  that  the  relations  of  the  husband 
to  his  wife  were  lacking  in  the  more  refined  elements 
of  conjugal  life.  These  opinions  were  furthermore 
strengthened  by  the  fact  that  the  extant  pictures  of 
Goethe's  wife  did  not  present  features  expressing  a 
spiritual  and  intellectual  life.  But  what  is  the  new 
testimony  on  these  points  ? 

"The  most  charming  of  all  the  letters  found  are 
those  of  Goethe  to  his  wife;  they  present  the  marital 
relations  in  an  entirely  new  light.  For  twenty-five 
years  they  never  change  in  warmth  and  tenderness 
of  expression,  and  for  the  first  time  we  obtain  an  ad- 
equate understanding  of  Christiane,  and  of  Goethe's 
domestic  relations.  Goethe  lets  his  wife  share  in  all 
his  important  interests  ;  he  tells  her  of  his  poetic  la- 
bors, of  his  other  doings,  of  his  moods,  and,  on  the 
other  hand,  shows  a  lively  concern  in  all  her  petty 
household  cares.  He  is  at  all  times  the  loving,  kind, 


444 


Etc. 


[Oct. 


attentive  husband.  In  the  midst  of  the  excitements 
and  diversions  of  his  sojourn  in  France,  he  thinks 
lovingly  of  his  quiet  home  at  Weimar,  and  longs  for 
the  companionship  of  his  dearly  beloved  wife  to  com- 
plete his  happiness."  (Otto  Brahm,  Rundschau, 
Aug.,  1885.) 

This  presents  an  altogether  delightful  picture  of  do- 
mestic felicity,  and  one  much  more  attractive  than  that 
imagined  by  the  more  conservative  Goethe  students 
even,  who  were  inclined  to  doubt  the  various  accusa- 
tions made  against  him  ;  this  picture  at  once  raises  the 
man  in  our  esteem.  In  the  article  above  referred  to, 
a  likeness  of  Christiane,  discovered  in  the  Goethe 
house,  is  described  as  naiv-an/nuthig,  surely  a  predi- 
cate one  better  than  which  no  woman  need  desire,  and 
which  would  satisfy  the  eye  of  most  refined  men.  It 
speaks  of  innocence,  purity,  and  soul,  and  excludes 
the  alleged  grosser  traits.  Here  we  rejoice  in  prom- 
ises of  better  things,  and,  consequently,  of  a  better 
Goethe. 

Of  course,  all  the  master-pieces,  and  Faust  in  par- 
ticular, because  Goethe's  person  is  so  intimately  inter- 
woven with  the  poem,  will  be  better  understood  from 
now  on,  although  they  may  not  suffer  any  material 
change,  nor  can  the  appreciation  in  which  they  are 
held  become  greater  than  it  is  already.  It  is  for- 
tunate, too,  that  this  heirloom  has  fallen  into  the 
hands  of  these  high  patrons;  neither  effort  nor  money 
will  be  spared  to  put  it  to  the  best  possible  use,  with- 
out regard  to  material  returns.  Under  the  auspices 
of  the  Grand  Duke  and  his  spouse,  a  Goethe  Society 
has  been  called  into  life,  whcse  aim  will  be  to  pro- 
mote in  every  way  the  study  of  the  greatest  German 
poet.  The  executive  committee  of  this  society  con- 
sists of  eleven  prominent  Goethe  scholars  of  Germany. 
An  invitation  to  join  the  society  has  been  generously 
issued  over  their  signatures  to  all  those  who  "re- 
vere" the  poet,  without  national,  party,  or  other 
distinction. 

We  may  have  the  privilege  of  reverting  to  this  sub- 
ject in  the  pages  of  the  OVERLAND  to  report  progress; 
but  now  let  us  hope,  in  the  Master's  own  words,  for 
"more  light."  Albin  Putzker. 

In  the  Moonlight. 

The  moon  from  Heaven  was  stretching 

A  wand  of  magic  afar  ; 
Its  shadow  fell  in  the  river, 

A  wavering,  silver  bar  ; 
And  from  it  a  weird  enchantment 

Dropped  like  impalpable  rain, 
On  a  world  that  by  eerie  beauty 

Was  chastened  from  care  and  stain. 

My  darling  sat  by  the  window, 

Enshrined  in  the  tender  light, 
It  was  just  a  month  since  our  bridal, 

And  just  such  another  night. 
We  saw  on  the  lawn  beneath  us, 

In  the  arbor  this  side  the  pines, 
Two  forms  whose  outlines  were  muffled 

By  the  trellised  curtain  of  vine?. 


A  smile  le  <&•  ped  forth  from  the  hidden 

Blue  depths  of  two  quiet  eyes, 
•    A  face  with  sweet  mirth  suffusing  ; 

My  lady  was  earnestly  w.ise : 
In  course  of  our  love-dream  above  stairs 

She  had  watched  another  below, 
And  thought  she  beheld  in  the  moonlight 
A  romance  of  the  broom  and  hoe. 

Without  a  word  we  descended 

For  a  frolic  upon  the  lawn, 
Hoping  only  that  stealthy  footsteps 

Would  not  of  our  coming  forewarn. 
In  the  spell  of  the  vision  unfolding 

For  a  moment  we  stood  at  gaze; 
The  river  wound  far  where  the  distance 

Was  gauzed  with  a  silver  haze  ; 
And  all  the  air  was  a  glamour 

Upon  the  mute  landscape  hung  ; 
And  earth  was  a  pictured  legend, 

And  life  a  poem  unsung. 

We  stole  out  within  the  shadow, 
Then  paused,  as  if  turned  to  stone, 

We  eaves-droppers  scared  but  shameless 
At  sound  of  a  voice  well  known. 

' '  You  have  known  my  past  and  its  sorroiv, 

Have  stood  by  the  grave  of  my  youth. 
I  loved  you  at  first  for  the  reason 

That  we  both  loved  her  who  is  gone, 
And  suffered  together  in  silence 

When  joy  and  hope  vanished  from  earth. 
Your  help  and  your  solace  full-hearted 

Through  changing  years  grow  more  dear, 
And  life's  little  remnant  I  offer 

With  devotion  and  perfect  tnist, " 

O,  my  grave  and  taciturn  father  ! 
O,  gentle,  beloved  aunt  ! 

Ye  had  plotted  in  closest  secret 
The  primmest  romance  extant. 

But  while  we  dovelets  of  twenty 

Indoors  were  content  to  coo, 
Ye  must  needs,  ensconced  in  the  arbor, 

Make  love  'mid  moonlight  and  dew. 

And  love  from  the  land  immortal 
Enwrapped  human  hearts  below, 

As  purely  as  moonlight  that  folded 
The  earth  in  a  dream  of  snow. 

Wilbur  Larremore. 

IN  our  garden  a  maguey  has  stood  for  several 
years,  and  though  it  has  grown  larger  and  larger,  it 
has  shown  no  sign  of  flowering,  but  has  spread  out 
its  clump  of  bayonets  so  threateningly  that  the  cook 
has  kept  the  unruly  youngsters  of  the  family  in  sub- 
jection, by  saying  that  she  would  toss  them,  if  they 
were  bad,  to  be  impaled  on  those  bristling  points. 
Dusty,  stiff,  and  uncompromising,  it  has  seemed  a 
perfect  type  of  the  most  unyielding  Philistinism,  and 
it  required  a  deal  of  faith  to  believe  that  somewhere 
in  the  heart  of  that  plant  was  the  potency  of  beauty 
and  grace. 


1885.]  Me.  445 

Last  summer,  however,  a  slender  little  stalk  shouldered  to  one  side  though  they  be,  overshadowed 
pushed  itself  timidly  forth,  several  inches  from  the  by  ugliness  and  commonplace,  weak  and  small  and 
foot  of  the  plant,  so  that  it  seemed  to  have  but  little  inconspicuous,  there  are  attempts  and  strivings  for 
connection  with  the  prickly  blades  that  thrust  it  aside,  something  better,  showing  that  somewhere  at  the 
It  never  grew  very  tall,  but  it  developed  a  cluster  of  heart  of  our  civilization  there  are  possibilities  that  in 
flowers  that  were  worth  looking  at,  if  they  were  the  future  shall  grow  into  a  crown  of  flowers  to  as- 
noticed  in  the  shadow  of  the  lusty  growth  of  spikes,  tonish  mankind. 

And  yet  the  gardener  told  us,  and  the  event  is  veri-         And  when  the  world  shall  see  the  perfect  result, 

fying  his  words,  that  that  little  stalk  was  a  sign  that  there  will  be  some  among  the  observers  thoughtful 

this  summer  there  would  spring  from  the  very  center  enough  to  remember  the  feeble  beginnings,  the  little 

of  the  maguey  a  stem  that  would  rise  far  above  the  stalks   on  one  side,  and    to    do  them  the  honor  to 

rest  of  the  plant,  bearing  a  mass  of  flowers  that  would  count  them  as  part  of  the  great  burst  of  bloom  of 

command  the  admiration  of  every  passer.  which  they  were  the  harbingers. 

Here  is  encouragement  for  those  that  uphold  the  On  one  point,  let  us  not  be  too  impatient  with 
cause  of  beauty  in  this  western  land.  Philistinism  Philistinism,  harsh  and  unlovely  as  it  is:  for  it  must 
is  rampant  here,  no  doubt;  its  hard  and  common  be  remembered  that  this  slow  growth  in  strength  and 
natures,  sharpened  and  narrowed  by  the  search  for  material  resources  that  is  made  by  the  bristling  leaves 
wealth,  are  everywhere,  and  there  seems  but  little  of  the  maguey  is  necessary,  before  the  great  flower- 
room  for  the  beautiful  to  develop  itself.  And  yet,  stalk  can  rise  in  its  beauty.  C.  S.  G. 

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Cruise  of  Str.  Corwin  (Siberian  Villages,  Glacial  Action) S.  F.  Bulletin,  Aug.  15,  1881 

Cruise  of  Str.  Corwin  (St.  Lawrence  Island) • S.  F.  Bulletin,  July  25,    1881 

Cruise  of  Str.  Corwin  (St.  Michael's  Fauna) S.  F.  Bulletin,  Aug.  16,  1881 

Cruise  of  Str.  Corwin  (St.  Michael's  Fauna  and  Flora) S.  F.  Bulletin,  July  25,   1881 

Cruise  of  Str.  Corwin  (Wrangel  Land) S.  F.  Bulletin,  Sept.  29,  1881 

Cruise'of  Str.  Corwin  (Wrangel  Land) , S.  F.  Bulletin,  Oct.  22,    1881 

Cruise  of  Str.  Corwin  (Wrecks,  Whaling,  Etc.) S.  F.  Bulletin,  Oct.  24,  1881 

Forests  of  California,  The  New  Sequoia Harper's,  LVII.,  p.  813 


446  Etc.  [Oct. 

Fort  Wrangel .• . .' S.  F.  Bulletin,  Aug.  8,  1879 

Geologist's  Winter  Walk,  A Overland,  X.,  p.  355 

Humming  Bird  of  the  California  Waterfalls Scribner's,  XV.,  p.  545 

Living  Glaciers  of  California Overland,  IX.,  p.  547 

Lakes  of  California,  The  Mountain Scribner's,  XVII. ,  p.  411 

Lake  Tahoe  in  Winter S.  F.  Bulletin,  Apr.   3,    1878 

McCloucl  River,  The  Salmon  Fishery  on  the .S.  F.  Bulletin,  Oct.  29,  1874 

Modoc  Lava  Beds , S.  F.  Bulletin,  Nov.  20,  1874 

Mormon  Lilies S.  F.  Bulletin,  July  19,   1877 

Naturalist,  Notes  of  a S.  F.  Bulletin,  Aug.  27,  1879 

Nevada,  Dead  Towns  of. S.  F.  Bulletin,  Jan.   15,   1879 

Nevada  Farms S.  F.  Bulletin,  Sept.  29,  1878 

Nevada  Forests,  I S.  F.  Bulletin,  Oct.  20,  1878 

Nevada  Forests,  II S.  F.  Bulletin,  Oct.  22,  1878 

Nevada,  Glacial  Phenomena  in S.  F.  Bulletin,  Dec.  5,    1878 

Puget  Sound S.  F.  Bulletin,  June  28,  1879 

Salt  Lake  Basin,  Storm  in S.  F.  Bulletin,  May  19,  1877 

Salt  Lake  City S.  F.  Bulletin,  May  15,  1877 

Salt  Lake,  Bathing  in S.  F.  Bulletin,  June  14,  1877 

San  Gabriel,  The  Sun  Valley  of S.  F.  Bulletin,  Sept.  1 1,  1877 

San  Gabriel  Mountains,  In  the S.  F.  Bulletin,  Sept.  1 1,  1877 

Shasta  Bees S.  F.  Bulletin,  Dec.  17,  1874 

Shasta  Game S.  F.  Bulletin,  Nov.  29,  1874 

Shasta,  Notes  from S.  F.  Bulletin,  Sept.  10,  1877 

Shasta,  A  Snow-storm  on  Mount Harper's,  LV.,  p.  521 

Shasta  Storms S.  F.  Bulletin,  Nov.  24,  1874 

Sheep  of  California,  The  Wild Overland,  XII.,  p.  358 

Sheep  of  the  Sierras,  The  Wild Scribner's,  XXII.,  p.  I 

Sierra  Nevada,  The  Coniferous  Forests  of  the Scribner's,  XXII.,  pp.  710,  921 

Sierras,  Ancient  Glaciers  of  the Californian,  II.,  p.  550 

Sierras,  A  Flood  Storm  in  the Overland,  XIV.,  p.  489 

Sierras,  The  Glacier  Meadows  of  the Scribner's,  XVII.,  p.  478 

Sierras,  The  Passes  of  the Scribner's,  XVII.,  p.  644 

Sierras,  Studies  in  the Overland,  XII.,  pp.  393,  489 

Sierras,  Studies  in  the .Overland,  XIII.,  pp.  67,  174,  393,  530 

Sierras,  Studies  in  the  (Glaciers  and  Glacial  Action) Overland,    XIV.,  p.  64 

Sierras,  Summering  in  the  : 

Ancient  River  Channels  of  Cal S.  F.  Bulletin,  July  17,   1876 

Ascent  of  Mt.  Whitney S.  F.  Bulletin,  Aug.  17,  1875 

Excursion  from  Fort  Independence  to  Yosemite  Valley S.  F.  Bulletin,  Sept.  15,  1875 

Giant  Forests  of  Kaweah S.  F.  Bulletin,  Oct.  22,    1875 

June  Storms  in  Yosemite S.  F.  Bulletin,  June  12,  1875 

King's  River,  Yosemite S.  F.  Bulletin,  Aug.   5,    1875 

Sequoia,  The  Calaveras S.  F.  Bulletin,  July  13,   1876 

Sequoia  Gigantea   S.  F.  Bulletin,  Sept.  21,  1875 

Sierra  Caves,  The S.  F.  Bulletin,  Aug.  6,   1876 

Sierra  Forests S.  F.  Bulletin,  Aug.  3,   1875 

Southern  Limit  of  the  Sequoia S.  F.  Bulletin,  Oct.          1875 

Summit  of  South  Dome,  The S.  F.  Bulletin,  Aug.  28,  1876 

Yosemite  Tourists S.  F.  Bulletin,  June  14,  1875 

Squirrel,  The  Douglas — of  California Scribner's,  XVII.,  p.  260 

South  Dome,  Yosemite  Valley S.  F.  Bulletin,  Nov.  18,  1875 

Tulare  Levels,  The  New  Agriculture S.  F.  Bulletin,  Nov.  17,  1875 

Tuolumne  Canon,  Explorations  in  the  Great Overland,  XL,  p.  139 

Tuolumne,  The  Lower — Hetchy  Hetchy  Valley Overland,  XL,  p.  42 

Twenty  Hill  Hollow,  (Merced  County) Overland,  IX.,  p.  80 

Yosemite,  By-ways  of  the  (Bloody  Canon) Overland,  XIII.,  p.  267 

Yosemite  Valley  in  Flood,  The Overland,  VIII.,  p.  347 

Yuba,  A  Wind-storm  in  the  Forests  of  the Scribner's,  XVII.,  p.  55 

E.  A.  A  very. 


1885.] 


Book  Reviews. 


447 


BOOK   REVIEWS. 


OF  books  describing  contemporary  English  society 
there  is  no  lack.  Perhaps  Justin  McCarthy  set  the 
fashion  in  his  "  History  of  our  Own  Times,"  and 
none  of  his  imitators  have  surpassed  him.  His  was 
an  Irishman's  view:  since  that  "John  Bull  and  his 
Island,"  and  "London  Society"  by  "A  Foreign 
Resident  "  have  given  the  French  idea  of  English 
life;  and  now  we  have  the  picture1  from  the  Russian 
standpoint.  It  must  be  said,  that  the  portrait  by 
each  of  these  somewhat  hostile  artists  is  one  of  which 
an  Englishman  need  not  be  ashamed.  Neverthe- 
less, it  must  be  remembered  in  reading  the  present 
book,  that  the  American  edition  is  doubly  expurgated 
of  offensive  passages,  "scandalous,  if  not  libelous." 
The  chapters  around  which  the  greatest  interest  cen- 
ters are  those  describing  England's  foremost  states- 
men, and  treating  of  English  foreign  policy,  especially 
that  part  of  it  relating  to  Afghanistan.  It  is  sur- 
prising to  note  how  plainly  Count  Vasili  states  that 
England's  one  natural  and  insidious  enemy  is  Russia, 
how  he  glories  in  the  steady  advance  of  the  power 
of  the  Czar  toward  India,  and  how  boldly  he  pro- 
claims that  Russia's  compass  and  chart  is  found  in 
the  famous  will  of  Peter  the  Great.  He  says:  "In 
short,  the  Russians  sigh  for  the  sun  of  India,  and  the 
height  of  their  ambition  is  to  see  the  standard  of 
the  Czar  hoisted  at  Government  House."  It  is 
amusing,  too,  to  find  a  Russian  writing  of  the  Irish: 
"  Poor  slaves,  they  have  not  yet  got  beyond  these 
mere  preliminaries  of  progress."  In  this  view  of 
English  social  life,  perhaps  the  present  author  is  as 
just  as  a  foreigner  can  be,  but  that  is  not  saying 

much,  where  the  subject  is  so  difficult. One  of  the 

late  issues  of  Harper's  Handy  Series  is  Fish  and 
Men  in  the  Maine  Islands?-  by  W.  H.  Bishop.  It  is 
a  compilation  from  several  articles  in  Harper's 
Monthly,  and  is  illustrated  with  the  fine  wood-cuts 
that  appeared  in  the  magazine.  The  convenience  of 
the  form,  the  clear  type,  and  the  pictures,  no  less 
than  the  breezy  ocean  air  and  unconventional  human 
types  described,  combine  to  make  a  very  attractive 
book.  Cod,  lobster,  and  mackerel  fishing  are  de- 
scribed at  length,  and  many  less  important  sorts  of 
fishing  are  touched  upon.  The  device  of  setting  up 
a  somewhat  unpersonal  Middleton,  whose  travels 
are  described,  is  a  happy  one.  It  avoids  the  un- 
pleasant use  of  the  first  person,  and  gives  a  sufficent 
thread  to  the  narrative,  on  which  to  hang  the  va- 
rious descriptions  and  adventures.  Mount  Desert, 

1  The  World   of   London.     By  Count  Paul  Vasili. 
Harper's  Handy  Series.     New  York:  Harper  &  Bros. 
1885. 

2  Fish  and  Men   in  the  Maine  Islands.     By  W.  H. 
Bishop.     New  York:  Harper  &  Bros.     1885. 


with  its  fashionable  life,  is  but  lightly  mentioned, 
while  Orr's  Island,  made  famous  by  Mrs.  Stowe, 
which  yet  keeps  its  primitive  simplicity  undisturbed, 
and  several  such  quaint  and  homely  places,  are  dwelt 
upon  to  the  delight  of  the  reader.  The  opinions  of 
the  people  of  Orr's  Island  about  Mrs.  Stowe  are  very 
amusing.  It  is  not  often  that  those  described  have 
the  chance  to  retaliate  in  print  on  those  that  have  writ- 
ten about  them. Mr.  Archibald  Forbes  is  the  high- 
est development  of  the  genus  reporter,  though  it  is 
difficult  to  think  of  him  in  his  swift  journeyings  over 
land  and  sea,  his  phenomenal  foresight  in  placing  him- 
self at  the  index  point  where  the  balance  of  destiny 
turns,  and  his  genial  friendships  with  generals  and 
ministers  of  State,  as  related  to  the  plodding  man 
that  haunts  the  police  court  with  his  note  book.  An 
examination  of  the  volume,8  wherein  are  collected  a 
number  of  the  articles  that  have  made  Mr.  Forbes 
famous,  reveals  the  relation  more  plainly.  The  news- 
paper man  is  unmistakable  in  its  style,  and  this  is  all 
the  more  evident  in  the  permanent  form  of  a  bound 
volume.  This  does  not  prevent  the  papers  from  be- 
ing very  entertaining,  however  much  it  may  injure 
them  as  literature.  The  brilliance,  the  exaggeration, 
the  boldness  of  the  touch,  are  very  pleasant  on  a 
cursory  reading,  and  Mr.  Forbes  would  ask  for  noth- 
ing more.  His  war  scenes  have  often  the  rollicking 
dash  and  dare-deviltry  of  "Charles  O'Malley."  His 
analyses  of  social  life  in  America  and  Australia  are 
two  of  the  most  readable  of  his  articles,  though  in 
both  the  coloring  is  so  high  that  the  portrait  has  an 
unnatural  look.  None  the  less  it  may  be  that,  know- 
ing the  difficulty  of  impressing  upon  his  countrymen 
the  fact  that  there  can  be  any  civilization  among 
English-speaking  peoples,  outside  of  the  "right  lit- 
tle, tight  little  island,"  that  is  not  a  poor  copy  of  its 
original,  Mr.  Forbes  has  purposely  used  brilliant 
colors.  Englishmen  will  fight  shy  of  New  York,  if 
they  gather  their  ideas  of  it  solely  from  the  present 
account  of  its  costliness.  "How  I  Became  a  War- 
correspondent  "  is  most  amusing,  showing,  as  it  does, 
that  the  necessary  egotism  of  many  parts  of  the  nar- 
ratives is  not  at  all  of  the  offensive  kind.  Through- 
out the  book,  the  reader  learns  to  like  the  author  ; 
for,  all  unconsciously,  the  bravery,  the  generosity, 
and  the  warm-heartedness  of  the  man  continually. 

reveal  themselves. Talks  Afield*  gives  "  a  concise 

and  popular  account  of  some  of  the  leading  external 
features  of  common  plants,"  also  one  that  is  very 

8  Souvenirs  of  Some  Continents.  By  Archibald 
Forbes.  Handy  Series.  N.  Y.:  Harper  &  Bros.  1885. 

*  Talks  Afield.  By  L.  H.  Bailey,  Jr.  New  York: 
Houghton,  Mifflin  &  Co.  1885.  For  sale  in  San  Fran- 
cisco by  Chilion  Beach. 


448 


Book  Reviews. 


[Oct. 


interesting.  The  statement  of  the  characteristics 
and  classification  of  plants  is  especially  clear  and 
well  put,  and  the  whole  book  is  full  of  curious  and 
entertaining  bits  of  historical  research  in  regard  to 
the  evolution  of  the  science  of  botany,  and  of  the 
derivation  of  the  common  and  botanical  names  of 
plants,  and  of  facts  about  the  plants  themselves.  A 
beginner  in  botany  would  be  sure  to  find  his  ideas 
clarified  by  a  study  of  the  little  book,  and  even  one 

more  advanced  would  find  much  to  interest  him. 

The  controversy  between  Mr.  Herbert  Spencer  and 
Mr.  Harrison  on  the  subject  of  the  reality  of  religion, 
deserves  far  more  attention  than  we  find  ourselves 
able  to  give  it  here;  indeed,  it  must  necessarily  con- 
stitute part  of  the  text  for  half  the  writing  upon  the 
same  subject  that  is  to  be  done  for  a  generation. 
The  point  at  issue  may  seem  rather  shadowy,  but  it  is 
highly  important:  that  is,  "The  Religious  Value 
of  the  Unknowable,"  according  to  the  title  of  a  paper 
by  Count  d'Alviella,  (Professsor  of  the  History  of 
Religions  in  the  University  of  Brussels),  in  which 
he  reviews  the  controversy.  Mr.  Harrison,  who  rep- 
resents the  Positivism  of  Comte,  admits  Mr.  Spen- 
cer's doctrine  of  the  Unknowable  "  as  a  philosophical 
theory,"  but  denits  any  religious  quality  in  it,  and 
prefers  himself  not  to  "use  the  capital  letter,"  but 
"say  frankly,  the  unknown."  He  sees  nothing  really 
any  more  to  be  worshiped  in  the  "  Ultimate  Reality 
behind  all  appearances  "  than  in  the  equator,  or  the 
attraction  of  gravitation.  There  is  this  much  defi- 
nite difference  between  Mr.  Spencer's  position  and 
Mr.  Harrison's  :  Mr.  Spencer  frankly  and  distinctly 
predicates,  beyond  the  known,  a  positive  mystery, 
where  Mr.  Harrison  predicates  a  negative  one;  a 
"  Transcendent  Existence,"  where  Mr.  Harrison  finds 
merely  a  region  of  the  unknown  or  nothingness.  It 
is  therefore  not  strictly  true  that  Mr.  Harrison  ac- 
cepts, even  "  as  a  philosophical  theory,"  Mr.  Spen- 
cer's doctrine  of  the  Unknowable  in  its  entirety.  But 
even  granting  that  he  does,  he  still  denies  that  he 
can  see  anything  religious  in  such  a  conception  ; 
while  Mr.  Spencer  replies,  that  it  is  the  very  essence 
of  religion,  from  which  all  religions  have  drawn  the 
breath  of  life,  so  that  everything  else  about  them  is 


variable,  accidental,  and  would  be  absolutely  devoid 
of  moral  and  emotional  force  without  this  central 
truth.  It  seems  to  us  so  entirely  an  individual  ques- 
tion whether  one  can  find  religious  force  in  the  Un- 
knowable, as  to  be  a  difficult  point  for  controversy: 
Mr.  Harrison  may  say,  ''/cannot";  and  Mr.  Spen- 
cer may  say,  "/  can," — and  the  point  would 
seem  to  be  settled  that  part  of  the  race  can,  and 
part  cannot,  and  time  alone  will  prove  whether 
all  will  learn  to  do  so,  or  all  unlearn.  The  epigram 
"You  cannot  love  the  law  of  gravitation,"  expresses 
very  nearly  all  of  Mr.  Harrison's  argument,  and  is 
an  argument  of  much  weight;  yet  shade  Mr.  Spen- 
cer's doctrine  through  such  phrases  as  "the  Infinite 
and  Eternal  Energy  from  which  all  things  proceed," 
"the  power,  not  ourself,  that  makes  for  righteous- 
ness," "the  Great  First  Cause,  least  understood,"  to 
the  most  high  and  liberal  expression  of  the  orthodox 
deity,  the  "  I  Am "  of  Hebrew  Scripture,  and  the 
omnipresent,  unsearchable  Life  of  life  of  the  higher 
religious  writings  of  all  ancient  peoples;  and  it  would 
appear  that  something  essentially  kin  to  Mr.  Spen- 
cer's Unknowable  has  already  proved  sufficient  for 
religious  faith.  Moreover,  the  religious  thought  of 
the  present  is  visibly  drawing  away  from  the  intensely 
personal  conception  of  Deity,  and  shading  toward  Mr. 
Spencer,  by  those  very  steps  that  we  have  above  in- 
dicated ;  it  is  even  possible  to  go  very  far  toward 
him  within  the  limits  of  certain  orthodox  sects  ;  and 
there  is  an  avowed  theory  that  the  craving  for  intense 
personality  in  the  object  of  religious  worship  is  a  me- 
dievalism, a  temporary  and  now  passing  phase  of 
human  nature,  not  an  essential  trait.  The  six  papers 
that  constitute  the  controversy,  together  with  Count 
d'Alviella's,  were  published  in  this  country  by  Mr. 
Spencer's  devoted  disciple,  Mr.  Youmans,  in  the  vol- 
ume1 now  under  review,  and  then  withdrawn  from 
publication  at  his  own  expense  by  Mr.  Spencer,  with 
perhaps  unnecessary  chivalry,  because — if  we  under- 
stand the  difficulty  rightly — Mr.  Harrison  felt  himself 
misrepresented  by  Mr.  Youmans's  editing. 

l  The  Nature  and  Reality  of  Religion.  A  Contro- 
versy between  Frederic  Harrison  and  Herbert  Spencer. 
New  York:  D.  Appleton  &  Co.  1885. 


THE 


OVERLAND  MONTHLY. 


DEVOTED   TO 


THE  DEVELOPMENT  OF  THE   COUNTRY. 


VOL.  VI.  (SECOND  SERIES.)— NOVEMBER,  1885.— No.  35. 


FROM  THE  NASS  TO  THE  SKEENA. 


NEAR  the  end  of  the  year  1870,  while 
serving  in  the  United  States  army  at  Fort 
Tongass,  Alaska,  I  received  two  months' 
leave  of  absence.  The  following  narrative, 
written  partly  from  field  notes  and  partly  from 
memory,  shows  how  a  portion  of  that  time 
was  spent. 

While  engaging  a  canoe  and  some  Indians 
to  take  me  to  Fort  Simpson,  British  Colum- 
bia, I  happened  to  mention  that  I  intended 
making  a  journey  into  the  interior,  when  a 
young  Tongass  named  Ta-kesh  besought  me 
to  take  him  along.  He  seemed  a  hardy,  will- 
ing boy,  so  I  consented,  knowing  that  some 
years  before,  while  in  the  employ  of  the  Tel- 
egraph Company,  he  had  been  in  a  part  of 
the  country  I  meant  to  visit. 

We  made  the  run  to  Fort  Simpson  in  a 
few  hours,  without  incident.  The  Fort  is 
one  of  the  oldest  of  the  Hudson  Bay  Com- 
pany trading-posts  on  the  coast.  It  is  nearly 
one  hundred  yards  square,  and  is  enclosed 
by  palisades  thirty  feet  high,  having  a  gallery 
within,  and  furnished  at  each  corner  with 
strong  wooden  block-houses,  pierced  for  mus- 
ketry, and  mounting  several  small  cannon. 
Entrance  is  had  through  a  small  door  in  the 
heavy  bolted  gates,  into  a  narrow  passage- 
way, with  a  trade-room  on  one  hand,  and  the 


wall  of  a  stone  house  on  the  other.  At  the 
end  of  the  passage-way  another  gate  admits 
one  into  a  large  and  carefully  kept  square. 
Opposite  this  entrance  are  the  well-built, 
roomy  officers'  quarters,  and  along  the  ends 
of  the  square  the  shops,  barracks,  and  store- 
houses. In  former  times  a  strong  garrison 
was  kept  here,  and  Indians  were  only  admit- 
ted to  the  passage-way  and  trade-rooms,  while 
loaded  carronades  and  men  with  lighted  lin- 
stocks were  stationed  opposite  the  officers' 
quarters  commanding  the  entrance,  to  keep 
the  turbulent  tribes  in  check  while  trade  was 
going  on.  But  such  precautions  are  no 
longer  needed. 

The  Fort  is  situated  in  latitude  54°  32' 
north,  longitude  130°  25'  west,  and  is  sur- 
rounded by  a  Chimp-se-an  village,  the  largest 
and  most  populous  Indian  town  on  the 
northwest  coast,  numbering  in  1870  upwards 
of  twelve  hundred  people.  At  that  time  the 
Fort  was  in  charge  of  Mr.  Charles  Morison, 
by  whose  kind  assistance  my  preparations 
were  soon  completed. 

Two  Chimp-se-ans,  Clah  and  George,  vol- 
unteered to  go  with  me  for  the  opportunity 
of  trading  with  the  interior.  The  first  was  a 
very  bright  Indian,  who  not  only  spoke  Eng- 
lish, but  read  and  wrote  it  as  well.  He  had 


VOL.  VI. — 29.         (Copyright,  1885,  by  OVERLAND  MONTHLY  Co.     All  Rights  Reserved.) 


450 


From  the  Nass  to  the  Skeena. 


[Nov. 


been  a  leading  convert  at  a  missionary  sta- 
tion, but  innate  depravity  proving  in  his  case 
too  much  for  saving  grace,  he  backslid,  and 
became  one  of  the  most  consummate  rascals 
that  ever  wore  a  copper  skin.  Nevertheless, 
he  was  good-natured,  and  his  ready  tongue 
and  subtle  wit  made  him  a  useful  man  to 
have  on  such  a  journey  as  I  contemplated. 

On  most  of  the  maps  a  large  stream  known 
as  Simpson's  River  is  represented  as  falling 
into  the  sea  in  this  vicinity.  This  is  quite 
incorrect.  There  are  two  large  rivers.  One, 
the  Nass,  empties  into  Nass  Bay,  some  forty 
miles  to  the  north  and  east  of  Fort  Simpson, 
and  the  other,  the  Skeena,  has  its  mouth 
about  the  same  distance  to  the  southward. 
I  determined  to  ascend  the  first  as  far  as 
practicable  by  canoe,  cross  overland  to  the 
head-waters  of  the  second,  and  thence  de- 
scend to  the  salt  water,  and  return  by  the 
sea-coast  to  my  starting  point. 

My  outfit  was  of  the  simplest  kind :  part 
of  a  sack  of  flour,  a  little  tea  and  sugar,  a 
few  pounds  of  bacon,  camp-kettle,  frying-pan, 
tin  cup,  hatchet,  blanket,  poncho,  change  of 
underwear,  and  a  good  rifle,  with  ammuni- 
tion ;  also  a  little  tobacco,  some  beads,  fish- 
hooks, etc.,  for  presents  to  the  natives — the 
whole  making  a  pack  of  about  eighty  pounds. 
The  Chimp-se-ans  were  more  liberally  sup- 
plied with  goods  for  barter,  and  when,  at 
last,  we  set  sail,  the  canoe  was  well-laden ; 
yet,  with  a  strong  wind  dead  astern,  she  flew 
over  the  waters  of  Portland  canal,  and  night- 
fall found  us  some  five  miles  below  Nass 
Bay,  where  we  camped.  It  had  rained  stead- 
ily all  day,  but  under  a  tent  formed  of  the 
canoe  sail  we  made  ourselves  quite  comfort- 
able. 

The  next  morning,  June  26,  we  broke 
camp  at  3  A.  M.,  and  soon  entered  the  bay, 
passed  Mr.  Tomlinson's  mission,  and  began 
the  ascent  of  the  river  Nass.  It  is  there  a 
swift  stream,  about  a  thousand  yards  in  width, 
flowing  through  a  narrow  valley,  between  two 
ranges  of  mountains  from  two  to  seven  thou- 
sand feet  high.  Along  its  banks,  within  the 
first  few  miles,  lie  the  hereditary  fishing  do- 
mains of  the  Nasscar,  Hydah,  Chimp-se-an, 
and  Tongass  tribes.  In  February  of  each 


year,  the  Indians  gather  here  to  make 
camp,  cut  fuel,  and  prepare  for  the  run  of 
the  oolachaus  or  candle-fish,  known  also  as 
the  small-fish.  Though  found  in  many  other 
streams  from  Puget  Sound  to  Sitka,  they  are 
taken  here  in  far  greater  quantity  than  any- 
where else  on  the  coast.  Here  it  is  that  the 
bulk  of  the  fish  grease  Js  made,  the  distribu- 
tion of  which  forms,  probably,  the  best  ex- 
ample of  an  inter-tribal  commerce — prose- 
cuted long  before  the  advent  of  the  whites, 
and  still  in  existence,  substantially  unchanged 
— that  can  be  found  upon  this  continent. 

The  fish,  a  species  of  smelt,  begin  to  run 
about  the  iyth  of  March,  in  most  prodigious 
numbers.  They  are  caught  by  means  of 
scoop-nets  and  weirs,  and  so  thick  are  they 
that  they  are  baled  out,  in  places,  with 
wooden  boxes  fixed  on  poles.  They  are  stored 
in  immense  heaps  to  await  the  trying-out 
process,  after  the  run,  which  lasts  about  three 
weeks,  ceases.  There  is  another  and  smaller 
run  in  July,  but  the  fish  are  then  lean,  and 
are  not  taken  in  quantity. 

A  small  portion  of  the  fish  are  smoke- 
cured,  when  they  not  only  serve  as  food,  but 
are  used  by  the  Indians  in  place  of  candles. 
Lighted,  they  burn  from  end  to  end,  like  a 
torch,  yielding  a  broad,  flaring  flame,  and 
last  from  ten  to  fifteen  minutes.  But  the 
great  bulk  of  the  catch,  stored  in  huge  piles, 
is  allowed  to  become  partially  decomposed 
to  increase  the  yield  of  fat,  and  is  then  made 
into  grease  by  the  following  method.  A 
large,  square,  wooden  box,  holding  at  least 
a  barrel,  is  nearly  filled  with  water,  into  which, 
from  time  to  time,  heated  stones  are  plunged 
until  furious  boiling  follows.  Then  a  quan- 
tity of  fish  is  thrown  in,  and  the  oil  rising  to 
the  surface  is  skimmed  off  into  smaller  boxes, 
holding  from  thirty  to  sixty  pounds,  and  al- 
lowed to  cool.  The  result  is  a  fatty  mass,  a 
little  darker  and  softer  than  lard,  with  a 
strong  putrescent  odor,  owing  to  the  manner 
of  preparation.  It  is  capable  of  being  pre- 
served unchanged  for  a  great  length  of  time. 
It  is  eagerly  sought  after  and  highly  prized 
as  an  article  of  diet  by  all  the  Indians  of  the 
northwest  coast,  and  is  eaten  with  fish,  ber- 
ries, snow,  flesh,  rice,  and,  indeed,  with  al- 


1885.] 


From  the  Nass  to  the  Skeena. 


451 


most  every  variety  of  food.  By  canoe,  it 
travels  to  Sitka  on  the  north  and  Puget 
Sound  on  the  south,  as  well  as  up  all  the 
navigable  rivers.  Inland,  borne  upon  the 
backs  of  men,  it  goes,  no  white  man  knows 
how  far ;  certainly  to  the  head  waters  of  the 
Frazer  River  and  the  Arctic  slope,  traded 
from  tribe  to  tribe,  and  becoming  more  cost- 
ly the  farther  it  gets  from  its  source.  How 
long  it  has  been  made  is  mere  conjecture, 
but  the  mountains  and  valley-lands  stripped 
of  their  timber  for  fuel  over  an  extent  of  sev- 
eral miles,  bear  witness  that  the  occupation 
is  an  ancient  one.  The  Hudson  Bay  Com- 
pany prepare  each  year  from  fresh  fish  a 
quantity  of  grease  which  is  then  palatable, 
free  from  odor,  and  an  excellent  article  for 
cooking.  In  this  form  it  has  within  the  last 
four  years  attracted  some  attention  as  a  sub- 
stitute for  cod  liver  oil. 

By  noon  we  reached  Hunt's,  a  small  Hud- 
son Bay  Company  trading-post  on  the  right 
bank  of  the  river,  near  the  head  of  tide- 
water. Small  trading  vessels  and  the  Hud- 
son Bay  Company  steamer,  "  Beaver,"  have 
reached  this  point,  but  beyond,  the  stream  is 
navigable  only  for  light  draught  boats  and 
canoes,  by  reason  of  bars  and  the  strong  cur- 
rent. Opposite  to  Hunt's  is  a  small  Nasscar 
village,  and  two  miles  up  the  river  is  another 
and  larger  one.  These  Indians,  as  indeed 
all  those  on  the  Nass  and  Skeena,  speak  a 
dialect  of  the  Chimp-se-an,  and  are  undoubt- 
edly of  the  same  origin. 

The  next  three  days,  owing  to  heavy  rains 
and  high  water,  we  remained  at  Hunt's ;  but 
on  the  morning  of  the  3oth,  although  it  still 
rained,  we  set  out,  and,  after  nine  hours  of 
hard  paddling  and  poling,  camped  on  the 
left  bank,  having  made  about  eight  miles  in 
a  northeasterly  direction.  The  river  divided 
into  several  channels.  The  main  one  was 
from  two  to  five  hundred  yards  in  width,  with 
a  current  from  three  to  five  knots.  Its 
course  lay  through  a  valley  from  two  to  six 
miles  wide,  which  was  heavily  timbered  with 
cottonwood,  spruce,  pine,  hemlock,  and 
cedar.  •  A  few  soft  maples  grew  along  the 
bottoms,  and  the  streamlets  were  fringed 
with  a  dense  growth  of  alder,  crab-apple, 


birch,  and  willow.  Mountains  three  and 
five  thousand  feet  high,  composed  appar- 
ently of  granite  and  slate,  rose,  snow-capped, 
on  each  side  in  rugged  and  broken  outline. 
Evergreen  timber  clothed  every  available 
spot  to  the  snow  line,  except  where,  in  the 
deeper  gulches  here  and  there,  a  glacier  ex- 
tended nearly  to  the  level  of  the  valley.  We 
passed  the  sites  of  many  deserted  villages, 
some  with  house  timbers  still  standing,  oth- 
ers only  marked  by  a  ranker  growth  of  wild 
celery,  and  a  kind  of  cactus  called  here  the 
"  Devil's  Walking  Stick." 

After  a  night-long  fight  with  mosquitoes 
and  midges,  we  set  out  again,  making  by  ten 
hours  of  most  exhausting  labor,  about  ten 
miles  of  progress  in  a  northeast  course.  The 
mountains  were  higher  and  more  broken 
than  the  day  before,  and  the  valley  more 
heavily  timbered.  Patches  of  spruce,  which 
would  make  good  fuel  for  steamboats,  grew 
adjacent  to  the  river.  About  mid-day  we 
entered  a  slough  to  seek  for  salmon,  the  run 
of  which  was  just  commencing,  but  met  with 
no  success.  On  again  reaching  the  main 
stream,  we  found  the  valley  growing  narrower. 
Islands  divided  the  river  into  several  chan- 
nels, the  one  through  which  we  passed  varying 
from  fifty  to  one  hundred  and  fifty  yards  in 
width.  Several  hot  springs  were  seen  dur- 
ing the  day.  In  one  place  the  stream 
hugged  the  base  of  the  mountain,  on  the 
left,  which  had  been  burned  that  season. 
The  bare  and  blackened  granite  looked  quite 
incapable  of  sustaining  the  growth  that  for- 
merly hid  its  ugliness.  Above,  the  river 
changed  its  course  to  the  opposite  side  of  the 
valley,  washing  the  base  of  a  cliff  of  slate  in 
which  a  number  of  large  quartz  veins  ap- 
peared. I  tried  a  pan  on  several  of  the  bars, 
and  always  got  the  color  of  gold,  but  nowhere 
a  paying  prospect. 

Near  night-fall  we  came  to  the  first  rapids. 
The  river  makes  a  sharp  bend,  and  jutting 
rocks  divide  its  stream  into  a  number  of 
channels,  throngh  which  the  foaming  current 
rushes  over  falls  several  feet  in  height.  At 
the  foot  of  the  falls,  on  the  right  bank,  is  a 
little  cove  with  gravelly  beach,  and  above 
this  a  steep  cliff  rises  some  thirty  feet,  and 


452 


From  the  Nass  to  the  Skeena. 


[Nov. 


then  forms  a  table-land  to  the  fountain's 
base.  On  this  narrow  shelf,  commanding 
the  only  available  portage,  is  perched  the  vil- 
lage of  Kill-went-set. 

As  the  strong  eddy  swept  our  canoe  into 
the  landing,  the  chief  and  a  score  of  his  fol- 
lowers rushed  down  the  bank,  seized  the 
light  bark,  and  nearly  lifted  her  out  of  the 
water.  In  an  instant  she  was  empty,  and  her 
cargo  swiftly  carried  to  the  principal  house, 
while  the  chief,  A-quil-hut,  invited  me, 
through  Clah,  to  be  his  guest,  expressing  his 
pleasure  at  the  white  man's  coming,  the  news 
whereof  had  reached  him  during  our  stay  at 
Hunt's. 

I  found  his  house  decorated  for  the  occa- 
sion by  a  large  wooden  screen,  on  which  was 
painted  in  black  and  white  an  enlarged  copy 
of  the  reverse  side  of  a  half  dollar — inscrip- 
tion and  all.  This,  he  had  been  told,  was 
the  Boston  man's  crest,  and  he  had  placed 
it  in  the  quality  part  of  his  domicile,  /.  e.,  the 
part  opposite  the  entrance.  Soon  an  Indian 
feast  was  in  progress.  Salmon  boiled  and 
roasted,  potatoes,  rice,  berries,  stick-skin  (the 
inner  bark  of  the  hemlock),  bear-meat,  moun- 
tain goat,  and  grease  were  served ;  the  din- 
ner ended  with  soap-oolaly,  a  kind  of  berry, 
which,  when  dried  and  vigorously  stirred  with 
water  in  a  clean  dish,  forms  a  mass  of  brown 
foam,  and  is  thus  eaten.  Though  very  bitter, 
it  is  not  unpleasant  to  the  taste,  and  is  much 
relished  by  the  natives.  Between  the  cours- 
es mine  host  reiterated  his  pleasure  at  my 
presence,  hoped  more  white  men  would 
come,  professed  great  friendship  for  my  race, 
expressed  his  fears  that  the  chiefs  farther  on 
might  be  so  impolite  as  to  kill  me ;  and,  in 
short,  was  as  hospitable  and  polite  as  any 
one  could  wish  his  entertainer  to  be. 

Dinner  over,  he  announced  that  a  dance 
would  be  given  in  my  honor.  His  house 
was  a  large,  square  structure,  sided  with 
thick  plank.  The  roof,  supported  on  heavy 
beams,  was  eight  or  ten  feet  high  at  the  eaves, 
and  perhaps  twenty  at  the  ridge.  In  the 
center  a  large  opening  gave  vent  to  the 
smoke  from  a  huge  fire  on  the  earthen  floor 
beneath.  Around  the  walls  were  guns,  pad- 
dles, skins,  salmon,  and  other  articles  of  In- 


dian property.  Seated  about  the  sides  were 
nearly  all  the  population  of  the  ranch,  in  ev- 
ery variety  of  Indian  costume,  but  each  hav- 
ing the  "  ever-present  blanket "  wrapped 
about  him  in  some  shape.  Directly,  a  mas- 
ter of  ceremonies,  in  a  fantastic  garb,  con- 
sisting principally  of  shirt,  and  with  a  visage 
'whereon  fiery  red  paint  and  filthy  black  ditto 
strove  for  mastery,  arose,  and  announced  in 
guttural  speech  that  the  "evening's  entertain- 
ment "  was  about  to  begin.  A  small  boy  at 
a  drum  (a  thin  wooden  box  that  served  the 
purpose),  began  to  beat  time  with  slow  and 
measured  strokes.  A  middle-aged  man,  with 
a  local  reputation  for  noise,  rose,  and  cleared 
his  voice  before  leading  off.  Another,  with 
a  basket  of  white  feathers  from  the  breast  of 
the  eagle,  gravely  proceeded  to  daub  them 
on  the  heads  of  the  principal  people  and  the 
guests.  By  the  time  this,  the  Indian  pledge 
of  peace,  was  finished,  the  song  was  fairly 
started,  and  all  joined  in.  It  was  a  kind  of 
chant,  recounting  the  actions  of  departed 
braves  and  inciting  the  youth  to  follow  their 
bright  example — now  low  and  guttural,  anon 
rising  to  a  shrill  cry,  but  always  in  excellent 
time  and  unison.  Presently,  one  after  the 
other,  six  Indian  women,  clad  in  blue  blank- 
ets lavishly  trimmed  with  pearl  buttons, 
their  faces  ornamented  after  the  fashion  be- 
fore described,  rose,  and  began  to  weave 
back  and  forth,  to  this  side  and  to  that, 
moving  together,  and  regarding  fixedly  the 
space  in  front  of  them  with  their  expres- 
sionless, fat  countenances.  This  they  con- 
tinued to  do  until  the  song  ended;  then, 
resting  a  moment,  began  another,  and  so  on, 
till  that  particular  branch  of  the  Lo  family 
gave  out. 

Then  a  speech  was  made,  delivered  in  a 
semi-ventriloquial  tone — the  voice  seeming 
to  come  from  a  short  distance  without  the 
house — a  manner  these  people  always  adopt 
on  public  occasions.  An  answer  followed. 
After  this  the  pipe-song  was  raised,  and  the 
tobacco  prepared  ;  but  before  a  pipe  was  lit, 
a  long  roll  of  chiefs  was  called,  beginning 
with  those  that  were  dead.  These  shadowy 
warriors  were,  one  by  one,  addressed,  as  if 
they  were  really  present,  and  as  each  name 


1885.] 


From  the  Nass  to  the  Skeena. 


453 


was  repeated,  the  man  in  charge  of  the  to- 
bacco placed  in  the  fire  a  pipefull  of  the  fra- 
grant weed.  Respect  to  the  departed  having 
been  paid,  the  living  were  soon  wrapped  in 
clouds  of  th'eir  own  making,  and  silence, 
broken  only  by  grunts  indicative  of  comfort, 
fell  upon  the  dusky  crowd. 

Pipes  over,  a  song  began,  during  which  a 
large  portion  of  the  younger  people,  men  and 
women,  quietly  passed  out  one  by  one;  not  to 
remain,  however,  but  to  dress  for  the  grand 
climax  of  the  evening.  Fifteen  minutes 
elapsed,  and  they  began  to  return  in  small 
groups,  all  squatting  down  this  time  on  one 
side  of  the  house.  Soon  a  song  was  heard  in 
the  adjacent  house,  and  the  hitherto  silent 
crowd  became  loud  and  wild  with  excite- 
ment and  expectation,  for  those  who  were  to 
dance  had  kept  secret  theircostume,  song  and 
order,  and  were  about  to  make  \ho.  grand  en- 
tree. Louder  and  louder  swelled  the  song. 
The  boy  at  the  drum  gave  place  to  a  man, 
who  spared  neither  himself  nor  the  box ; 
strips  of  wood  were  clapped  together,  and 
staffs  pounded  upon  the  floor,  while  the  pro- 
cession left  the  house  where  it  had  formed, 
and  advanced  in  single  file.  Soon  its  head 
was  at  the  door — a  moment  more,  within. 
First  came  two  Indians  en  character  as  savage 
"Toodles."  By  long  practice  in  the  reality, 
they  were  enabled  to  do  the  intoxicated 
with  great  fidelity.  They  paused  a  moment 
on  the  threshold,  and  then  staggeringly  gave 
place  to  the  next  couple,  who  were  clad  in 
mountain  goat  skins,  and  wore  masks,  the 
first  staring  blankly  at  the  audience,  and  the 
second  endeavoring — apparently  without  the 
least  success — to  impart  to  his  leader  some 
wonderful  intelligence.  They  do  this  sort  of 
thing  well,  and  the  house  was  soon  in  an  up- 
roar of  laughter.  Directly,  they  joined  their 
drunken  predecessors,  who  still  kept  up  their 
parts  in  the  empty  side  of  the  house ;  and 
two  more  entered  in  the  same  way,  and  were 
followed  in  turn  by  others,  until  the  funny 
part  of  the  performers  were  all  in. 

Now  rose  a  shriller  strain:  an  Indian  chief, 
in  blanket,  feathers,  and  paint,  appeared  at 
the  door.  In  he  came  with  a  bound,  a  huge 
knife  in  his  hand  ;  and  half  squatting,  with 


joints  rigid,  performed  a  series  of  short  leaps, 
turning  his  head  rapidly  from  side  to  side, 
while  his  eyes  blazed  with  excitement,  and 
guttural  accents  issued  from  his  mouth  in 
amazing  force  and  numbers.  He,  too,  gave 
place;  and  two  elderly  women,  wives  of  the 
chief,  with  curious  head  dresses  of  feathers, 
porcupine  quills,  shells,  etc.,  a  hundred  er- 
mine skins  dangling  from  their  heads  and 
shoulders,  and  bearing  in  their  hands  wands 
trimmed  with  cloth,  advanced  and  weaved 
sideways  to  the  music  for  a  brief  space.  Then 
two  young  men,  with  paddles,  endeavored 
with  great  vigor  to  look  fiercer,  jump  higher, 
and  come  down  stiffer  legged  than  the  chief 
had  done.  Next,  two  young  women,  with 
faces  "  stunningly "  painted,  and  persons 
gaudily  bedecked,  stepped  forward,  wand  in 
hand,  and  sailed  in,  elevating,  with  a  jerk, 
the  right  hip  and  foot  several  times  in  quick 
succession;  then  changing  to  the  left,  mean- 
time keeping  their  heads  as  immovable  as 
possible — all  of  which  attracted  the  earnest 
attention  of  the  Indian  youth,  and  elicited 
warm  applause. 

Thus  they  continued  to  enter  and  give 
place,  each  bearing  some  common  article — 
the  men  with  guns,  pistols,  knives,  and  pad- 
dles ;  the  women  with  wands — until  all  the 
dancers,  some  twenty  or  thirty  in  number, 
were  in  the  house.  I  must  not  forget  to 
mention  two  little  girls,  aged  about  three 
years,  who,  wand  in  hand,  managed  to  dis- 
tort their  diminutive  forms  in  the  most  ap- 
proved fashion — an  exhibition  of  precocity 
that  met  with  unbounded  admiration.  All 
having  arrived,  their  side  of  the  house  pre- 
sented an  animated  appearance.  Each  of 
the  actors  strove  to  outdo  the  others.  The 
drunken  men  became  drunker ;  blank  face, 
blanker;  intelligence-man  more  strenuous  in 
his  efforts  to  impart  his  news;  the  chief  more 
powerful  in  his  exertions  ;  and  the  young- 
sters, men  and  women,  all  doing  their  ut- 
most. Suddenly  every  motion  ceased,  and 
every  sound  was  stilled,  while  the  master  of 
ceremonies,  in  a  grave,  even  voice,  announced 
the  performance  at  an  end.  Quietly  the 
people  slipped  away,  and  the  dance  was  done. 

The  next  morning,  A-quil-hut  caused  his 


454 


From  the  Nass  to  the  Skeena. 


[Nov. 


men  to  work  the  canoe  and  carry  the  cargo 
over  the  portage  of  nearly  a  mile,  and  volun- 
teered, himself,  to  pilot  me  for  half  a  day. 
Opposite  the  bluff  on  which  the  village 
stands,  for  over  half  a  mile,  the  left  bank  of 
the  river  rises  nearly  twenty-five  feet,  and 
then  forms  an  extensive  plain,  stretching 
back  as  far  as  one  can  see,  the  most  deso- 
late spot  my  eyes  ever  looked  upon.  Be- 
yond question,  it  was  once  an  immense 
stream  of  molten  lava,  which,  cooling,  cracked 
into  a  myriad  of  fissures.  Its  gray  and  bar- 
ren surface,  devoid  of  a  vestige  of  vegetable 
growth,  is  quite  impassable.  The  chief,  call- 
ing my  attention  to  this,  the  rapids,  and  the 
location  of  his  stronghold,  assured  me,  with 
no  small  degree  of  pride,  that  whoso  passed 
up  or  down  must  first  have  his  permission. 
So  honey-combed  was  the  lava  bank,  that 
near  the  level  of  the  river  an  almost  constant 
sheet  of  water  oozes  forth  and  falls  into  the 
stream.  At  its  upper  margin,  a  clear,  strong 
tributary  falls  into  the  Nass.  The  Indians 
say  that  it  has  its  rise  in  a  lake  in  the  "lava 
beds.  The  water  is  quite  warm,  does  not 
freeze  in  winter,  and  is  said  to  contain  sal- 
mon the  year  round.  Here,  there  is  a  pass 
in  the  mountains  extending  to  the  Skeena, 
distant  four  days'  travel,  two  of  which  are 
over  the  lava. 

Loaded  once  more,  we  held  away  up 
stream,  again  about  one  hundred  and  fifty 
yards  across.  The  current  was  very  strong, 
and  right  manfully  did  my  new-found  friend 
wield  his  setting-pole  in  the  bow.  He  ac- 
companied us  about  seven  miles,  till  the 
worst  water  was  passed,  and  then,  with  many 
expressions  of  friendship,  took  his  leave,  hap- 
py in  the  possession  of  such  presents  as  we 
tendered  him. 

The  valley  now  widened  to  ten  or  fifteen 
miles,  mostly  timbered,  though  occasional 
small  prairies  were  seen.  The  river  banks 
were  gravelly,  and  from  ten  to  twenty  feet 
high  ;  the  stream  broader  and  less  swift.  We 
passed  several  small  branches  on  the  left, 
and  a  large  one  on  the  right.  The  day  was 
showery,  and  the  distance  traveled  about  ten 
miles — general  direction  N.  E.  Near  night 
we  arrived  at  the  village  of  Kil-ack-tam  or 


Kil-a-tam-acks,  beautifully  located  on  a  bold 
bluff,  on  the  right  bank  of  the  river,  one  of  the 
finest  Indian  towns  I  ever  saw.  It  contained 
thirty  houses,  and  had  a  population  of  about 
six  hundred.  The  principal  chief,  Mus-ke- 
boo  (Wolf),  welcomed  me  at  his  home  during 
my  two  days'  stay.  So  far  as  I  could  learn, 
four  whites  had  previously  visited  the  vil- 
lage— Hudson  Bay  Company  officers,  and 
explorers  in  the  employ  of  the  Collins  Rus- 
sian-American Telegraph.  No  one  has  pub- 
lished any  account  of  the  vicinity  of  which  I 
am  aware. 

My  host's  house,  an  unusually  good  one, 
was  built  on  the  plan  prevailing  generally 
among  the  aborigines  of  British  Columbia 
and  Alaska,  which  it  may  be  well  to  describe. 
At  the  four  corners  of  a  square  space  of  level 
ground,  timbers,  deeply  grooved  on  the  sides 
facing  each  other,  are  firmly  planted,  rising 
some  ten  feet  above  the  surface  of  the  soil. 
At  intervals  along  the  lines,  similar  timbers, 
of  proper  height,  grooved  on  the  edges,  are 
erected.  Thick  planks,  split  with  wooden 
wedges  from  spruce  or  cedar  logs,  and  cut  to 
right  dimensions,  are  slipped  into  the  grooves, 
one  on  top  of  the  other,  till  the  walls  are 
formed.  Just  within  the  walls  at  each  end 
of  the  building,  equidistant  from  the  sides 
to  the  central  line,  two  large  uprights  are 
solidly  fixed,  saddled  at  the  tops  to  receive 
the  main  supports  of  the  roof.  These  sup- 
ports consist  of  two  immense  spars,  hewn 
perfectly  sound  and  true,  and  extending  the 
whole  length  of  the  structure.  When  raised 
and  placed  in  position,  their  great  weight 
causes  them  to  remain  in  situ.  Round  poles 
are  used  for  rafters.  Their  butts  rest  upon 
the  walls,  and  project  to  form  the  eaves; 
their  centers  are  upon  the  spars,  and  the 
tops  are  notched  together  to  form  the  ridge. 
Other  poles  are  laid  across  the  rafters,  and  the 
whole  covered  with  sheets  of  bark,  lapped 
to  shed  rain,  and  kept  in  place  by  heavy 
stones.  The  ends  are  then  finished  to  the 
gable.  The  pitch  of  the  roof  is  very  low. 
In  the  center  of  the  ridge  a  large  square  hole 
is  made  to  serve  in  lieu  of  chimney,  and  is 
covered  by  a  raised  movable  shelter  that  can 
be  shifted,  as  the  wind  changes,  to  make  it 


1885.] 


From  the  Nass  to  the  Skeena. 


455 


draw  well.  The  floor  is  planked,  leaving  a 
large  opening  in  the  center  over  which  to 
build  the  fires.  No  partitions  are  used ;  each 
dweller  has  a  portion  of  the  space  allotted 
him,  in  accordance  with  his  importance  in 
the  tribe.  The  best  and  warmest  part,  that 
opposite  the  door,  is  reserved  for  the  chief. 
Each  house  affords  plenty  of  room  for  from 
twenty  to  fifty  persons,  sometimes  for  many 
more.  Some  of  the  planks  are  very  large. 
One  in  Mus  ke-boo's  dwelling  measured  fifty- 
four  feet  in  length,  four  feet  one  inch  in 
width,  and  five  inches  in  thickness. 

In  front  of  most  of  these  houses  a  pole  is 
raised,  sometimes  sixty  feet  high,  carved 
from  base  to  tip  with  grotesque  designs,  and 
surmounted  with  the  owner's  crest.  More 
rarely  several  houses  have  but  one  pole,  cen- 
trally located.  In  either  case,  those  of  a 
crest  own  the  houses  in  common,  and  form 
independent  tribes,  having  power  to  make 
peace  or  war  without  involving  their  neigh- 
bors. Usually  each  village  elects  from  the 
heads  of  the  various  houses  some  one  who 
is  called  the  "  Chief  of  Chiefs,"  and  who  has  a 
nominal  authority  outside  of  his  proper  crest. 
The  principal  crests  are  the  eagle,  bear, 
wolf,  crow,  stork,  and  killer.  Even  among 
tribes  speaking  widely  different  tongues  they 
are  substantially  the  same  both  in  Brit- 
ish Columbia  and  Alaska.  Indians  trav- 
eling to  strange  villages  go  to  their  own 
crest,  and  are  received  as  brothers,  though 
never  known  before.  No  man  and  woman 
of  the  same  crest  can  marry.  All  children 
take  the  crest  of  their  mother. 

The  houses,  though  somewhat  dark,  are 
exceedingly  comfortable.  The  door,  a  small 
one,  is  in  the  center  of  the  front  end  and  is 
often  circular.  In  some  cases  the  crest  pole 
is  pierced  near  its  base,  and  entrance  to  the 
house  is  made  through  the  opening. 

The  country  about  Kil-ack-tam  was  very 
attractive  at  that  season.  Within  a  mile  both 
up  and  down  the  river,  the  Indians  had  little 
gardens  planted  with  potatoes,  which  do  well 
there.  They  were  not  enclosed,  and  were 
of  whatever  shape  and  size  their  owners 
pleased,  no  two  alike.  The  trails  leading  to 
them  twisted  and  turned,  as  only  an  Indian 


trail  can,  leading  through  thickets  of  sweet- 
briar  in  bloom,  patches  of  wild  pea-vine, 
swamps,  meadows,  groves,  and  prairies,  in 
whose  deep,  rich  soil  cranberries,  huckleber- 
ries, strawberries,  salmonberries,  soap-oolaly, 
and  many  other  kinds  of  berries  grew  in  great 
profusion.  While  we  remained  there,  several 
canoes  laden  with  grease  came  up  the  river 
and  passed  on. 

My  boy,  Ta-kesh,  required  constant  check- 
ing to  keep  him  out  of  difficulty  ;  for  he  en- 
tertained the  utmost  contempt  for  the  Nass- 
cars,  and  was  at  great  pains  to  show  it.  Clah, 
who  was  in  some  way  related  to  Mus-ke-boo, 
prevailed  on  me  to  engage  him  to  accompany 
us  to  Kis-py-aux,  on  the  Skeena.  He  was  a 
splendid  savage,  about  twenty-five  years  of 
age,  six  foot  two  in  height,  straight  as  an  ar- 
row, swift,  wiry,  enduring,  and  supple  as  a 
panther.  His  bold  and  piercing  eye,  large, 
firm,  and  well-shaped  mouth,  strong,  white, 
and  even  teeth,  square  jaw,  straight,  well-set 
nose,  full  brows,  thick,  long,  coal-black  hair, 
skin  of  bronze,  and  expression  of  stern  dig- 
nity, made  him  a  picture  of  manly  beauty, 
and  the  most  perfect  type  of  his  race  that  I 
have  ever  met. 

On  the  afternoon  of  July  5th  we  left  Kil- 
ack-tam,  and  ascended  the  river  three  miles 
to  the  point  where  the  great  Grease  Trail  be- 
gins. Above  this  the  current  flows  like  a 
mill-race  through  steep  banks  of  slate,  and 
is  too  swift  for  any  craft  to  ride,  much  less  to 
stem.  We  camped  here.  Near  by  were  a 
number  of  Nasscar  families,  preparing  to 
take  the  trail  with  loads  of  grease.  It  is 
borne  upon  the  back  by  means  of  a  thong 
fastened  to  the  boxes,  and  dividing  into  two 
parts,  one  of  which  passes  across  the  chest 
and  the  points  of  the  shoulders,  and  the  oth- 
er over  the  forehead,  so  that  by  alternately 
leaning  forward  and  backwards  the  strain  can 
be  shifted  and  the  parts  rested  in  turn.  Ev- 
ery member  of  the  family  that  can  walk  car- 
ries a  burden.  One  hundred  and  twenty 
pounds  is  called  a  load  for  an  adult — man  or 
woman — and  each  age  has  its  proportionate 
weight.  Those  who  have  brought  the  grease 
up  the  river  transport  it  a  certain  distance 
on  the  trail,  where  they  are  met  by  Indians 


456 


From  the  Nass  to  the  Skeena. 


[Nov. 


from  the  interior,  who  buy  it  from  them  to 
trade  it  in  turn  to  others  at  the  confines  of 
their  territory.  Each  tribe  is  exceedingly 
jealous  of  its  privileges,  and  it  is  only  on 
rare  occasions  that  a  member  of  one  is  al- 
lowed to  pass  through  the  territory  of  anoth- 
er. Ten  miles  is  considered  a  day's  journey. 
None  of  the  interiors  are  permitted  to  own 
a  canoe,  and  they  are  called  Stick-siwash,  or 
snow-shoe  men,  in  contradistinction  to  the 
coast  and  river  Indians,  who  are  named  Salt- 
chuck,  or  canoe-men.  Between  them  is  a 
constant  rivalry — the  first  striving  to  open 
direct  communication  with  the  coast  and  its 
trading-posts,  the  last  trying  by  every  means 
to  prevent  such  a  consummation.  Being  far 
the  most  warlike,  and  having  much  better 
arms,  the  canoe  men  have  hitherto  carried 
their  point.  Thus  it  will  be  seen  that  mo- 
nopolies are  an  important  factor  even  in  this 
primitive  commerce. 

The  distance  by  the  trail  to  Skeena  was 
estimated  by  me  to  be  one  hundred  and 
twenty-eight  miles  :  following  the  Nass  in  a 
direction  almost  north  for  twenty-four  miles; 
thence  up  a  branch,  the  Harkan,  to  the  di- 
vide, forty-two  miles  to  the  northeast ;  and 
then  down  the  valley  of  the  Kis-py-aux  to 
the  Skeena,  sixty-two  miles,  nearly  east. 
Over  this  I  traveled  by  easy  stages. 

The  daily  routine  was  as  follows :  We  broke 
camp  early.  I  would  walk  briskly  until 
sufficiently  in  advance  to  keep  a  look-out  for 
game.  No  one  except  myself  killed  anything 
on  the  journey,  nor  did  we  once  lack  for 
meat.  The  game  was  made  up  of  grouse 
and  several  kinds  of  water-fowl.  The  vicin- 
ity of  the  trail  was  deserted  by  moose-cari- 
bou and  bear,  which  are  plentiful  in  undis- 
turbed localities.  After  enough  game  for 
the  needs  of  the  party  was  procured,  and  a 
suitable  spot  arrived  at,  I  would  wait  till  the 
others  came  up,  when  the  mid-day  meal 
would  be  eaten  and  a  long  rest  taken.  Re- 
suming the  march,  we  completed  the  desired 
distance  and  camped  early,  making  every- 
thing as  comfortable  as  possible  for  the  night. 
The  weather  was  fine,  only  one  rainy  day, 
and  though  sometimes  the  heat  was  great, 
it  was  generally  cool  enough  for  comfort. 


The  sun  rose  before  three  and  set  after  nine. 
Some  nights  it  was  hardly  dark  at  all.  Oft- 
en we  camped  in  places  of  great  natural 
beauty,  and  I  spent  many  happy  hours  listen- 
ing to  Indian  stories  about  the  camp-fire,  or, 
lying  on  a  bed  of  cedar  branches,  inhaling 
the  spicy  breath  of  woods,  sank  into  that  rest- 
ful slumber  that  comes  of  healthful  toil. 

The  trail  was  a  constant  source  of  interest. 
Daily  we  passed  parties  bending  under  their 
burdens,  or  met  others  hurrying  back  to  seek 
a  load.  This  highway  is  broad  and  clear  and 
very  old.  One  is  almost  never  out  of  sight 
of  an  Indian  grave,  marking  the  spot  where 
some  weary  mortal  had,  indeed,  put  off  his 
burden.  Many  were  old  and  mouldering, 
but  here  and  there  were  fresher  ones,  some 
yet  decked  with  mourning  offerings.  All 
vestige  of  an  ordinary  grave  is  gone  in  fifty 
years.  Sweat-houses  were  built  at  frequent 
intervals,  where,  with  a  cup  of  water  and  a 
few  heated  stones,  the  tired  native  might  as- 
suage his  aching  limbs  by  a  steam  bath. 
Rude  huts  of  bark  afford  shelter  to  him  who 
needs  it,  and  large  sheds  built  of  the  same 
material  mark  the  spots  where  different  tribes 
meet  to  trade. 

Bridges  span  the  wider  streams ;  one,  a 
suspension  crossing  the  Har-keen,  built  long 
ago,  replacing  a  still  older  one,  has  a  clear 
span  of  ninety-two  feet.  It  is  located  at  a 
point  where  opposing  cliffs  form  natural 
abutments,  and  is  thus  constructed  :  From 
each  bank  two  tapering  logs,  parallel  to  each 
other — some  ten  feet  apart  and  with  points 
elevated  to  an  angle  of  ten  degrees — are 
pushed  out  over  the  stream  towards  each 
other  as  far  as  their  butts  will  serve  as  a  coun- 
terpoise. Then  two  more  are  shoved  out 
between  the  first,  but  nearer  together  and 
almost  horizontal.  The  ends  on  shore  are 
then  secured  by  piling  logs  and  stones  upon 
them.  Then  a  man  crawls  out  to  the  end 
of  one  of  the  timbers,  and  throws  a  line  to 
another  in  the  same  position  opposite.  A 
light  pole  is  hauled  into  place,  lashed  se* 
curely,  and  that  arch  completed.  The  three 
remaining  sets  of  timbers  are  treated  in  the 
same  manner.  The  upper  and  lower  arches 
are  then  fastened  together  by  poles,  cross- 


1885.] 


from  the  Nass  to  the  Skeena. 


457 


pieces  put  in,  foot-plank  laid,  and  hand-rail 
bound  in  proper  position  to  steady  the  trav- 
eler in  crossing  the  vibrating,  swaying  struc- 
ture. No  bolt,  nail,  or  pin  is  used  from  first 
to  last.  Strips  of  bark  and  tough,  flexible 
roots  form  all  the  fastenings. 

In  one  place  the  trail  leads  over  the  top 
of  a  hill  denuded  of  soil,  and  is  worn  deeply 
into  the  solid  granite  by  the  feet  of  succeed- 
ing generations.  It  branches  in  a  number 
of  places.  One,  explored  by  Mr.  Peter  Leech, 
of  Victoria,  in  the  winter  of  '66-'6y,  leads  up 
the  Nass,  and  thence  to  the  Stickeen  river ; 
the  others  go  no  civilized  man  knows  whith- 
er. I  followed  one  of  them  half  a  day,  to 
visit  a  village  never  before  seen  by  a  white. 
Mus-ke-boo  told  me  that  two  white  men  had 
crossed  before  me  from  the  Nass  to  the  Skee- 
na. These  trails  are  traveled  at  all  seasons 
of  the  year ;  in  the  winter  on  snow-shoes. 

The  country  was  rolling,  diversified  with 
woodland  and  prairie.  Lakes  and  streams 
teemed  with  trout  and  salmon.  Meadows, 
rich  with  nutritious  grasses,  lay  warm  to  the 
summer  sun,  and  in  the  swamps  and  uplands 
berries  grew  in  great  variety  and  profusion. 
In  short,  this  region  is  capable  of  supporting 
a  large  population  by  pursuits  of  agriculture 
and  stock-raising. 

Soon  after  crossing  the  divide  between  the 
Harkan  and  Kis-py-aux,  we  struck  the  end 
of  the  completed  portion  of  the  Russian- 
American  extension  of  the  Western  Union 
Telegraph.  I  had  the  honor  of  being  medi- 
cal officer  of  the  American  division  of  that 
expedition,  and  accompanied  the  party  that 
built  the  line ;  hence,  from  this  point  the 
ground  was  familiar  to  me.  All  the  poles 
were  cut  down,  and  the  wire  removed  or 
tangled  among  the  stumps.  It  was  done  by 
the  Indians  of  the  Kis-py-aux,  the  winter  after 
the  line  was  abandoned,  because  they  fancied 
that  it  was  the  cause  of  an  epidemic  of  mea- 
sles, which  prevailed  among  them  at  the  time. 

Of  the  striking  objects  of  scenery  along 
the  route,  the  finest  was  the  canon  of  the 
Nass.  It  is  several  miles  in  length,  with 
sides  everywhere  steep,  in  places  perpendic- 
ular, and  hundreds  of  feet  in  height ;  the 
trail  winds  along  the  verge  and  affords  many 


striking  views.  At  one  point  I  dropped  a 
stone,  and  counted  ten  before  it  reached 
the  bottom.  From  this  same  place,  a  mighty 
cataract  was  visible  on  the  face  of  a  moun- 
tain across  the  valley  on  the  opposite  side  of 
the  Nass.  Though  fully  ten  miles  away,  it 
had  the  appearance  of  a  large  body  of  water, 
falling  at  least  five  hundred  feet.  The  In- 
dians say  that  when  the  wind  is  favorable,  it 
can  be  plainly  heard  from  here. 

The  farther  inland  we  went,  the  more  open 
and  level  the  country  became.  Yet  it  was 
always  hilly,  even  after  the  snow-capped  peaks 
of  the  Coast  Range  were  lost  to  view.  Sev- 
eral villages  were  passed,  at  all  of  which  we 
were  well  received,  but  were  assured  at  each 
that  the  Indians  farther  on  were  very  bad, 
and  would  surely  do  us  harm.  These  tales, 
so  often  repeated,  began  to  have  great  influ- 
ence on  Ta-kesh.  He  lost  his  bold  and  ag- 
gressive bearing,  and  became  subdued.  Then 
he  sought  to  persuade  me  to  turn  back.  Fi- 
nally, one  morning,  in  the  valley  of  Kis-py- 
aux,  while  preparing  my  breakfast,  he  was  so 
overcome  by  the  tales  of  two  Harkan  Indi- 
ans, who  came  into  camp,  of  the  ferocity  of 
the  people  of  the  village  they  had  just  left, 
that,  dropping  his  frying  pan,  the  poor  fel- 
low came  and  knelt  before  me  with  stream- 
ing eyes,  crying  : 

"  Pity  me,  chief,  and  let  me  go  back  with 
these;  truly  I  want  to  see  my  home ;  see  how 
my  flesh  is  going  because  my  heart  is  sick. 
Let  me  go  to  my  wife  and  babies  once  more. 
Truly  I  am  afraid." 

Although  he  had  become  a  nuisance,  I 
dared  not  let  him  go,  as  he  would  surely  have 
been  killed  or  enslaved  away  from  my  pro- 
tection. Poor  varlet !  he  was  the  sorriest 
shadow  of  the  impudent  chap  that  started 
with  me  less  than  a  month  before. 

Mus-ke-boo,  on  the  other  hand,  was  in  his 
glory.  He  knew  every  point  of  the  country, 
and  had  some  story  to  tell  of  them  all.  He 
had  journeyed  here  in  peace ;  fought  for  his 
life  there  ;  thrown  the  strongest  man  of  that 
village,  and  distanced  the  fleetest  one  of  this; 
in  one  place,  killed  an  enemy  in  battle,  and 
in  another,  got  a  grievous  wound. 

And  Clah,  sly  Clah,  how  calmly  did  he 


458 


The  Successful  Rival. 


[Nov. 


lie,  and  how  unblushing!/  deny  it  when  de- 
tected. What  ingenious  schemes  he  devised 
to  transfer  coin  or  its  equivalent  from  my 
pouch  to  his,  and  how  he  did  cheat  those 
whom  he  traded  with !  Still,  Clah  was  a  good 
man — for  a  backslider. 

George  was  an  Indian,  nothing  more  nor 
less.  If  he  had  peculiarities,  I  did  not  en- 
joy his  society  long  enough  to  find  them  out. 

On  the  i4th  of  July,  we  arrived  at  the  vil- 
lage of  Kis-py-aux,  on  the  river  of  that  name, 
near  its  junction  with  the  Skeena.  The  in- 
habitants were  in  a  great  state  of  excitement 
over  the  death  of  an  old  woman  two  days 
before.  She  and  a  younger  squaw  had  been 
picking  berries,  and  were  returning  home 
with  well  filled  baskets  on  their  backs,  when 
a  huge  bear  issued  from  the  brush  and  set 
upon  them.  The  younger  escaped  by  flight, 
but  before  the  elder  could  clear  herself  of 
her  load,  she  was  seized  and  torn  to  pieces. 
All  of  the  men  of  the  tribe  turned  out,  tracked 
Bruin  to  his  lair,  killed  him,  hacked  his  car- 
cass to  bits,  strewed  them  near  the  spot  where 
his  victim  died,  and  were  now  conducting  a 
grand  dance  in  memory  of  the  departed,  and 
in  honor  of  her  avengers. 

Fort  Sieger,  on  the  Skeena,  near  Kis-py- 
aux,  established  in  1865  by  the  Telegraph 
Company  as  a  base  of  supplies,  had  been 
burned  by  the  natives  the  previous  winter. 
To  this  point — about  one  hundred  and  sev- 
enty miles — the  river  is  navigable  for  canoes. 
Above,  it  had  never  been  explored.  One 
branch  of  the  Grease  Trail  follows  its  banks  in- 
land, and  another  crosses  and  extends  south- 
ward to  the  head-waters  of  Frazer  River. 

Hearing  from  the  Indians  that  a  party  of 


white  men  had  come  through  from  Peace 
river  to  the  "  Forks,"  sixteen  miles  below,  I 
hurried  thither  on  the  following  day.  There 
I  found  Mr.  Moss,  a  gentleman  from  Victo- 
ria, and  learned  that  the  main  party,  consist- 
ing of  about  twenty,  had  gone  down  the 
stream  a  short  time  previously.  They  had 
entered  the  Peace  river  country  from  the 
south,  via  Frazer  river,  and  were  astonished 
to  find  the  Skeena  route  so  much  easier.  In- 
deed, the  following  year  it  became  the  favor- 
ite way  of  reaching  the  Ominica  mines. 

After  resting  at  the  "  Forks  "  awhile,  I  re- 
sumed my  journey — this  time  down  stream 
in  a  canoe.  As  the  region  traversed  is  com- 
paratively well  known,  I  shall  have  little  to 
say  about  it.  The  Skeena  is  a  broad  stream, 
with  a  swift  current,  having  rapids  at  fre- 
quent intervals,  and  an  almost  impassable 
canon  at  Kit-se-loo,  some  ninety  miles  from 
its  mouth.  The  steamer  "  G.  H.  Munford" 
ascended  nearly  to  the  canon  several  times 
in  '65.  The  river  flows  through  a  valley  in 
places  twenty  miles  in  width,  well  timbered, 
and  containing  much  fruitful  soil.  Many 
large,  well  built  villages  are  to  be  seen  upon 
its  banks.  Near  its  mouth  it  passes  between 
great  mountains  of  granite,  some  with  faces 
perpendicular,  and  thousands  of  feet  in 
height.  Borne  on  its  broad  bosom,  we  float- 
ed lazily  along  the  quiet  reaches,  sped  swiftly 
over  the  boiling  rapids,  and  dashed  through 
the  foaming  canon,  stopping  to  hunt  or  fish 
when  the  desire  seized  us,  and  on  again  when 
the  mood  was  over.  Reaching  the  sea-coast, 
we  loitered  along  until  my  leave  drew  to  its 
close,  and  sailed  into  Fort  Tongass  harbor 
the  day  that  it  expired. 

George  Chismore. 


THE  SUCCESSFUL  RIVAL. 

To  love  the  loveliest  one,  and  so  to  be 

One  among  many  worshipers ;   and  she 

Less  than  them  all  loves  thee  :  what  help  can  fall 

For  such  defeat  ?     Ah,  know  thy  victory  : 

Thou  lovest  her  more  greatly  than  they  all. 


M.    W.  Shinn. 


1885.] 


Juan  Bautista  Alvarado,  Governor  of  California. 


JUAN  BAUTISTA  ALVARADO,  GOVERNOR  OF  CALIFORNIA.— II. 


[This  and  the  preceding  paper  upon  Governor  Al- 
varado  are  from  the  manuscript  of  the  author's  forth- 
coming History  of  California.] 

ANOTHER  danger,  and  a  more  serious  one, 
perhaps,  than  any  which  Vallejo,  Pico,  or  Car- 
rillo  could  have  occasioned,  threatened  Al- 
varado  from  Branciforte  and  its  neighbor- 
hood. An  American  backwoodsman,  named 
Isaac  Graham,  one  of  the  numerous  trappers 
who  had  found  their  way  across  the  country 
into  California,  had  settled  down  at  the  edge 
of  the  forest  near  that  place.  Being  tired  of 
hunting,  and  not  fond  of  agriculture,  he  had 
turned  his  atten  tion  to  the  making  and  sale 
of  aguardiente.  Though  a  man  entirely 
without  education,  he  had  enterprise  and 
intelligence.  He  also  possessed  a  consider- 
able amount  of  personal  magnetism,  and  by 
degrees  assumed  the  position  of  a  leader 
among  the  rough  characters  of  the  vicinity, 
composed  mostly  of  trappers  like  himself,  de- 
serters from  whalers  and  merchant  ships  that 
had  visited  the  coast,  and  vagabonds  of  ev- 
ery description.  All  these  men  were  not 
only  expert  with  the  rifle,  but  were  good 
woodsmen,  and  perfectly  able,  if  so  disposed, 
to  suffer  fatigue  and  endure  hardships.  They 
had  formed  themselves  into  a  sort  of  military 
company  of  riflemen,  and  named  Graham 
their  captain.  When  Alvarado  raised  the 
standard  of  revolution  against  Gutierrez,  he 
negotiated  with  them  ;  and,  though  they  do 
not  appear  to  have  been  at  any  time  actually 
called  into  action,  except  perhaps  a  few  who 
marched  with  him  in  his  campaign  against 
his  rival  Carrillo,  it  was  understood  that 
they  were  on  his  side ;  and  the  moral  influ- 
ence of  this  understanding  throughout  the 
country  was  almost  equal  to  their  real  pres- 
ence under  his  banner. 

Notwithstanding  the  fact  that  none  of  the 
crowd  had  passports  or  licenses  to  live  in  the 
country,  it  is  exceedingly  unlikely  that  any 
of  them  would  ever  have  been  disturbed,  if 
they  had  otherwise  conformed  to  the  laws 


and  remained  quiet.  But  they  were  a  dis- 
orderly crew,  and  when  excited  with  Graham's 
liquor  (a  kind  of  whisky  made  out  of  wheat) 
were  continually  creating  disturbances.  As 
they  grew  in  numbers  and  observed  them- 
selves to  be  becoming  a  factor  of  importance 
in  the  country,  and  especially  in  view  of  the 
late  achievements  of  the  American  settlers 
in  Texas  who  had  declared  their  indepen- 
dence of  Mexico  and  maintained  it  by  force 
of  arms,  they  began  to  assume  self-sufficient 
and  arrogant  airs,  and  render  themselves  ex- 
ceedingly disagreeable  to  the  authorities. 
Whether  they  ever,  in  fact,  contemplated  at- 
tempting a  revolution  and  seizure  of  the  coun- 
try is  a  matter  of  considerable  doubt ;  but  it 
seems  certain  that  their  conduct  was  very  rep- 
rehensible. About  the  beginning  of  1840, 
Alvarado  was  informed  and  believed  that 
they  contemplated  a  revolution  ;  and  on  the 
strength  of  this  information  he  immediately 
ordered  Jose  Castro,  the  prefect,  to  arrest 
them,  convey  them  to  Monterey,  ship  them 
to  Mexico,  and  there  deliver  them  over  to 
the  supreme  government  to  be  dealt  with  as 
it  might  deem  proper. 

Castro  proceeded  with  celerity  to  execute 
the  orders  he  had  thus  received.  He  sur- 
prised Graham  and  his  associates  in  their 
houses,  and  marched  them  off  in  short  order 
to  Monterey.  There  the  national  bark,  "  Jo- 
ven  Guipuzcoana,"  under  the  command  of 
Jose^  Antonio  Aguirre,  had  been  made  ready 
for  their  reception.  They  were  marched  on 
board  at  once.  Castro  took  passage  on  the 
same  vessel  for  the  purpose  of  prosecuting 
them  before  the  Mexican  government,  as 
well  as  of  guarding  them  on  the  way ;  and, 
as  soon  as  the  necessary  arrangements  could 
be  completed,  the  ship  sailed. 

Upon  its  departure,  seven  of  Castro's  com- 
rades, headed  by  Jose  Maria  Villa,  thought 
proper  to  issue  an  extraordinary  proclama- 
tion bearing  date  May  8,  1840.  Their  ob- 
ject seems  to  have  been  to  recommend  and 


460 


Juan  Bautista  Alvarado,  Governor  of  California. 


[Nov. 


endorse  their  chief.  They  commenced  with 
the  words:  "  Eternal  glory  to  the  illustrious 
champion  and  liberator  of  the  Department 
of  Alta  California,  Don  Jose  Castro,  the 
guardian  of  order  and  the  supporter  of 
our  superior  government."  They  then  de- 
clared that  that  day  was,  and  forever  would 
be,  held  glorious  by  the  inhabitants  of 
California,  as  the  one  in  which  their  fellow- 
countryman  had  gone  to  present  to  the 
supreme  government  of  the  Mexican  nation 
a  grand  prize  of  American  suspects,  who, 
filled  with  ambition  but  under  the  dark  mask 
of  deceit,  had  been  enveloping  the  people 
in  the  web  of  misfortune  and  disgrace,  in- 
volving them  in  the  greatest  dangers  and 
confusions,  threatening  to  destroy  the  lives 
of  their  governor  and  all  his  subalterns,  and 
to  drive  them  from  their  asylums,  their  coun- 
try, their  pleasures,  and  their  hearths.  The 
vessel,  they  went  on  to  say,  in  which  the  val- 
orous hero  was  carrying  out  his  great  com- 
mission, was  covered  with  laurels,  crowned 
with  triumphs,  and  went  ploughing  the  seas 
and  publishing  in  loud  tones  to  the  waves 
the  vivas  and  rejoicings  which  would  resound 
to  the  uttermost  extremes  of  the  universe. 
In  view  of  the  distinguished  services  thus  ren- 
dered by  their  chief,  it  was  their  duty,  they 
continued,  to  treasure  him  in  the  center  of 
their  hearts  and  in  the  depths  of  their  souls, 
and  to  make  known,  in  the  name  of  the  in- 
habitants, the  exceeding  joy  with  which  they 
were  filled ;  at  the  same  time  giving  to  the 
superior  government  the  present  proclama- 
tion, made  in  honor  of  that  worthy  chief,  and 
assuring  the  governor  that,  notwithstanding 
the  well-deserving  Castro  might  be  absent, 
there  still  remained  subject  to  the  orders  of 
the  government  all  the  subscribers,  his  com- 
patriots, friends,  and  companions  in  arms. 

As  has  been  said,  it  is  a  matter  of  con- 
siderable doubt  whether  any  regular  plan  of 
revolution  had  in  fact  ever  been  formed  by 
Graham.  Alfred  Robinson  states  that  there 
were  no  facts  to  prove  anything  of  the  kind. 
He  reports  Alvarado  as  saying  :  "  I  was  in- 
sulted at  every  turn  by  the  drunken  follow- 
ers of  Graham ;  and  when  walking  in  the  gar- 
den, they  would  come  to  its  wall  and  call 


upon  me  in  terms  of  the  greatest  familiarity, 
'  Ho !  Bautista,  come  here,  I  want  to  speak 
to  you  ' — '  Bautista  here ' — '  Bautista  there ' 
— and  '  Bautista  everywhere  ! ' "  All  this,  or 
something  like  it,  may  have  been  true ;  and 
yet  the  inference,  suggested  by  Robinson 
and  drawn  by  some  of  his  readers,  that  the 
arrest  and  expulsion  were  therefore  instigated 
by  offended  dignity,  does  not  by  any  means 
necessarily  follow.  Such  a  supposition  hard- 
ly comports  with  Alvarado's  known  charac- 
ter, shown  during  a  long  life  and  exhibited 
on  many  trying  occasions.  Nor  is  it  likely 
that  a  man  who  wielded,  as  he  did,  almost 
unlimited  power,  whose  dixit  in  his  sphere 
was  equal  to  that  of  a  Caesar,  could  have 
found  any  difficulty  in  preserving  all  the  dig- 
nity he  desired.  Unlettered  men,  like  Gra- 
ham and  his  associates,  feel  a  natural  respect 
for  their  superiors,  and  particularly  for  their 
superiors  in  high  official  position.  The  sup- 
position, consequently,  that  offended  dignity 
was  the  motive  that  induced  Alvarado  to  or- 
der Graham's  arrest,  is  scarcely  entitled  to 
consideration.  In  fact,  Robinson  himself  ad- 
mits that  Alvarado  was  firmly  persuaded  of 
an  intention  on  the  part  of  Graham  to  revo- 
lutionize the  country.  On  the  other  hand, 
it  appears  from  a  proclamation,  issued  by 
Cosme  Pena  at  Los  Angeles  in  May,  1840, 
that  the  Branciforte  ill-doers  had  resisted  the 
alcalde  of  that  place ;  that  the  alcalde  had 
complained  to  the  government;  that  the  gov- 
ernment had  cautioned  them ;  that  instead  of 
obeying  they  had  armed  themselves  and  de- 
fied the  authorities,  and  that  it  was  in  conse- 
quence of  this  and  their  threats  that  they  had 
been  arrested.  Antonio  Maria  Osio  also 
states  that  when  William  Chard,  one  of 
Graham's  associates,  was  arrested,  he  exhib- 
ited abject  fear ;  confessed  that  he  had  con- 
spired against  the  government ;  begged  not 
to  be  shot,  and  offered  to  inform  on  all  his 
associates. 

About  thirty  days  after  the  sailing  of  Cas- 
tro and  his  prisoners,  the  United  States  cor- 
vette St.  Louis,  Captain  J.  B.  Forrest,  ar- 
rived at  Monterey  from  Mazatlan.  On  June 
14,  Captain  Forrest  addressed  a  letter  to  Al- 
varado, stating  that  he  had  been  informed  of 


1885.] 


Juan  Bautista  Alvarado,   Governor  of  California. 


461 


a  very  cruel  outrage  committed  in  the  coun- 
try against  the  persons  and  property  of  certain 
American  citizens;  that  they  had  been  seized, 
put  in  irons,  thrown  into  a  horrible  prison, 
confined  there  from  ten  to  fifteen  days,  and 
then  placed  on  board  a  vessel  under  strict 
guard,  and  shipped  to  San  Bias  ;  that  of 
these  persons  Mr.  Isaac  Graham  and  Mr. 
Henry  Naile,  both  respectable  and  peaceful 
citizens  of  the  United  States  employed  in 
extensive  commercial  business,  had  been 
seized  by  armed  men  at  night,  in  their  pri- 
vate chambers,  and  haled  forth  like  criminals ; 
that  Naile  had  been  seriously  wounded  ;  and 
that  the  house  in  which  they  had  their  resi- 
dence and  property,  being  left  without  pro- 
tection, had  been  sacked  and  robbed  of  ev- 
erything of  value.  Captain  Forrest  further 
stated  that,  according  to  his  information,  the 
authors  of  this  inhuman  and  atrocious  act 
had  been  allowed  to  go  free,  without  any  le- 
gal proceedings  being  taken  against  them. 
Under  the  circumstances,  he  considered  it 
his  duty  to  request  his  Excellency  to  cause 
their  immediate  arrest,  and  to  institute  a  full, 
impartial,  and  public  investigation  as  to  their 
conduct. 

Alvarado  answered  a  few  days  subsequent- 
ly. He  said  that  within  a  few  years  past  a 
number  of  foreigners  had  entered  the  coun- 
try without  the  formalities  required  by  law  ; 
that  most  of  them  were  deserters  from  ves- 
sels which  had  arrived  on  the  coast,  some 
belonging  to  one  nation  and  others  to  oth- 
ers ;  that  by  the  laws  of  Mexico  the  govern- 
ment was  authorized  to  remove  all  such  per- 
sons from  the  territory,  and  had  exercised  le- 
gitimate powers  in  sending  them  to  the  dis- 
position of  the  supreme  government  of  the 
nation  ;  that,  in  the  absence  of  war  vessels 
or  authorized  agents  of  the  nations  to  which 
such  persons  belonged,  and  to  whom  they 
might  otherwise  have  been  delivered,  such 
removal  to  Mexico  was  the  best  disposition 
that  could  be  made ;  that  some  of  the  per- 
sons so  removed  were  thieves  and  robbers, 
and  were  found  in  possession  of  large  num- 
bers of  horses,  which  had  been  stolen  ;  that 
Isaac  Graham,  to  whom  particular  reference 
had  been  made,  had  been  arrested  by  com- 


petent authority  on  an  accusation  of  conspir- 
acy, in  connection  with  three  other  individ- 
uals, to  overthrow  the  government ;  that  his 
arrest  had  been  resisted  by  himself  and  his 
companions,  and  it  was  only  in  making  such 
resistance  that  Naile  had  been  wounded;  that 
the  property  of  the  arrested  persons  had  been 
secured  and  inventoried  in  the  presence  of 
witnesses,  and  what  had  not  already  been  re- 
stored was  only  held  because  no  properly  au- 
thorized person  had  asked  for  it ;  that  Gra- 
ham was  neither  a  peaceable  nor  a  respecta- 
ble citizen ;  that  his  business,  instead  of  being 
such  as  Captain  Forrest  had  been  informed, 
was  none  other  than  an  illegal  traffic  in 
aguardiente,  which  gathered  around  him  a 
crowd  of  vicious  neighbors  and  daily  occa- 
sioned the  most  scandalous  disorders  ;  that 
he  had  been  cautioned  by  the  justices  of  the 
peace,  but  only  answered  with  threats,  and  in 
every  way  abused  the  hospitality  he  had  re- 
ceived in  the  country ;  and  that,  so  far  as  a 
judicial  investigation  was  concerned,  the 
charges  against  Graham  and  the  other  ac- 
cused persons  had  been  regularly  made  out 
and  transmitted  with  the  prisoners  for  trial 
before  the  supreme  tribunal  of  the  republic 
at  Mexico.  The  facts,  he  continued,  would 
convince  Captain  Forrest  that  there  had  been 
no  such  outrage  or  attack  upon  the  persons 
or  property  of  citizens  of  the  United  States 
as  he  had  been  informed  ;  and  if  the  govern- 
ment had  been  provoked  to  enforce  the  rigor 
of  the  law,  it  was  only  against  a  pernicious 
class  of  vagabonds,  deserters,  and  horse- 
thieves.  There  were  numerous  citizens  of 
the  United  States,  as  well  as  other  foreign- 
ers, in  the  country  ;  and  as  long.as  they  pur- 
sued any  honest  industry,  there  was  no  dis- 
position on  the  part  of  the  government  to 
disturb  them,  even  though  they  had  no  licen- 
ses ;  nor  would  Graham  and  his  associates 
have  been  disturbed  if  they  had  been  of  the 
class  thus  represented.  In  conclusion,  he 
protested  that  he  was  as  desirous  as  any  one 
could  be  to  respect  and  protect  the  citizens  of 
the  United  States,  as  well  as  all  others,  in 
their  rights  of  person  and  property ;  to  comply 
in  all  particulars  with  everything  prescribed 
by  treaty  or  the  law  of  nations,  and  to  pre- 


462 


Jaun  Bautista  Alvarado,    Governor  of  California. 


[Nov. 


serve  undisturbed  and  uninterrupted  the 
relations  of  friendship  and  reciprocity  hith- 
erto existing  between  Mexico  and  the  United 
States. 

This  answer  seems  to  have  ended  the  cor- 
respondence between  Forrest  and  Alvarado. 
But  about  the  beginning  of  July,  Alvarado 
went  to  San  Jose  and  while  there  he  re- 
ceived a  communication  from  David  Spence, 
who,  as  alcalde,  had  been  left  in  charge  of 
Monterey,  stating  that  Captain  Forrest  de- 
sired to  know  when  he  would  return.  Spence 
further  wrote  that  there  had  been  rumors  cur- 
rent of  an  intended  attack  by  Forrest  upon 
the  town,  and  a  seizure  of  the  person  of  the 
governor ;  but  that  Forrest  himself  had  as- 
sured him  that  there  was  not  a  word  of  truth 
in  the  rumors ;  that  he  not  only  had  no  in- 
tention, but  no  authority  to  make  any  attack  ; 
that,  on  the  contrary,  he  was  about  to  depart 
with  his  vessel  from  Monterey,  and  that  he 
desired,  before  leaving,  the  pleasure  of  an 
interview  with  the  governor,  to  personally 
manifest  to  him  his  friendship  and  give  him 
proofs  that  the  injurious  reports  that  had  been 
circulated  were  entirely  without  foundation. 
Alvarado  replied,  that,  as  Spence  very  well 
knew,  the  disturbed  state  of  the  interior  re- 
quired his  presence  at  San  Josd  and  other 
more  remote  points  ;  that  he  ought  to  have 
left  Monterey  much  earlier  than  he  did,  but 
had  delayed  twenty  days  for  the  purpose  of 
answering  any  further  communication  that 
Captain  Forrest  might  have  desired  to  make, 
and  that  if  he  had  waited  longer,  the  conse- 
quences of  neglecting  the  interior  might  have 
been  disastrous.  He  begged  Spence  to  in- 
form Captain  Forrest  of  the  facts ;  to  tender 
his  regrets  at  not  being  able  to  meet  him  as 
proposed  ;  to  make  a  ceremonial  visit  in  his 
name ;  and  to  assure  him,  that,  so  far  as  the 
rumors  to  which  reference  had  been  made 
were  concerned,  he  did  not  consider  them 
worthy  of  notice. 

The  Graham  party,  so-called,  which  had 
been  arrested  by  Castro  and  his  soldiers, 
consisted  of  about  sixty  persons ;  but  not 
more  than  forty-five  had  been  placed  on 
board  the  "  Joven  Guipuzcoana,"  and  sent 
to  San  Bias.  Of  these,  only  Graham  himself 


and  three  or  four  others  were  charged  with 
conspiracy ;  the  others  appear  to  have  been 
sent  off  as  general  bad  characters,  dangerous 
to  the  peace  of  the  territory.  But  in  each  case 
regular  charges  were  formulated  and  trans- 
mitted to  the  minister  of  the  interior.  Alva- 
rado also  wrote  a  very  lengthy  document  ex- 
plaining the  charges ;  and  for  proofs  refer- 
ence was  made  to  the  testimony  which  would 
be  furnished  by  Castro  who  had  been  duly 
accredited  as  a  commissioner  to  the  supreme 
government. 

When  the  "  Joven  Guipuzcoana  "  arrived 
at  San  Bias,  the  corn  andante  of  that  place, 
on  account  of  some  misunderstanding,  or- 
dered the  arrest  of  Castro;  and  he  was  for 
a  few  hours  thrown  into  prison.  News  of 
this  arrest  reached  California  by  the  bark 
"  Clarita,"  in  July,  and  caused  great  excite- 
ment. But  in  September,  upon  the  return 
of  the  "  Joven  Guipuzcoana,"  it  was  ascer- 
tained that  the  imprisonment  had  not  only 
not  been  made  upon  the  order  of  the  govern- 
ment, but  that  on  the  contrary,  as  soon  as 
the  government  at  Mexico  had  been  in- 
formed of  Castro's  arrival,  it  had  invited  him 
to  come  directly  to  the  capital.  His  pris- 
oners, in  the  meanwhile,  were  removed  to 
Tepic  and  incarcerated  there.  As  soon  as 
the  government  could  look  into  their  cases, 
it  ordered  Isaac  Graham,  Albert  Morris,  Wil- 
liam Chard,  and  Jorge  Jose  Bonilo,  who 
were  charged  with  conspiracy  and  attempted 
revolution,  to  be  kept  in  close  confinement ; 
while  of  the  others,  such  as  were  married  with 
Mexican  women  should  be  released  on  giv- 
ing bonds,  and  the  rest  expelled  from  the 
country,  care  being  taken  that  they  should 
not  return  to  California.  Subsequently,  how- 
ever, at  the  solicitation  of  the  United  States 
envoy-extraordinary,  this  sentence  was  modi- 
fied as  to  Louis  Pollock,  John  Higgins,  Wil- 
liam Boston,  George  Fraser,  and  Charles  H. 
Cooper,  who  were  granted  letters  of  security 
and  allowed  to  return  to  their  former  resi- 
dences. 

In  December,  Alvarado  addressed  several 
other  communications  to  the  minister  of  the 
interior,  setting  forth  the  events  which  had 
occurred  in  California  after  Castro's  depart- 


1885.] 


Juan  Bautista  Alvarado,  Governor  of  California. 


463 


ure,  and  especially  his  correspondence  with 
Captain  Forrest.  He  explained  that  soon 
after  the  interchange  of  letters,  but  before 
Captain  Forrest  sailed,  he  had  been  obliged 
to  leave  Monterey  on  account  of  information 
that  a  party  of  adventurers  from  the  United 
States  had  stolen  three  thousand  horses  be- 
longing to  the  missions  of  San  Luis  Obispo 
and  San  Gabriel  and  various  private  ranches, 
and  were  threatening  further  depredations ; 
and  that  when  he  returned  to  Monterey  he 
found  Captain  Forrest  had  gone,  leaving, 
however,  a  Mr.  E.  Estabrook  as  consular 
agent  of  the  United  States  at  Monterey.  He 
further  explained  that  he  had  corresponded 
with  Estabrook  and  pointed  out  to  him  the 
informality1  of  his  appointment;  and  he  also 
transmitted  that  correspondence.  But  the 
matter  of  most  importance,  and  to  which  he 
desired  to  call  especial  attention,  was  the 
care  and  circumspection  it  was  necessary  to 
exercise  in  reference  to  the  statements  of 
such  prisoners  as  had  been  discharged  from 
arrest,  for  the  reason  that  those  persons 
would  imagine  that  they  could  make  great 
fortunes  in  the  way  of  reclamations  against 
the  Mexican  nation,  and  they  would  not  hes- 
itate to  attempt  it. 

Graham  and  his  special  associates  re- 
mained in  Mexico  until  the  summer  of  1842, 
when  they  were  discharged.  As  several  of 
them  were  citizens  of  the  United  States,  and 
the  others  of  Great  Britain,  and  as  the  repre- 
sentatives of  those  nations  interfered  and  in- 
sisted that  there  was  nothing  shown  to  justify 
their  arrest  and  detention,  the  Mexican  gov- 
ernment deemed  it  prudent  and  politic  not 
only  to  release  the  prisoners,  but  to  fit  them 
out  in  fine  style,  pay  all  their  expenses,  and 
send  them  back  to  California  in  a  govern- 
ment vessel.  Accordingly,  when  they  landed 
at  Monterey,  on  their  return,  in  July,  1842, 
they  were  neatly  dressed,  armed  with  rifles 
and  swords,  and  looked  in  better  condition 
than  when  they  were  sent  away,  or  probably 
than  they  had  ever  looked  in  their  lives  be- 
fore. 

The  disturbances  which  had  led  to  the  ar- 
rest of  Graham  and  his  associates,  called  the 
especial  attention  of  the  departmental  gov- 


ernment to  the  subject  of  foreigners  in  the 
country.  Lists  were  made  out  in  the  sum- 
mer of  1840,  for  the  purpose  of  giving  all  the 
information  that  could  be  procured.  From 
these  lists  it  appeared  that  there  were  sixteen 
foreigners  permanently  residing  at  San  Fran- 
cisco, not  including  Richardson,  who  was 
then  at  Saucelito ;  thirty-one  at  San  Jose ; 
ten  at  Branciforte:  somewhere  about  thirty  at 
Monterey;  thirty  at  Santa  Barbara ;  twenty- 
three  at  Los  Angeles ;  and  seven  at  San 
Diego.  These  lists  included  only  those 
who  had  been  naturalized,  or  who  were 
licensed  to  reside  in  the  country.  There 
were  numerous  others,  chiefly  Americans, 
who  had  come  and  remained  without  permis- 
sion. These  were  scattered  in  various  quar- 
ters, but  chiefly  north  of  the  bay  of  San  Fran- 
cisco. Some  were  hunters  and  trappers,  and 
a  few  made  a  sort  of  business,  with  vagabond 
Mexicans,  of  horse-stealing,  which  appears  to 
have  been  a  comparatively  safe  occupation 
for  all  except  Indians.  The  latter  were  usu- 
ally pursued,  and  as  many  shot  down  as 
could  be.  In  June,  1839,  the  ghastly  head 
of  one  of  them,  who  had  been  decapitated, 
was  stuck  up  as  a  warning  in  the  plaza  of 
Santa  Clara.  In  April,  1840,  Vallejo,  in  giv- 
ing an  account  of  a  bloody  expedition  which 
he  had  just  made  against  Indians  in  the  neigh- 
borhood of  Sonoma,  intimated  that  they  were 
horse-thieves,  connected  with  the  hunters  and 
trappers  of  the  Sacramento  Valley,  and  thus 
justified  himself  for  the  slaughter  he  had 
made. 

Among  the  foreigners  who  had  thus  found 
their  way  to  and  settled  in  California,  in  addi- 
tion to  those  already  mentioned,  was  Robert 
Livermore,  an  English  lad,  who  came  in  the 
employ  of  Juan  Ignacio  Mancisidor,  about 
the  year  1819.  Mancisidor  was  a  Spaniard, 
engaged  in  trade  in  the  country,  who  after- 
wards was  obliged  to  leave  on  account  of  the 
anti-Spanish  legislation  which  followed  the 
Mexican  revolution.  Livermore,  in  the  course 
of  a  few  years,  was  baptized  into  the  Catholic 
church,  and  received  the  baptismal  name  of 
Juan  Bautista  Roberto  Livermore,  by  which 
he  was  afterwards  generally  known,  in  the 
same  manner  as  Captain  Cooper,  after  his 


464 


Juan  Bautista  Alvarado,   Governor  of  California. 


[Nov. 


Catholic  baptism,  became  known  as  Juan 
Bautista  Rogers  Cooper.  Livermore  was  fol- 
lowed in  1821  by  William  Welsh.  In  1822, 
besides  William  A.  Richardson,  came  William 
Gulnac,  an  American,  James  Richard  Berry, 
an  Englishman,  Edward  M.  Mclntosh,  a 
Scotchman,  and  George  Allen  or,  as  he  was 
afterwards  known,  Jose  Jorge  Tomas  Allen, 
an  Irishman,  all  of  whom  became  well  known 
in  the  country.  In  1823,  besides  Captain 
Cooper,  came  Samuel  and  William  Bocle, 
Englishmen,  and  William  Smith,  an  Amer- 
ican. Smith  was  generally  known  as  "  Bill 
the  Sawyer."  After  roving  about  for  a  few 
years,  he  married  a  California  woman,  settled 
down  in  the  Santa  Cruz  mountains,  and 
founded  the  nucleus  of  the  aggregation  of 
foreigners  in  that  region  already  mentioned, 
and  known  as  the  Graham  party.  He  was 
joined  by  James  Peace,  an  English  sailor, 
who  deserted  from  one  of  the  Hudson  Bay 
Company's  ships;  and  afterwards  by  Charles 
Brown,  who  deserted  from  an  American 
whaler  about  1832,  and  John  Copinger,  an 
Irishman,  who  came  to  the  coast  about  the 
same  time.  Of  Copinger  it  is  related  that  a 
fond  mother  purchased  for  him  a  lieutenant's 
commission  in  the  British  navy,  but  that, 
being  either  unruly  or  unwilling  to  be  im- 
posed upon,  he  quarreled  with  his  superior 
officer,  was  reduced  in  rank,  and  made  to 
feel  the  severity  of  British  naval  discipline. 
He  managed  in  time  to  escape,  and  finally 
found  his  way  into  the  recesses  of  the  Santa 
Cruz  mountains,  where  he  lived  in  unques- 
tioned freedom,  far  from  the  reach  of  tyran- 
nous restraint.  All  these  men  married  "  hi- 
jas  del  pais"  and  thus  became  connected 
with  old  California  families.  They  were  at 
first  engaged  principally  in  the  lumber  busi- 
ness; and  it  was  not  until  Graham  set  up  his 
still,  and  thus  placed  himself  at  the  head  of 
the  old  Santa  Cruz  population,  that  aguardi- 
ente gained  the  ascendency. 

About  1824  came  Daniel  A.  Hill,  an 
American,  David  Spence  and  James  McKin- 
ley,  Scotchmen,  and  James  Dawson,  an  Irish- 
man. Dawson  is  said  to  have  been  the  first 
man  to  manufacture  lumber  in  the  country. 
He  used  a  long  rip-saw,  to  give  play  to  which 


he  would  dig  a  pit  under  the  log  to  be  sawed, 
thus  making  what  was  called  a  saw-pit.  He 
and  E.  M.  Mclntosh  afterwards  became  inter- 
ested in  the  rancho  called  Estero  Americano, 
near  Bodega.  It  was  arranged  between  them 
that  Mclntosh  should  go  to  Monterey  and 
procure  a  formal  grant  of  it  from  the  govern- 
ment, which  he  accordingly  did  ;  but,  instead 
of  acting  in  their  joint  names,  he  took  the 
papers  out  in  his  own  alone,  leaving  Dawson 
out.  Upon  ascertaining  this  fact,  Dawson 
was  so  much  incensed  that  he  gave  Mclntosh 
a  terrible  beating,  "  breaking  every  bone  in 
his  body"  metaphorically  speaking,  and  then, 
taking  his  saw,  he  divided  the  house,  which 
had  been  built  in  partnership,  into  two  parts, 
and  moved  his  half  off,  determined  thence- 
forth to  have  nothing  more  to  do  with  part- 
nerships than  he  could  help. 

In  1825,  Robert  Ellwell  and  James 
Thompson,  Americans,  and  John  Wilson,  a 
Scotchman,  arrived.  Ellwell  used  to  boast 
that  he  was  a  Whig,  a  Unitarian,  and  a  Free- 
mason, and  that  if  these  three  qualifications 
would  not  take  a  man  to  heaven,  nothing 
would. 

The  year  of  1826  brought  John  Wil- 
son and  George  W.  Vincent,  Americans; 
William  D.  Foxen,  an  Englishman  ;  David 
Littlejohn,  a  Scotchman  ;  and  John  J.  Read, 
an  Irishman.  Read,  who  came  out  on  a  voy- 
age with  an  uncle,  took  such  a  fancy  to  the 
country  that  he  determined  to  make  it  his 
home,  and  declined  any  longer  to  follow  a  sea- 
faring life.  He  went  first  into  the  Petaluma 
valley,  but,  being  disturbed  by  the  Indians, 
soon  afterwards  moved  down  to  the  neigh- 
borhood of  Saucelito,  some  years  subsequent- 
ly married  Hilarita,  daughter  of  Jose*  An- 
tonio Sanchez,  obtained  a  land  grant  on  the 
bay  shore  between  Saucelito  and  San  Rafael, 
settled  down  and  founded  a  large  family. 

In  1827  came  Henry  D.  Fitch,  John 
Temple,  William  G.  Dana,  Thomas  M.  Rob- 
bins,  George  Rice  and  Guy  F.  Fling,  Amer- 
icans ;  and  John  C.  Fuller,  an  Englishman. 
Fitch,  who  afterwards  sailed  to  South  Amer- 
ica for  the  purpose  of  finding  a  priest  that 
would  marry  him  to  Josefa  Carrillo,  came 
originally  in  the  employ  of  Edward  E.  Vir- 


1885.] 


Juan  Bautista  Alvarado,   Governor  of  California. 


465 


mont,  a  merchant  of  Mexico,  who  at  that 
time,  and  for  years  afterwards,  carried  on 
a  considerable  trade  with  California.  Tem- 
ple and  Rice  settled  in  Los  Angeles,  Dana 
and  Robbins  at  Santa  Barbara,  Fuller 
afterwards  at  San  Francisco.  It  was  in 
this  same  year,  1827,  that  Jedediah  S. 
Smith,  and  his  party  of  hunters  and  trap- 
pers, reached  California  from  the  Rocky 
Mountains.  Of  this  party,  or  about  the 
same  time,  came  George  C.  Yount,  William 
Pope,  and  Cyrus  Alexander,  natives  respec- 
tively of  North  Carolina,  Kentucky,  and 
Pennsylvania.  Yount  and  Pope  afterwards 
obtained  land  grants  in  Napa  Valley,  and 
were  the  first  American  settlers  north  of  the 
Bay.  Alexander,  though  he  got  no  grant, 
became  a  land-owner  in  another  way.  He 
entered  into  a  contract  with  Henry  D.  Fitch, 
the  grantee  of  the  Sotoyome  rancho  where 
the  town  of  Healdsburg  now  stands,  by  the 
terms  of  which,  in  consideration  of  managing 
the  property  for  two  years,  he  received  one- 
fourth,  or  two  square  leagues  of  it.  His 
land  lay  to  the  east  of  Healdsburg,  and  was 
known  as  Alexander  Valley. 

Of  the  arrivals  of  1828  were  Abel  Stearns 
and  Michael  Prior,  Americans,  and  Edward 
Watson,  an  Englishmen ;  among  those  of 
1829,  were  Alfred  Robinson,  American; 
James  Alexander  Forbes,  English;  and  Tim- 
othy Murphy  and  John  Rainsford,  Irish.  All, 
especially  Stearns,  Robinson,  and  Forbes,  be- 
came well  known  in  the  country.  Murphy, 
or  "  Don  Timoteo "  as  he  was  generally 
called,  settled  down«at  San  Rafael,  kept  a 
sort  of  open  house,  and  was  noted  far  and 
wide  for  his  hospitality.  According  to  ac- 
counts of  old  neighbors  who  knew  him  in- 
timately, as  well  as  of  travelers  from  abroad 
who  visited  him,  he  was  one  of  those  "  fine, 
old  Irish  gentlemen,"  now,  alas,  too  much 
"  all  of  the  olden  time."  In  1830  came  Wil- 
liam Wolfskill  and  Isaac  (sometimes  called 
Julian)  Williams,  Americans;  James  W. 
Weeks,  English ;  and  Jean  Louis  Vignes,  a 
Frenchman.  Wolfskill  and  Vignes,  who 
both  settled  at  or  near  Los  Angeles,  became 
men  of  special  importance  to  the  country. 
Wolfskill  turned  his  attention  to  fruit-raising, 
VOL  VI,— 30. 


and  may  be  almost  called  the  founder  of  the 
business,  which  in  the  course  of  a  compara- 
tively few  years  grew  into  one  of  the  indus- 
tries of  the  land.  Vignes  started,  so  to  speak, 
the  French  element  of  California.  He  turned 
his  attention  to  the  vineyard  and  wine  inter- 
est, and  did  much  to  aid  and  establish  its 
early  development. 

The  arrivals  of  1831  included  John  J. 
Warner,  James  Kennedy,  William  Mathews, 
and  Zeba  Branch,  Americans.  Of  these, 
Warner  became  the  most  widely  known. 
He  settled  near  the  San  Gregorio  Pass,  and 
in  early  times  his  place  was  the  first  settle- 
ment reached  by  travelers  coming  over  the 
desert  from  the  Colorado  river.  In  1832 
came  Thomas  O.  Larkin,  Nathan  Spear, 
Lewis  T.  Burton,  Isaacs  J.  Sparks,  Philip  O. 
Slade,  Francis  D.  Dye,  Americans;  Juan  Fos- 
ter, Hugo  Reid,  and  Mark  West,  English ; 
and  Nicholas  Fink,  a  German.  Larkin  ap- 
pears to  have  come  out  from  Boston  with  the 
intention  of  manufacturing  flour,  but  found 
other  occupation.  He  became  United  States 
consul,  and  did  much  towards  bringing  the 
country  under  the  American  flag.  Foster 
settled  near  San  Diego,  and  Reid  near  Los 
Angeles,  and  became,  to  all  intents  and 
purposes,  identified  with  the  Californians. 
Spear,  Burton,  and  Sparks  became  mer- 
chants ;  West  settled  at  what  is  now  known 
as  Mark  West,  near  Santa  Rosa,  and  Fink 
became  the  victim  of  a  horrid  murder,  else- 
where in  these  pages  related.  About  the 
same  time  came  Joseph  Paulding,  who  had 
the  honor,  if  honor  it  can  be  called,  of  making 
the  first  billiard  tables  in  California.  In  the 
same  year  a  company  of  Canadian  trappers, 
under  Michel  Laframboise,  found  its  way 
into  the  San  Joaquin  valley,  and  established 
its  head-quarters  near  the  present  city  of 
Stockton,  from  which  circumstance  that 
place  derived  its  original  name  of  "  French 
Camp." 

The  immigration  of  1833  included  Isaac 
Graham,  William  Chard,  James  Wetmarsh, 
and  Thomas  G.  Brown,  Americans ;  Joseph 
Snook,  English;  James  Black  and  Lawrence 
Carmichael,  Scotch ;  Charles  Wolters,  Ger- 
man ;  Pierre  T.  Sicard,  French  ;  and  Grego- 


466 


Juan  Bautista  Alvarado,    Governor  of  California. 


[Nov. 


rio  Escalante,  a  Manilaman.  Graham,  who 
came  from  Hardin  county,  Kentucky,  has 
been  already  noticed.  Chard  was  one  of  his 
companions.  Black  settled  north  of  the  Bay, 
and  became  connected  with  Mclntosh  and 
Dawson,  previously  mentioned.  It  appears 
that  when  Vallejo  was  sent  into  the  Sonoma 
country  with  the  object  of  forming  a  barrier 
against  the  Russians  at  Bodega,  he  induced 
Black,  Mclntosh,  and  Dawson  to  settle  at 
the  Estero  Americano,  and  act  as  a  sort  of 
buffer  against  the  Muscovites.  They  were 
promised  a  grant  of  land  for  their  services, 
which  Mclntosh  afterwards  obtained  under 
the  circumstances  already  mentioned;  but 
Black,  in  the  meanwhile,  had  moved  down 
into  what  is  now  Marin  county,  obtained  a 
grant,  and  settled  there.  He  went  largely 
into  the  stock  business,  and  lived  to  see  his 
cattle  grazing  on  a  thousand  hills.  Esca- 
lante, the  Manilaman,  afterwards  started  a 
drinking  saloon  at  Yerba  Buena,  and  thus 
originated  a  business  in  which  he  has  had 
too  many  imitators. 

In  1834  came  Jacob  P.  Leese,  Alfred  B. 
Thompson,  Ezekiel  Merritt,  George  Nidever, 
and  Joseph  L.  Majors,  Americans.  Of  these, 
Leese  and  Thompson  were  merchants,  Mer- 
ritt a  hunter,  who  played  a  conspicuous  part 
in  the  subsequent  bear-flag  revolution,  and 
Nidever  also  a  hunter.  The  next  year,  1835, 
brought  the  Americans  Dr.  John  Marsh, 
Lemuel  Carpenter,  George  F.  Wyman,  John 
M.  Martin,  and  Thomas  B.  Park.  Dr.  Marsh, 
in  the  course  of  a  few  years  after  his  arrival, 
obtained  a  grant  of  land,  and  settled  at 
Pulpunes,  afterwards  generally  known  as 
"  Marsh's  Ranch  "  near  the  eastern  base  of 
Monte  Diablo.  In  1836  came  Dr.  Nicholas 
A.  Den,  who  was  afterwards  followed  by  Dr. 
Richard  A.  Den.  They  were  Irish ;  married 
California  wives,  and  settled,  one  at  Santa 
Barbara,  and  the  other  at  Los  Angeles. 
There  were  several  arrivals  in  1837  ;  among 
them  John  Wolfskill  and  John  Paty,  Ameri- 
cans, William  Anderson,  an  Englishman,  and 
Peter  Storm,  a  Dane  ;  and  in  1838  came  Dr. 
Edward  A.  Bale,  English,  Pedro  Sansevaine, 
French,  James  O'Brien,  Irish,  and  William 
H.  Davis,  a  native  of  the  Sandwich  Islands. 


Dr.  Bale,  in  the  course  of  a  few  years,  mar- 
ried, obtained  a  grant  of  the  "  Carne  Hu- 
mana "  rancho,  north  of  Yount's,  in  Napa 
valley,  and  settled  there.  Sansevaine  went 
into  the  vineyard  business  near  Los  Ange- 
les. Davis  was  a  trader  in  the  early  days  of 
Yerba  Buena,  and  married  into  the  Estudillo 
family. 

Among  the  accessions  of  1839  were  Wil- 
liam D.  M.  Howard  and  Daniel  Sill,  Ameri- 
cans ;  Henry  Austin,  John  C.  Davis,  William 
J.  Reynolds,  John  Rose,  John  Finch,  Rob- 
ert T.  Ridley,  William  Swinbourne,  and 
Henry  Kirby,  Englishmen ;  John  Sinclair, 
a  Scotchman;  John  Roland,  a  German  ;  Juan 
Bautista  Leandry,  an  Italian  ;  Peter  T.  Sher- 
rebeck,  a  Dane;  and  Jean  J.  Vioget,  a  Swiss. 
In  1840  came  William  Hinckley,  William 
Johnson,  William  Wiggins,  David  Dutton, 
Augustus  Andrews,  and  Frank  Bedwell, 
Americans ;  William  A.  Leidesdorff  and  Pe- 
ter Lassen,  Danes ;  and  Nicolaus  Altgeier,  a 
German.  Hinckley  and  Leidesdorff  became 
prominent  among  the  old  settlers  of  Yerba 
Buena.  Wiggins,  Dutton,  and  Lassen  were 
of  a  party  which  crossed  the  plains  to  Ore- 
gon in  1839.  They  there,  with  John  Stev- 
ens and  J.  Wright,  took  a  vessel,  and  in  July, 
1840,  reached  Bodega,  where  Vallejo  at- 
tempted to  prevent  their  landing.  Notwith- 
standing his  threats,  however,  they  went 
ashore  and  wrote  to  the  American  consul, 
asking  for  passports  and  stating  that  they 
would  wait  for  them  fifteen  days,  and,  if  in 
that  time  they  heard  nothing  further,  they 
would  consider  themselves  in  an  enemy's 
country,  and  take  up  arms  for  their  defense. 
They  were  not  thenceforth  disturbed.  Las- 
sen afterwards  settled  at  the  foot  of  the  Sier- 
ra in  the  northern  part  of  the  Sacramento 
valley.  It  is  from  him  that  Lassen's  Peak 
and  Lassen  county  derived  their  names. 
Altgeier,  like  Sinclair  of  the  year  previous, 
settled  near  Sutler's  fort — Sinclair  on  the 
American  river  nearly  opposite  the  fort,  and 
Altgeier  on  the  Feather  river.  The  latter, 
being  generally  known  only  by  his  first  name, 
the  place  of  his  settlement  got  to  be  known 
by  the  same,  and  gradually  grew  into  the 
town  of  Nicolaus. 


1885.] 


Juan  Eautista  Alvarado,  Governor  of  California. 


467 


One  of  the  most  prominent  of  the  foreign- 
ers in  the  department  in  those  early  days  was 
John  Augustus  Sutler.  He  was  of  Swiss  pa- 
rentage, but  born  in  the  grand  duchy  of 
Baden  in  1803.  In  1834  he  emigrated  to 
New  York;  thence  moved  to  Missouri,  where 
he  lived  a  few  years ;  and  then  started  for 
the  Pacific  coast,  with  the  intention  of  set- 
tling in  California.  He  made  his  way  to  Ore- 
gon ;  thence  to  the  Sandwich  Islands ;  and 
at  length  reached  San  Francisco,  with  a  com- 
pany of  twelve  men  and  two  women,  all  but 
two  or  three  of  whom  were  Islanders,  in  June, 
1839.  His  object  was  to  take  his  people  to 
the  Sacramento  Valley,  and  there  found  a 
colony;  but  as  he  had  no  license  to  settle  in 
the  country,  the  authorities  of  San  Francisco 
refused  to  allow  him  to  land,  until  he  should 
have  procured  the  permission  of  the  gov- 
ernor. Sutter  immediately,  without  disem- 
barking, proceeded  to  Monterey,  presented 
himself  to  Alvarado,  explained  his  plans,  and, 
after  setting  forth  his  purpose  of  making  Cali- 
fornia his  home,  becoming  a  citizen,  and 
founding  a  colony,  asked  for  and  easily  ob- 
tained the  necessary  license  to  land  and  set- 
tle. On  August  28th  of  the  next  year,  he 
presented  his  formal  application  for  natural- 
ization papers  ;  and  they  were  issued  the  next 
day.  He  was  not  only  admitted  to  citizen- 
ship, but  he  was  appointed  a  representative 
of  the  government,  and  entrusted  with  the 
administration  of  justice  on  the  so-called 
frontier  of  the  Sacramento  river.  On  Sep- 
tember i,  1840,  Alvarado  wrote  him  that 
the  maintenance  of  order  on  the  frontier, 
and  especially  its  protection  against  the  con- 
tinuous incursions  of  savages  and  the  rob- 
beries and  other  damages  caused  by  adven- 
turers from  the  United  States,  was  a  matter 
of  great  importance,  and  that  he  was  author- 
ized to  exercise  a  very  extensive  jurisdiction 
on  behalf  of  the  government  over  the  entire 
region.  He  might  pursue  and  arrest  thieves, 
robbers,  and  vagrants,  and  warn  off  hunters 
and  trappers  who  were  unlicensed ;  but  he 
should  not  wage  war,  except  upon  notice  to, 
and  with  express  permission  of,  the  govern- 
ment, bearing  in  mind,  also,  that  the  jurisdic- 
tion of  the  military  commandant  at  Sonoma 


extended  as  far  as  the  Sacramento  and  San 
Joaquin  rivers. 

Sutter,  with  his  people,  had  already  moved 
up  to  the  confluence  of  the  Sacramento  and 
American  rivers,  and,  on  the  site  of  the  pres- 
ent city  of  Sacramento,  established  his  col- 
ony of  New  Helvetia.  He  was  not  slow  in 
making  use  of  the  authority  vested  in  him. 
In  February,  1841,  he  wrote  that  he  was 
about  to  make  an  expedition  with  a  respect- 
able force,  which  he  had  collected,  against 
horse-thieves  ;  and  that  he  was  to  have  one- 
half  of  the  horses  recovered  in  payment  for 
his  trouble  and  expense.  He  also  stated 
what  was,  however,  considerably  beyond  the 
scope  of  the  authority  granted  him,  that  he 
had  felt  himself  obliged,  in  one  instance,  to 
execute  capital  punishment  upon  an  Indian 
chief,  who,  instead  of  furnishing  a  good  ex- 
ample to  his  tribe,  had  committed  various 
robberies,  and  induced  it  to  assist  him  in 
them. 

In  May,  1841,  Peter  Lassen,  the  Dane, 
who  had  arrived  the  year  before,  and  was 
then  settled  as  a  blacksmith  at  Santa  Cruz, 
applied  for  naturalization  ;  and  in  July  follow- 
lowing  Agustin  Jansen,  a  native  of  Flanders, 
did  the  same.  The  latter,  in  his  petition, 
stated  that  he  had  arrived  in  Mexico  in  1825 
with  his  father,  who  soon  afterwards  died ; 
that  he  was  then  ten  years  old  ;  that  he  Had 
remained  in  Mexico  and  California  ever 
since ;  that  he  desired  a  grant  of  land,  but 
had  been  informed  that  he  could  not  obtain 
it  without  being  naturalized ;  and;  therefore, 
he  asked  for  letters.  Jansen's  petition  ex- 
plained very  clearly  the  main  object  that  for- 
eigners had  in  view  in  becoming  naturalized  : 
they  not  only  secured  immunity  from  various 
annoyances  to  which,  as  foreigners,  they 
would  have  been  liable  to  be  subjected,  but, 
generally  speaking,  the  granting  of  letters  of 
naturalization  was  followed  by  the  granting 
of  a  tract  of  land. 

In  January,  1842,  Alvarado  wrote  to  the 
government  at  Mexico  in  relation  to  Sutter, 
his  naturalization,  his  application  for  a  grant 
of  land  for  colonization  purposes,  the  favor- 
able impression  he  had  made,  the  concession 
made  to  him  of  a  tract  of  land,  and  the  foun- 


468 


Juan  Bautista  Alvarado,  Governor  of  California. 


[Nov. 


dation  of  his  establishment  of  New  Helvetia 
in  the  midst  of  the  savages  on  the  banks  of 
the  Sacramento  river.  He  said  that  Sutler 
had,  at  first,  been  obliged  to  defend  himself 
with  only  eight  men,  for  the  reason  that  Val- 
lejo,  the  comandante  at  Sonoma,  had  refused 
to  afford  him  any  assistance  ;  but  that  he  had 
gradually  managed  to  attract  about  him  some 
three  hundred  Indians,  who  lived  in  com- 
munity at  his  establishment,'  and  were  de- 
voted to  him;  that  he  had  established  a  pri- 
mary school  among  them  ;  that  he  had  ac- 
complished a  great  deal  of  good  in  putting 
down  bands  of  horse-thieves,  who  vexed  the 
rancheros  of  the  country,  and  that  the  de- 
partment was  indebted  to  him  for  much  of 
the  tranquillity  it  enjoyed.  In  conclusion,  he 
assured  the  government  that  the  department 
had  no  cause  to  regret  its  concession  to  Sut- 
ter,  and  that  if,  as  seemed  to  be  the  case, 
Vallejo  was  attempting  to  injure  him  by  prej- 
udicial complaints,  it  was  entirely  on  personal 
grounds  and  with  no  authority  to  speak  for 
any  one  but  himself. 

At  the  same  time,  and  in  connection  with 
Sutler,  Alvarado  wrote  to  ihe  governmenl 
that  the  clandestine  ingression  of  American 
adventurers  into  the  country  was  becoming 
serious,  and  that  ihe  department,  on  account 
of  the  weakness  of  its  forces,  was  unable  lo 
prevenl  iheir  coming.  He  said  lhat  a  com- 
pany of  thirty  armed  men  had  recently  ar- 
rived from  Missouri ;  lhal  thirty  others  had 
gone  to  the  Columbia  river  ;  and  he  learned 
that  there*  were  two  hundred  more  ready  to 
start  from  the  western  United  States  for  ihe 
Pacific  coast.  The  prefect  of  the  second 
districl  had  informed  him  lhalanolher  com- 
pany of  one  hundred  and  sixty  were  on  their 
way  from  New  Mexico,  although  as  to  these 
it  was  said  they  had  passports.  He  pro- 
ceeded to  say  that  he  had  directed  Lieulen- 
anl-colonel  Josd  Caslro,  ihe  prefecl  of  ihe 
first  district,  to  proceed  wilh  a  force  of  vol- 
unteers, and  look  after  the  first  mentioned 
company ;  but  it  was  plain  to  be  seen  that, 
if  the  supreme  government  did  not  reenforce 
the  department  with  a  couple  of  hundred  sol- 
diers and  the  necessary  pecuniary  resources, 
it  would  be  likely  to  have  the  same  fate  as 


Texas  had  had.  He  was  of  opinion  lhat, 
with  the  small  assistance  he  suggested,  and 
the  probability  of  thereby  being  able  to  sus- 
tain the  enthusiasm  of  the  people,  he  might 
be  able  to  restrain  the  ambition  of  ihe  ad- 
venlurers  ;  but,  otherwise,  it  was  doubtful 
whether  ihe  integrity  of  ihe  Mexican  territory 
and  the  good  name  of  ihe  nalion  in  Califor- 
nia could  be  preserved. 

The  supreme  government  at  Mexico,  as 
has  been  already  explained,  was  not  in  a  con- 
dition to  afford  any  effective  help  to  Califor- 
nia. It  was,  however,  very  well  aware  of  the 
truth  of  Alvarado's  statements  and  of  the  dan- 
ger ihreatened  by  ihe  Americans.  As  early 
as  May,  1840,  various  arlicles  had  appeared 
in  influenlial  American  newspapers  at  Wash- 
ington, as  lo  ihe  imporlance  to  the  United 
Slales  of  acquiring  ihe  Californias,  and 
were  Iransmilled  by  the  Mexican  minister  to 
Mexico.  In  one  of  these  arlicles  menlion 
had  been  made  of  ihe  Missouri  company  of 
emigranls,  which  proposed  to  starl  for  the 
Pacific  in  May,  1841,  and  to  the  arrival  of 
which  allention  had  been  called  by  Alvara- 
do, as  has  been  seen  in  his  letler.  Il  was 
Irue  that  the  professions  of  the  Missouri  com- 
pany were  peaceful  and  friendly;  but  could 
they  be.  trusted?  It  was  very  doubtful, 
thoughl  ihe  governmenl.  Similar  professions 
had  been  made  by  Ihe  colony  of  Americans 
in  Texas,  and  yel,  in  a  shorl  space  of  lime, 
ihey  had  unfurled  ihe  banner  of  rebellion 
wilh  lamenlable  consequences  to  the  Mexi- 
can nalion.  In  view  of  all  ihe  circumslances, 
ihe  government  urged  upon  Alvarado  the 
necessity  of  adopting  means  lo  prolect  the 
departmenl,  and  suggesled  a  slricl  enforce- 
menl  of  ihe  laws  against  foreigners,  and  an 
especially  vigilant  guard  over  ihe  ports  of 
the  country.  But  it  sent  no  succor.  In 
olher  words,  il  deplored  the  condition  of  af- 
fairs ;  but  it  was  powerless  lo  help  ihem. 

But  while  the  Americans  were  thus  begin- 
ning to  pour  with  ever-increasing  streams 
through  the  defiles  of  the  mountains,  the 
Russians  on  the  coast  were  beginning  to 
fold  their  lenls  and  pass  away.  They  had 
never  manifested  any  special  designs  of  per- 


1885.] 


Juan  Bautista  Alvarado,  Governor  of  California. 


469 


manently  settling  in  the  country,  further  than 
was  indicated  by  their  building  Fort  Ross, 
founding  a  few  farms  in  the  neighborhood 
of  Bodega,  and  establishing  a  few  fishing  and 
trading  posts  at  San  Francisco,  the  Faral- 
lones  Islands,  and  between  there  and  Fort 
Ross.  But  they  had  done  a  very  large  busi- 
ness in  their  hunting  and  fishing  boats,  col- 
lecting as  many  as  eighty  thousand  seal  skins 
at  the  Farallones  in  a  single  season,  penetrat- 
ing all  the  bays  and  creeks,  and  gathering 
immense  quantities  of  beaver,  otter,  and 
other  furs.  They  had  been  good  customers 
for  California  wheat  and  grain,  for  beef,  suet, 
and  fat,  for  dried  meat  and  some  salt ;  and, 
notwithstanding  the  jealousies  of  the  supreme 
government  and  of  a  few  narrow-minded 
Californians,  the  general  public  opinion  had 
recognized  them  as  not  undesirable  neigh- 
bors. During  recent  years,  such  men  as 
Father  Gutierrez  would  once  in  a  while  come 
out  in  a  flaming  manifesto  against  them ;  but 
they  had  little  effect  upon  the  people  in  gen- 
eral, and  the  Russians  did  not  mind  them  or 
feel  in  the  least  disturbed.  Their  coman- 
dante  was  more  comfortably  fixed  at  Ross 
than  even  the  governor  at  Monterey.  He  had 
fine  quarters,  fine  furniture,  a  fine  library, 
a  fine  pianoforte,  Mozart's  music,  French 
wines,  and,  in  fact,  nearly  everything  to  make 
residence  there  pleasant;  while  his  subor- 
dinates, about  eight  hundred  in  number, 
plied  their  vocations  in  every  direction,  in 
total  indifference  to  what  was  said  about 
them.  But,  at  length,  the  fur  seals,  the  ot- 
ters, the  beavers,  and  other  game  became 
scarce ;  other  customers,  and  particularly 
New  England  merchants,  opened  new  mar- 
kets for  Californian  products ;  and  the  Rus- 
sians began  to  find  that  their  establishments 
in  California,  though  otherwise  in  good  con- 
dition, were  no  longer  remunerative.  One 
of  their  last  projects  had  been  the  pitting 
up  of  a  warehouse  at  San  Francisco,  for 
which  Pedro  Kostromitinoff,  the  comandante 
of  Ross,  procured  the  license  of  the  gover- 
nor in  1836 ;  but  even  by  that  time  the  hunt- 
ing and  trade,  for  which  they  sought  the 
country,  had  much  slackened,  and  year  by 
year  grew  worse  and  worse  for  them. 


On  November  23,  1840,  Colonel  Koupre- 
anoff,  ex-governor  of  Russian  America,  then 
at  San  Francisco,  addressed  a  note  to  Alva- 
rado,  announcing  that  the  Russians  were 
about  abandoning  Ross  and  all  their  other 
establishments  in  the  country.  This  infor- 
mation being  transmitted  to  Mexico,  an  or- 
der came  back  that  Alvarado  should  take 
possession  and,  if  practicable,  turn  them 
into  Mexican  establishments.  The  with- 
drawal of  the  hunters  and  fishermen  com- 
menced almost  immediately,  and  every  voy- 
age of  a  Russian  vessel  northward  carried  off 
more  or  fewer  of  them.  On  July  27,  1841, 
Vallejo  wrote  to  Alvarado  from  Sonoma,  that 
Kostromitinoff  was  at  his  house  with  the  ob- 
ject of  negotiating  terms  of  final  evacuation. 
The  occasion  furnished  Vallejo  an  opportu- 
nity for  a  patriotic  outburst.  At  length,  he 
wrote,  were  the  national  colors  again  to  flut- 
ter in  glorious  triumph  where  a  foreign  flag 
had  flaunted  for  twenty-five  long  years.  Soon 
was  the  imperial  eagle  to  give  up  the  field 
to  that  of  the  republic,  which  was  now  again 
about  to  soar  aloft  and  spread  its  protecting 
pinions  over  this  fair  portion  of  the  national 
soil,  so  long  and  so  wrongly  withheld.  But  he 
did  not  wish  to  boast.  On  the  contrary,  he 
wished  to  repress  the  pride  and  vainglory 
which  naturally  arose  in  his  breast  in  con- 
templating his  own  cooperation  in  bringing 
about  this  auspicious  result.  He  would  there- 
fore only  say  that  simple  duty  had  demanded 
of  him  all  that  had  been  accomplished,  and 
that,  in  fact,  he  had  done  no  more  than  com- 
ply with  the  innate  obligation  of  every  Mex- 
ican to  contribute  to  the  glory  of  his  country! 

This  letter  was  followed  by  another  from 
the  same  writer  in  August.  In  this  he  in- 
formed Alvarado  that  in  the  negotiations 
which  he  had  attempted  to  carry  on  with 
Kostromitinoff,  he  had  claimed  and  insisted 
that  the  houses  at  Ross,  as  they  had  been 
built  on  Mexican  soil  and  with  Mexican 
timber,  belonged  to  Mexico,  and  were  not 
to  be  considered  as  in  any  sense  belonging 
to  any  one  else  ;  but  that  the  impracticable 
Russian,  who  had  managed  in  some  irregular 
manner  to  ascertain  the  nature  of  recent  or- 
ders from  Mexico,  had  refused  to  treat  upon 


470 


Juan  Bautista  Alvarado,  Governor  of  California. 


[Nov. 


that  basis,  and  had  expressed  a  determina- 
tion to  visit  Monterey  and  negotiate  with  the 
governor  personally.  Vallejo,  in  conclusion, 
did  not  deem  it  necessary  to  communicate 
at  any  length  his  own  views  upon  the  sub- 
ject, being  satisfied  that  his  Excellency  was 
persuaded,  like  himself,  that  the  Mexican 
nation  could  not,  without  loss  of  dignity, 
consent  to  purchase  or  pay  for  what  already 
incontestably  belonged  to  it. 

The  result  was,  that  the  negotiations  with 
Vallejo  were  broken  off,  and  afterwards  a 
contract  was  entered  into  between  the  Rus- 
sians and  Sutter,  by  the  terms  of  which  the 
latter  agreed  to  purchase  all  the  Russian 
property  for  about  thirty-one  thousand  dol- 
lars. Though  Sutter  had  no  money  to  pay 
with,  he  was  placed  in  possession  of  the  prop- 
erty, and  exercised  acts  of  dominion  over  it. 
Subsequently  an  arrangement  was  made,  by 
which  the  departmental  government  agreed 
to  assume  the  debt  of  Sutter,  and  the  Rus- 
sians to  cede  to  it  all  their  rights  against 
Sutter  and  all  their  rights  of  property. 
Meanwhile,  on  January  ist,  1842,  the  final 
evacuation  took  place,  and  the  Russians  as 
a  body  abandoned  the  country.  On  Janu- 
ary 2d,  Alvarado  transmitted  information  of 
their  departure  to  the  supreme  government ; 
and  soon  afterwards  he  wrote  that  he  had 
recommended  to  Vallejo  to  detail  a  company 
of  troops  to  raise  the  Mexican  flag  over 
Ross,  but  that,  on  account  of  the  depart- 
ment being  in  such  great  distress  as  it  was 
for  want  of  military  resources,  it  would  be 
impossible  to  maintain  any  large  or  regular 
force  there. 

And  thus  ended  the  occupation  of  the 
Russians  in  California.  They  left  a  few 
buildings,  since  gone  to  decay,  a  few  graves, 
and  a  few  names,  such  as  Ross  and  Mount 
St.  Helena.  But  most  even  of  their  names 
have  passed  away  and  are  forgotten.  The 
beautiful  stream,  now  known  as  Russian 
River,  called  by  the  old  Californians  the  San 
Sebastian,  was  by  the  Russians  named  and 
known  as  the  Slawianska.  Bodega  they  called 
Romanzoff,  and  the  stream  southeast  of  Bo- 
dega, now  known  as  the  Estero  Americano, 
the  Avatcha.  Their  principal  farms  were 


called  respectively,  Kostromitinoff,  Vasili, 
Klebnikoff,  and  Don  Jorge  Tochernik.  Na- 
ture, as  well  as  man,  has  assisted  in  destroy- 
ing the  evidences  of  their  twenty-five  years 
of  sojourn.  On  the  mountain  back  of  Ross, 
within  a  mile  or  two  of  their  crumbling  block- 
houses and  church,  where  they  cut  their  tim- 
ber and  where  huge  stumps  still  attest  their 
labors,  a  new  growth  of  trees  has  sprung  up, 
almost  as  large  as  when  the  Russians  first 
invaded  the  primeval  forest.  In  a  very  few 
years  nothing  will  remain  in  all  the  places 
they  once  occupied  to  remind  one  of  their 
former  presence  in  the  country. 

Among  the  various  foreigners  who  were  in 
California  in  these  comparatively  early  times, 
were  three,  Dana,  Robinson,  and  De  Mofras, 
who  wrote  books  of  their  observations  and 
experiences ;  and  it  is  from  them  that  most 
of  the  reliable  information  in  reference  to 
the  social  life  of  the  old  Californians  has  to 
be  derived.  The  Californians  themselves,  as 
a  rule,  were  not  educated,  and  those  who 
could  write  were  not  authors.  In  recent 
years  Alvarado  wrote  a  series  of  interesting 
historical  sketches  of  the  early  part  of  the 
century,  and  Antonio  Maria  Osio  wrote  a 
somewhat  more  connected  account  of  polit- 
ical events  from  about  1825  to  the  American 
occupation.  Both  were  written  in  Spanish? 
and  exist  only  in  manuscript.  Vallejo  and 
others  have  also  written  at  greater  or  less 
length,  but  published  nothing  worthy  of  at- 
tention. The  most  important  writings  of  the 
old  Californians,  however,  consist  of  the  of- 
ficial records  and  correspondence  and  the 
political,  military,  and  ecclesiastical  docu- 
ments irregularly  scattered  among  the  col- 
lection of  some  two  hundred  and  fifty  thous- 
and pages  of  Spanish  manuscript,  usually 
known  as  the  California  Archives.  Of  pri- 
vate liters  and  papers,  few  of  any  importance 
remain. 

The  first  good  American  book  relating  to 
California  was  the  personal  narrative  of  Rich- 
ard Henry  Dana,  entitled  "  Two  Years  be- 
fore the  Mast."  Dana. was  an  undergraduate 
of  Harvard  College,  and  undertook  a  voyage 
to  California  as  a  common  sailor,  for  the  pur- 


1885.] 


Juan  Bautista  Alvarado,   Governor  of  California. 


471 


pose,  mainly,  by  an  entire  change  of  life, 
long  absence  from  books,  hard  work,  plain 
food,  and  open  air,  to  cure  an  affection  of 
his  eyes.  He  shipped  in  the  bark  "  Pilgrim  " 
from  Boston,  and  sighted  Point  Conception, 
after  a  voyage  of  one  hundred  and  fifty  days 
around  Cape  Horn,  in  January,  1835.  The 
vessel  carried  out  what  was  called  an  assorted 
cargo,  consisting  of  liquors  of  all  kinds,  cof- 
fee, tea,  sugar,  molasses,  raisins,  spices,  hard- 
ware, tin-ware,  crockery,  cutlery,  clothing, 
boots  and  shoes,  calicoes,  cottons,  silks,  crapes, 
shawls,  scarfs,  jewelry,  combs,  furniture,  and, 
as  Dana  says,  "everything  that  could  be 
imagined  from  Chinese  fireworks  to  English 
cartwheels."  The  object  of  the  voyage  was 
to  dispose  of  these  goods,  and  return  with 
their  proceeds  in  the  shape  of  hides  and  tal- 
low. The  vessel  was  what  was  known  as  a 
"hide-drogher,"  one  of  a  number  engaged  in 
the  business  of  purchasing  hides  and  tallow 
from  the  missions,  and  carrying  them  to  be 
made  use  of  in  manufactories  in  the  United 
States.  The  import  of  assorted  cargoes,  and 
the  export  of  hides  and  tallow,  had  become 
a  great  trade,  and  constituted  the  chief  com- 
merce of  the  country  down  to  1849. 

It  became  a  part  of  Dana's  business,  while 
in  California,  as  one  of  the  common  sailors 
of  his  vessel,  to  visit  the  various  points  along 
the  coast  and  collect  hides.  This  was  no 
easy  matter.  The  hides,  when  taken  from 
the  animals,  were  staked  out  on  the  ground, 
so  as  to  dry  in  the  sun  without  shrinking. 
They  were  then  folded  once,  lengthwise, 
with  the  hair  on  the  inside,  and  in  this  form 
sent  down  to  the  beach  and  piled  up  above 
high-water  mark,  ready  for  shipment.  There 
were  no  wharves  in  those  days,  and  few 
places  where  the  surf  was  not  rough  even  in. 
the  calmest  weather.  For  this  reason,  far 
from  the  vessel  being  able  to  approach  the 
shore,  even  the  boats  had  to  be  anchored 
outside  of  the  surf,  and  the  hides  to  be  car- 
ried to  them  through  the  breaking  waves  by 
the  sailors.  As  they  had  to  be  kept  dry,  it 
was  found  that  the  only  safe  and  convenient 
method  was  to  carry  them  one  by  one  on  the 
head ;  and  it  required  considerable  strength 
and  skill,  particularly  when  the  sea  was  rough 


and  a  stiff  breeze  blowing,  to  do  so  success- 
fully. The  sailors  provided  themselves  with 
thick  Scotch  bonnets  to  protect  their  heads, 
but  had  to  go  barefooted,  as  shoes  could  not 
stand  the  constant  soaking  in  salt  water  that 
was  necessary.  It  was,  altogether,  a  wet, 
hard,  and  disagreeable  occupation,  especially 
where  the  beach  was  stony;  but  in  time  the 
student  got  used  to  it  and  became  an  expert 
in  "  tossing  a  hide,"  as  it  was  termed.  He 
remained  in  the  country  nearly  two  years, 
and,  though  his  observations  were  confined 
chiefly  to  the  ports  and  embarcaderos  and 
the  people  he  met  there,  he  had  an  open 
eye  and  a  facile  pen,  and  furnished  an  ex- 
ceedingly agreeable  and  interesting  account 
of  what  he  saw.  So  far  as  his  opportunities 
extended,  he  gave  all  possible  information, 
and  in  a  style  always  graphic  and  sometimes 
splendid.  But  he  had  but  little  intercourse 
with  the  prominent  people,  and,  not  being 
familiar  with  their  language,  could  not  con- 
verse freely  even  with  those  he  met.  While 
no  one  could  describe  better  what  he  saw, 
there  were  many  things  in  the  life  and  man- 
ners of  the  Californians  which  he  had  no 
opportunity  of  seeing.  His  book  was  first 
published  at  Boston,  in  1840. 

The  next  American  who  wrote  a  book  re- 
lating to  the  subject  was  Alfred  Robinson. 
His  account  was  also  a  personal  narrative, 
under  the  title  of  "  Life  in  California."  He 
left  Boston  as  a  young  mercantile  clerk  on  a 
trading  voyage,  in  1828,  and  reached  Mon- 
terey in  February,  1829.  His  business  re- 
quired him  to  travel  about  the  country  and 
become  thoroughly  acquainted  with  all 
classes  of  the  people,  high  as  well  as  low. 
The  Spanish  became  familiar  to  him.  In 
the  course  of  a  few  years,  he  married  a 
daughter  of  Jose"  de  la  Guerra  y  Noriega  of 
Santa  Barbara,  and  settled  in  the  country 
permanently.  When  Dana's  book  came  out 
there  were  various  observations  made  in  it, 
in  reference  particularly  to  the  California 
women,  which  Robinson  considered  unjust ; 
and  it  was  as  much  to  show  that  Dana's  re- 
marks were  too  sweeping  as  for  any  other 
purpose,  that  Robinson  wrote.  His  plan  was 
not  to  criticise  Dana,  or  polemically  dispute 


472 


Juan  Bautista  Alvarado,  Governor  of  California. 


[Nov. 


what  he  had  said,  but  to  give  a  full  and  mi- 
nute account  of  his  own  observations  and 
experiences  during  his  residence  from  1829 
to  about  1846,  when  his  book  was  published 
in  New  York.  As  an  appendix  to  it,  he  pub- 
lished a  translation  of  Father  Geronimo 
Boscana's  work  on  the  Indians,  called  "Chin- 
igchinick." 

Robinson's  family  relations,  business  as  a 
prominent  merchant,  and  long  residence, gave 
him  in  ample  measure  the  opportunities  of 
information  and  knowledge  which  Dana 
lacked.  He  was  somewhat  more  straight- 
forward and  business-like  in  his  narrative, 
apparently  looking  at  things  with  older  eyes, 
but  also  able  as  a  writer,  having  large  per- 
ceptive faculties  and  a  clear,  forcible,  and 
pleasant  style.  His  powers  of  description 
were  good;  and  he  furnished  many  admirable 
sketches  of  various  old  California  people  and 
of  scenes  which  he  witnessed  and  in  some 
of  which  he  took  part.  It  cannot  be  said 
that  either  Dana  or  Robinson  wrote  with 
scientific  precision  ;  neither  of  them  attempt- 
ed to  give  a  complete  description  of  the  coun- 
try ;  and  while  Dana  was  perhaps  more  or 
less  prepossessed  as  a  New  England  Ameri- 
can against  the  Mexican  character,  Robinson 
was  to  some  extent  influenced  by  the  politi- 
cal and  social  feelings  of  that  particular  class 
and  caste  of  the  community  into  which  he 
married.  But  both  wrote  excellent  books  of 
their  kind. 

The  most  complete  book  of  those  days 
upon  the  subject  of  California,  however,  was 
that  of  Duflot  de  Mofras.  He  was  a  French 
gentleman  of  learning  and  culture,  attached 
to  the  French  legation  in  Mexico,  and  was 
commissioned  by  his  government  to  make  a 
scientific  exploration  of  and  report  upon  the 
Californias  and  Oregon,  and  especially  upon 
their  ports  and  harbors.  A  passport  was 
issued,  for  the  purpose  of  enabling  him  to 
travel  with  perfect  freedom,  by  the  Mexican 
government,  in  May,  1840.  He  sailed  by  the 
way  of  San  Bias,  Mazatlan,  and  Guaymas, 
and  thence,  doubling  Cape  San  Lucas,  up 
the  coast ;  and  he  spent  several  years  in  his 
work.  He  visited  all  the  points  of  interest, 
traveled  from  place  to  place,  made  surveys 


and  observations,  examined  the  country,  con- 
sulted old  books,  rummaged  among  the  rec- 
ords, studied  the  institutions,  observed  the 
occupations,  character,  manners,  customs, 
and  daily  life  of  the  people  of  all  classes, 
talked  with  the  governors,  military  men, 
priests,  and,  in  fact,  every  one  who  had  any- 
thing of  importance  to  impart,  and  gathered 
information  of  all  kinds  and  upon  all  sub- 
jects connected  with  his  work.  In  this  way 
he  amassed  a  great  amount  of  matter,  out  of 
which  he  had  the  skill  and  judgment  to  se- 
lect and  arrange  a  work  of  marked  literary 
ability,  giving  a  very  complete  and  generally 
accurate  account,  not  only  of  the  existing 
condition,  but  of  the  main  features  of  the 
history  of  the  country,  with  numerous  and 
elaborate  maps  and  charts.  The  book  was 
written  in  French,  and  published  by  order  of 
the  French  government  at  Paris,  in  1844.  It 
was  entitled  "Exploration  du  Territoire  de 
1'Oregon,  des  Californies,  et  de  la  Mer  Ver- 
meille,  executee  pendant  les  annees  1840, 
1841,  et  1842.  Exploration  of  the  Terri- 
tory of  the  Oregon,  of  the  Californias,  and 
of  the  Vermilion  Sea,  executed  during  the 
years  1840,  1841,  and  1842." 

It  would  be  difficult  to  find  a  more  com- 
plete account  of  any  comparatively  unknown 
country,  made  out  by  order  of  a  foreign  gov- 
ernment, and  containing  more  varied  and  val- 
uable information  in  relation  to  it,  than  this 
work  of  Duflot  de  Mofras.  It  was  intended 
to  place  France  in  possession  of  all  that  was 
then  known  about  the  northwest  coast  of 
America;  and  it  did  so  most  thoroughly. 
It  was  not  designed  as  a  history  ;  but  still  it 
gave  more  historical  information  than  any 
other  work  of  the  time.  The  geography,  the 
geology,  the  topography,  the  botany  and  nat- 
ural history,  the  meteorology,  the  agriculture, 
manufactures,  and  commerce,  the  business 
done  and  amusements  pursued,  the  work  of 
the  missionaries  and  the  results  of  seculariz- 
ation, the  Indians  and  their  manners,  habits, 
character,  and  condition,  and,  in  fact,  nearly 
everything  that  anybody  had  known  or  knew 
about  the  region,  was  treated  of  in  plain, 
clear,  and  forcible  language.  Considering 
the  circumstances  under  which  the  book  was 


1885.] 


Juan  Bautista  Alvarado,  Governor  of  California. 


473 


written,  and  the  time  in  which  it  was  com- 
pleted, together  with  its  general  accuracy  and 
reliability,  it  may  well  be  called  a  work  of 
ability,  creditable  alike  to  its  author  and  to 
the  government  .under  whose  auspices  it  was 
published. 

Two  other  works  relating  to  California,  of 
considerable,  though  not  of  equal  merit  or 
value,  were  produced  about  the  same  time 
by  authors  who  did  not  reside  or  gather  their 
information  in  the  country.  The  first  of 
these  was  "  California  :  A  History  of  Upper 
and  Lower  California,"  by  Alexander  Forbes, 
an  English  merchant  of  Tepic,  Sonora.  His 
book  was  finished  in  1835,  and  sent  to  Eng- 
land, where  it  was  published  in  1839.  It 
was,  with  the  exception  of  the  accounts  con- 
tained in  the  voyages  of  navigators,  the  first 
original  work  upon  the  subject  in  English. 
Its  chief  object  was  to  call  the  attention  of 
the  people  of  Great  Britain  to  the  Califor- 
nias,  and  the  feasibility  of  their  acquisition 
by  the  British  crown. 

The  second  work  referred  to  was  "The 
History  of  Oregon  and  California,"  by 
Robert  Greenhow,  translator  and  librarian 
tft  the  department  of  State  at  Washing- 
ton. It  grew  out  of  a  "  Memoir,  Historical 
and  Political,  on  the  Northwest  Coasts 
of  North  America  and  the  Adjacent  Terri- 
tories "  by  the  same  author,  published  by 
order  of  the  United  States  senate  in  1840, 
and  was  designed  chiefly  to  throw  light  on 
the  controversy  between  the  United  States 
and  Great  Britain  in  reference  to  the  north- 
west boundary.  It  contained  a  very  full  ac- 
count of  all  the  voyages  and  expeditions  to 
the  northwest  coast  from  the  time  of  Cortes 
down  to  1844,  in  which  year  it  was  published. 
Of  the  interior  history  of  California,  neither 
Forbes  nor  Greenhow  attempted  to  give  any 
except  very  meager  information. 

Such  were  the  principal  books  specially 
relating  to  California,  that  were  produced 
from  the  beginning  of  the  century  down  to 
the  American  occupation.  They  may  be 
said  to  have  formed  a  group,  all  written  or 
published  while  Alvarado  was  governor;  and 
it  is,  therefore,  not  improper  that  they  should 
be  mentioned  in  connection  with  his  admin- 


istration. It  had  been  a  comparatively  long 
period  since  the  old  books  of  Venegas,  Bae- 
gert,  and  Palou,  the  pioneers  of  California 
literature,  appeared ;  and  it  was  a  consider- 
able time  afterwards — short  in  the  number  of 
years,  but  long  in  the  march  and  progress  of 
events — before  the  writers  of  the  American 
occupation  commenced  their  multitudinous 
labors. 

Had  all  been  accomplished  for  education 
in  California  that  was  desired  and  attempted 
by  Alvarado,  there  might  have  been  books 
of  value  by  native  writers  of  the  old  stock. 
In  addition  to  the  mission  schools  for  neo- 
phytes, there  had  been  from  very  early  times 
primary  schools  for  white  children  at  the  pre- 
sidios and  pueblos.  But  these  schools  were 
usually  taught  by  superannuated  soldiers, 
who  had  picked  up  only  a  smattering  of 
learning  in  their  younger  days  and  knew  lit- 
tle except  how  to  maintain  discipline.  In 
Figueroa's  time,  teachers  of  somewhat  more 
ability  were  appointed ;  and  a  normal  school 
was  established.  But  Alvarado  carried  the 
system  much  further ;  devoted  a  great  deal 
of  attention  to  the  subject,  and  gave  it  all 
the  encouragement  he  was  able.  He  himself 
established  a  new  school  at  Monterey,  with 
teachers  whom  he  caused  to  be  brought 
for  the  purpose  from  Mexico ;  and,  besides 
the  rudimentary  branches  of  reading,  writ- 
ing, and  arithmetic,  he  directed  instruction 
to  be  given  in  type-setting  and  printing.  In 
1842  he  ordered  a  sum  of  money  to  be  ap- 
propriated for  medals  to  the  most  proficient 
scholars  of  the  normal  school. 

The  first  printing  press  and  types  in  Cali- 
fornia appear  to  have  been  brought  up  from 
Mexico  during  Figueroa's  time,  in  1834.  On 
November  ist  of  that  year,  an  invitation  to  a 
ball,  given  in  honor  of  the  directors  of  colo- 
nization, was  issued  at  Monterey,  and  seems 
to  have  been  the  first  thing  printed  in  the 
country.  From  that  time  forward,  various 
short  official  documents  appeared  in  print. 
In  1839  there  was  what  was  called  the  gov- 
ernment printing-office  at  Sonoma,  which 
was  afterwards,  about  1842,  established  at 
Monterey.  It  was  used  exclusively  for  gov- 
ernment purposes. 


474 


Juan  Bautista  Alcarado,  Governor  of  California. 


[Nov. 


The  condition  of  the  secularized  missions, 
at  the  time  Alvarado  became  governor,  was 
by  no  means  satisfactory,  nor  did  it  improve 
during  the  discord  of  the  early  part  of  his 
administration.  But  on  January  17,  1839, 
almost  immediately  after  the  strife  was  over, 
and  he  had  been  formally  recognized  by  the 
supreme  government  as  governor,  he  issued 
a  very  important  order  in  relation  to  them. 
In  view  of  the  fact,  he  said,  that  no  proper 
regulations  for  the  government  of  the  ad- 
ministrators of  the  missions  had  been  pub- 
lished ;  and  as  these  officers,  authorized  as 
they  were  to  dispose  of  the  property  under 
their  charge,  did  not  seem  to  understand  the 
degree  of  dependence  they  owed  to  the  po- 
litical government ;  and  as  the  departmental 
junta  was  not  in  session  to  take  the  steps 
necessary  under  the  circumstances  but  it 
was  at  the  same  time  plain  that  the  secular- 
ization of  the  missions  .could  not  successfully 
proceed  as  it  was  then  going  on,  he  would, 
therefore,  in  the  name  and  as  the  act  of  the 
government,  prescribe  a  series  of  provisional 
regulations,  with  which  the  administrators 
would  be  required  to  comply  until  further 
order. 

In  the  first  place,  every  person  who  had 
acted  as  an  administrator  of  a  mission, 
should  immediately,  if  he  had  not  already 
done  so,  present  a  full  report  of  his  admin- 
istration ;  and  every  person  at  that  time  act- 
ing as  administrator  should  present  his  re- 
•  port  for  the  entire  period  he  had  been  in 
office,  up  to  the  end  of  December,  1838,  to- 
gether with  an  exact  account  of  all  the  debts 
due  from  or  to  his  mission.  In  the  next 
place,  no  sale  should  thenceforth  be  made, 
and  no  debt  contracted,  without  the  previous 
knowledge  of  the  government ;  and  any  at- 
tempted sale  made,  or  debt  contracted,  in 
contravention  of  this  provision,  should  be 
null  and  void.  No  debts  to  merchants  or 
private  persons  should  be  paid  without  ex- 
press permission  of  government ;  nor  with- 
out like  permission  should  any  cattle  be 
slaughtered,  except  such  as  might  be  neces- 
sary for  the  support  of  the  Indians,  and  or- 
dinary current  consumption.  The  traffic  in 
horses  and  mules  for  woolen  goods,  which 


had  hitherto  been  carried  on  at  the  various  es- 
tablishments, should  absolutely  and  entirely 
cease ;  and  those  in  charge  should  see  that 
the  mission  looms  were  again  placed  in  op- 
eration, so  that  the  requirements  of  the 
Indians  might  be  thus  supplied.  Monthly 
statements  of  the  ingress  and  egress  of  all 
kinds  of  produce  storehoused  or  distributed 
should  be  furnished.  The  administrators 
should  proceed  at  once  to  construct  a  build- 
ing at  each  establishment  for  their  own  use 
and  habitation,  and  vacate  those  they  then 
occupied;  and  they  should  not  permit  any 
white  person  to  settle  at  any  establishment 
while  the  Indians  remained  in  community. 
They  should  furnish  censuses,  distinguishing 
classes,  sexes,  and  ages,  and  noting  those 
who  had  been  emancipated  and  established 
on  mission  lands.  They  should  also  furnish 
lists  of  all  employees,  with  their  wages,  so 
that  each  establishment  might  be  regulated 
according  to  its  means  ;  and  it  was  to  be  dis- 
tinctly understood  that  thenceforth  no  sala- 
ries were  to  be  paid  in  cattle  or  domestic 
animals. 

These  regulations  were  to  apply  in  all 
cases,  except  San  Carlos,  San  Juan  Bautista, 
and  Sonoma,  which  were  to  be  specially  pro- 
vided for  ;  but  former  administrators  of  these 
establishments  were  to  present  their  reports 
in  the  same  manner  as  others.  Alvarado 
also  gave  notice  that  he  would  continue  to 
make  such  further  regulations  as  might  be 
.  deemed  necessary,  and  particularly  in  refer- 
ence to  police  matters,  and  the  methods  to 
be  observed  in  making  out  accounts.  And 
in  conclusion  he  gave  further  notice  that  for 
the  examination  of  accounts,  and  everything 
relating  thereto,  he  would  appoint  a  "  visita- 
dor"  or  inspector,  with  a  competent  salary 
to  be  paid  out  of  the  funds  of  the  establish- 
ments, who  was  to  maintain  an  office  at  such 
point  as  might  be  directed  and  be  governed 
by  such  instructions  as  would  in  due  time  be 
furnished. 

In  March  following,  Alvarado  appointed 
William  E.  P.  Hartnell,  the  English  mer- 
chant of  Monterey,  who,  as  will  be  recollect- 
ed, had  been  a  resident  of  the  country  since 
1822,  and  naturalized  in  1830,  and  was  an 


1885.] 


Juan  Bautista  Alvarado,   Governor  of  California. 


475 


accomplished  accountant  as  well  as  a  linguist, 
"  visitador-general "  of  missions,  and  in  April 
issued  a  series  of  instructions  to  him.  In 
accordance  with  these  instructions,  Hartnell 
proceeded  immediately  to  make  what  he 
called  his  first  visit.  He  went  to  each  of  the 
ex-missions  from  San  Diego  to  San  Fernando, 
commencing  at  the  former,  and  gave  an  ex- 
act and  very  circumstantial  account  of  each 
of  them,  with  complete  inventories  of  all  the 
property  of  every  kind  still  remaining,  and  a 
note  of  every  matter  of  interest  which  he 
was  able  to  glean  in  reference  to  the  manner 
in  which  they  had  been  administered.  His 
report  was  a  melancholy  one.  It  was  pitia- 
ble, he  said,  to  see  the  destruction  and  mis- 
ery, and  hear  the  complaints  of  the  Indians. 
At  San  Diego  they  clamored  loudly  against 
the  administrator,  Ortega.  At  the  Indian 
pueblo  of  San  Dieguito  they  complained  that 
Juan  Osuna,  the  alcalde  of  San  Diego,  had 
driven  them  away  from  their  cultivable  fields, 
and  left  them  only  lands  so  impregnated 
with  nitre  that  it  was  impossible  to  maintain 
themselves.  At  San  Juan  Capistrano  they 
clamored  against  the  administrator,  Santiago 
Arguello;  but,  on  investigation,  Hartnell  was 
satisfied  that  the  complaints  were  unjust, 
and  that  the  trouble  had  been  fomented  by 
a  few  dissatisfied  whites  and  rebellious  In- 
dians, whom  it  would  be  well,  he  said,  to 
remove.  At  San  Fernando  they  complained 
bitterly  that  the  rancho  of  San  Francisco  had 
been  taken  away  from  them  and  granted  to 
Antonio  Del  Valle :  their  bitterness  was,  in 
fact,  so  violent,  that  Del  Valle  was  afraid  to 
trust  himself  and  family  on  the  ranch.  An 
idea  of  the  confusion  in  which  affairs  were 
found  could  be  gained  from  the  circumstance 
that  Juan  Perez,  the  administrator,  was  un- 
able to  read  or  write,  and  that  Madaftaga, 
the  person  he  employed  for  that  purpose, 
was  entirely  unworthy  of  confidence. 

Hartnell  found  difficulty  in  accomplishing 
anything  of  value  for  the  Indians.  The 
mission  establishments  were  already  substan- 
tially ruined.  Most  of  the  Indians  were 
gone.  At  San  Diego  there  were  only  two 
hundred  and  seventy-four ;  at  San  Luis  Rey 
perhaps  about  five  hundred;  at  San  Juan 


Capistrano  not  above  eighty;  at  San  Gabriel 
three  hundred  and  sixty-nine;  and  at  San 
Fernando  four  hundred  and  sixteen  :  in  other 
words,  not  more  than  about  one-eighth  the 
number  there  had  been  in  1833.  The  mis- 
erable condition  to  which  they  were  reduced 
induced  most  of  those  who  remained  to  think 
of  deserting  and  flying  to  the  mountains ; 
and  many  of  those  of  San  Luis  Rey  did  so. 
But  it  was  plainly  the  earnest  desire  of  the 
government  to  prevent  their  dispersion,  to 
recall  the  fugitives,  and,  eitheir  by  transform- 
ing them  into  citizens  capable  of  supporting 
themselves,  or  reorganizing  them  into  com- 
munities, to  ameliorate  their  condition.  This 
was  the  ulterior  object  of  HartnelPs  appoint- 
ment, and  orders  were  given  to  the  prefect 
of  the  district  to  render  such  assistance  as 
might  be  necessary. 

Before  passing  northward  from  San  Fer- 
nando, Hartnell  authorized  Juan  Bandini, 
the  administrator  of  San  Gabriel,  to  expend 
two  thousand  dollars  for  the  purpose  of 
clothing  the  Indians  of  that  place ;  and  to 
feed  them  he  directed  the  killing  of  cattle, 
as  he  also  did  at  several  other  missions. 
He  then  proceeded  to  Santa  Barbara.  In 
a  very  short  time  after  arriving  there  he 
received  a  hasty  note  from  Father  Narciso 
Duran,  of  the  neighboring  mission,  to  the 
effect  that  the  administrator,  Francisco 
Cota,  had  just  made  an  attack,  so  violent 
that  it  might  be  pronounced  demoniac, 
upon  a  couple  of  Indians,  who  had  fled  to 
him  for  protection;  that  he  did  not  know 
any  cause  for  the  assault,  except  that  the  In- 
dians had  complained  of  the  conduct  of  the 
administrator,  and  that  Hartnell's  immediate 
presence  with  a  few  soldiers  was  absolutely 
necessary  to  preserve  order.  After  providing 
for  soldiers  in  case  of  necessity,  Hartnell 
proceeded  to  the  mission  alone,  and  at  the 
end  of  a  brief  investigation,  in  the  course  of 
which  he  was  treated  with  great  indignity  by 
the  angry  administrator,  he  suspended  him 
from  office.  Upon  subsequently  examining 
Cota's  accounts,  he  found  them  in  inextrica- 
ble confusion,  and  reported  the  most  scan- 
dalous neglect,  which  he  believed  to  be  the 
result,  if  not  of  bad  faith,  of  the  grossest  stu- 


476 


Juan  Bautista  Alvarado,  Governor  of  California. 


[Nov. 


pidity.  At  Santa  Inez  there  were  not  Indians 
enough  to  brand  the  cattle ;  most  of  them 
had  run  away,  and  those  that  remained  had 
not  been  clothed  for  two  years. 

In  August,  Hartnell  went  to  the  ex-mission 
of  San  Jose',  and  found  it  in  quite  as  bad  a 
condition  as  those  of  the  south.  There 
were  about  five  hundred  and  eighty-nine 
Indians  remaining,  or  about  one-fourth  the 
number  that  had  been  there  six  years  before. 
They  complained  bitterly  of  their  treatment 
by  Jose'  Jesus  de  Vallejo,  the  administrator. 
They  said  they  were  sometimes  torn  violently 
from  their  houses,  thrown  on  the  ground, 
kicked  and  stamped  upon,  and  sometimes 
flogged  tfl  the  extent  of  a  hundred  lashes. 
These  lashes,  they  complained,  were  very  dif- 
ferent from  those  inflicted  by  the  missiona- 
ries in  former  times,  which  were  more  like 
those  of  a  father  to  his  children.  They  also 
said  they  were  only  half  fed,  and  so  badly 
clothed  that  many  of  the  women  could  not 
show  themselves  on  account  of  their  naked- 
ness ;  and  they  charged  that  the  administra- 
tor had  carted  away  large  quantities  of  cloth- 
ing from  the  mission  to  his  ranch,  and  that  he 
speculated  for  his  own  advantage  in  what  re- 
mained. But  notwithstanding  these  charges, 
which  he  found  to  a  great  extent  well 
founded,  Hartnell  was  of  opinion  that  the 
government  could  not  find  an  administrator 
of  greater  activity  and  business  knowledge 
than  Vallejo;  and  he  therefore  drew  up  a  se- 
ries of  instructions  to  be  strictly  complied 
with  for  the  future,  and  recommended  that 
no  change  should  be  made  in  the  office.  By 
these  instructions,  the  administrator  was  di- 
rected to  see  that  the  Indians  should  attend 
church,  as  before  secularization,  and  that  the 
priests  should  have  authority  to  punish  them 
for  staying  away,  as  of  old;  he  w^s  not  to 
permit  any  labor  on  Sundays  and  feast  days; 
he  was  not  to  inflict  more  than  twenty-five 
lashes,  and  in  no  case  to  punish  for  com- 
plaints made  to  the  government ;  he  was  to 
make  no  purchases  or  sales,  and  not  to  spec- 
ulate for  his  own  advantage  without  express 
permission ;  he  was,  in  connection  with  the 
priest,  to  prevent  the  Indians  from  holding 
their  degrading  and  superstitious  nocturnal 


dances  ;  and  he  was  to  keep  a  diary  of 
events  relating  to  the  affairs  of  the  establish- 
ment, and  furnish  monthly  abstracts  of  it. 

It  soon  became  plain,  however,  that  to  ap- 
ply anything  like  an  adequate  remedy  to  the 
abuses  of  the  administrators,  the  offices 
themselves,  with  their  high  salaries,  would 
have  to  be  destroyed.  Alvarado,  having  con- 
vinced himself  of  this  fact,  did  not  hesitate. 
On  March  ist,  1840,  he  issued  a  new  series 
of  regulations,  with  the  very  first  of  which 
he  abolished  the  office  of  administrator  alto- 
gether, and  provided  for  that  of  major-domo 
in  its  place.  The  great  discretionary  powers 
vested  in  the  administrators  were  done  away 
with.  The  major-domos  were  to  be  mere 
servants,  and  to  receive  small  annual  sala- 
ries— the  smallest,  those  of  San  Diego  and 
San  Juan  Capistrano,  being  one  hundred  and 
eighty  dollars  each,  and  the  largest,  that  of 
San  Jose',  six  hundred  dollars.  They  were 
to  take  care  of  the  property  of  the  ex-missions; 
compel  the  Indians  to  assist  in  community 
labors  ;  aid  the  priests  in  watching  over  their 
morals ;  keep  and  remit  accounts  of  pro- 
ducts ;  act  as  stewards  of  the  priests,  and  pro- 
vide for  them  on  their  accustomed  visits  ;  at- 
tend to  the  distribution  of  goods  to  the  In- 
dians ;  provide,  on  the  orders  of  government, 
for  military,  and  other  persons  traveling  on 
public  service;  act  as  hosts  to  persons  travel- 
ing on  private  business,  charging  for  entertain- 
ment a  reasonable  amount  proportioned  to 
their  means  ;  preserve  order ;  and  generally 
comply  with  all  orders  of  the  visitador  and  the 
government.  They  were  not  to  make  any 
purchases  or  sales,  or  hire  out  any  Indians, 
or  slaughter  any  cattle,  except  the  regular 
slaughterings  ordered  by  the  visitador,  with- 
out the  express  previous  permission  of  the 
government.  They  and  their  families  were 
to  have  free  quarters  and  provisions ;  and, 
after  one  year  of  faithful  service,  they  were 
to  be  entitled,  under  certain  restrictions,  to 
have  some  help  from  the  Indians  in  their  own 
private  labors. 

The  office  of  "  visitador-general  "  was  con- 
tinued, with  Hartnell  as  incumbent,  at  an 
annual  salary  of  three  thousand  dollars.  He 
was  to  make  all  contracts  with  foreign  ves- 


Juan  Bautista  Alvarado,  G-overnor  of  California. 


477 


sels  and  private  persons,  for  the  benefit  of 
the  establishments.  He  was  to  provide  these 
with  the  necessary  goods  and  supplies;  draw 
bills  for  the  payment  of  debts  ;  conduct  all 
correspondence  between  the  government  and 
subordinate  officers  connected  with  the  ex- 
missions  ;  recommend  major-domos  and 
other  employees,  and  pay  their  salaries;  deter- 
mine upon  such  regular  and  extraordinary 
slaughterings  of  cattle  as  might  be  necessary  ; 
and  make  such  regulations  of  his  office,  and 
suggest  such  improvements  in  the  general 
management  of  his  department,  as  he  might 
deem  proper.  Notice  was  given  at  the  same 
time,  that  all  persons  having  claims  against 
anyof  theestablishments  should  present  them 
to  the  visitador ;  that  the  government  would 
listen  to  any  complaints  of  abuses,  and  en- 
deavor to  apply  proper  remedies  ;  that  spe- 
cific provision  would  be  made  for  the  main- 
tenance of  public  worship  and  the  support  of 
the  priests,  who,  until  major-domos  should 
be  appointed,  were  to  take  charge  of  their 
respective  establishments ;  and  that  all  for- 
mer rules  and  orders  in  conflict  with  the  new 
ones  were  repealed  and  annulled.  These 
new  regulations  were  to  apply  in  all  cases, 
except  San  Carlos,  San  Juan  Bautista,  Santa 
Cruz,  Soledad,  and  San  Francisco  Solano, 
which  were  to  continue  under  the  immediate 
control  of  the  government. 

Upon  the  publication  of  the  new  system, 
Hartnell  addressed  a  letter  to  Father  ]os6 
Maria  de  Jesus  Gonzales,  president  of  the 
northern  missions,  desiring  to  know  whether 
he  and  the  clergy  under  his  jurisdiction  were 
disposed  to  acquiesce  in  the  new  arrangement, 
and  would  cooperate  with  the  government  in 
carrying  it  into  effect.  Gonzales  answered 
that  he  was  in  most  cordial  accord  with 
the  views  expressed  by  the  governor,  and 
that  he  and  his  ecclesiastic  brethren  would 
do  everything  they  could  to  accomplish  the 
laudable  purposes  of  the  government.  Hart- 
nell thereupon,  in  accordance  with  the  regu- 
lations, nominated  major-domos  for  San  Jose 
and  Santa  Clara,  and  commenced  casting 
about  for  suitable  persons  to  fill  like  offices 
at  San  Francisco  and  San  Rafael. 

In  reference   to  San   Rafael,  however,  a 


difficulty  was  immediately  experienced  with 
Vallejo,  the  comandante-militar  at  the  neigh- 
borhood post  of  Sonoma.  He  had  assumed 
to  take  the  management  of  the  affairs,  and 
particularly  the  property  of  the  establish- 
ment into  his  own  hands,  and  objected  stren- 
uously to  any  interference  on  the  part  of  the 
government  and  the  visitador-general.  On 
account  of  his  objections,  Hartnell  at  first 
declined  to  take  any  steps  in  reference  to 
the  subject,  and  asked  further  instructions  ; 
but,  upon  being  expressly  directed  to  act  with 
San  Rafael  as  with  any  other  ex-mission  un- 
der his  jurisdiction,  he  immediately  pro- 
ceeded to  that  place,  and  had  a  long  confer- 
ence with  the  Indians.  They  said*  they  did 
Hot  wish  to  remain  at  the  mission ;  claimed 
that  there  were  not  enough  of  them  to  carry 
on  labor ;  complained  that  they  had  already 
been  deprived  of  their  lands ;  and  demanded 
their  liberty  and  the  distribution  amongst 
them  of  the  remaining  property,  as,  they  as- 
serted, had  been  promised  them  by  the  co- 
mandante.  Being  asked  whom  they  would 
obey — the  government  or  the  comandante — 
they  replied  that  they  had  never  opposed, 
and  did  not  wish  to  oppose,  the  government; 
but  at  the  same  time,  they  did  not  wish  to 
incur  the  ill-will  of  the  comandante. 

Under  the  circumstances,  Hartnell  deemed 
it  prudent,  before  proceeding  further,  to  have 
a  personal  consultation  with  Alvarado  and 
accordingly  left  San  Rafael,  and  returned  to 
Yerba  Buena,  with  the  intention  of  going  on 
to  Monterey.  But  as  his  boat  approached 
the  landing  place  at  Yerba  Buena,  Vallejo, 
who  had  been  apprised  of  his  visit  and  was 
waiting  for  him  with  a  launch  filled  with  sol- 
diers, ordered  him  on  board  the  launch  and 
carried  him  as  a  prisoner  back  to  San  Rafael. 
The  latter  asked  an  explanation,  but  Vallejo 
answered  there  would  be  time  enough  for 
explanations  afterwards.  At  the  Read  ranch, 
some  six  or  eight  miles  from  San  Rafael, 
Vallejo  disembarked,  and  proceeded  by  land, 
while  the  launch  with  Hartnell  on  board  took 
all  night  to  reach  its  destination.  The  next 
day,  upon  his  arrival,  Hartnell  was  ordered 
into  Vallejo's  presence,  and  informed  that  he 
was  at  liberty  to  speak.  He  answered  by 


478 


Juan  Bautista  Alvarado,  Governor  of  California. 


[Nov. 


asking  why  he  had  been  made  a  prisoner 
and  treated  in  the  manner  he  had  been. 
Vallejo  replied  that  he  had  had  no  business 
to  go  to  San  Rafael  and  interfere  with  its 
affairs.  Whether  satisfied  or  not  with  this 
explanation,  Hartnell  appears  to  have  made 
no  special  complaint,  but  proceeded  to  dis- 
cuss terms  of  accommodation.  It  was  finally 
agreed  that  he  was  to  recommend  that  the 
San  Rafael  Indians,  of  whom  there  were  less 
than  two  hundred,  should  be  given  their  lib- 
erty ;  that  one-third  part  of  the  cattle,  with 
a  few  horses  and  mares,  should  be  distrib- 
uted amongst  them,  and  that  the  other  prop- 
erty should  be  devoted  to  the  payment  of 
debts  and  the  maintenance  of  religious  ser- 
vice at  the  church.  This  being  agreed  uporr, 
a  boat  was  placed  at  Hartnell's  disposal,  and 
he  returned  to  Yerba  Buena. 

Towards  the  end  of  May,  1840,  Hartnell 
made  a  report  upon  the  condition  of  affairs 
under  the  new  system  at  the  missions  of  San 
Francisco,  Santa  Clara,  and  San  Jose".  At 
San  Francisco,  Tiburcio  Vasquez  was  major- 
domo,  and  Francisco  de  Haro  clerk,  at  a 
monthly  salary  of  ten  dollars  each.  There 
were  only  nine  or  ten  Indian  men  capable 
of  labor  at  the  mission :  all  the  others  were 
employed  in  the  service  of  private  persons, 
and  many  of  them  against  their  will.  In 
other  words,  they  were  held  as  slaves,  and 
not  as  voluntary  servants,  as  the  government 
contemplated  in  giving  license  for  their  em- 
ployment. At  Santa  Clara  the  major-domo 
was  Ignacio  Alviso,  and  the  Indians  there 
were  satisfied.  At  San  Jos^  affairs  were  also 
promising  under  the  major-domo,  Josd  Maria 
Amador. 

In  July,  Hartnell  proceeded  again  to  the 
south,  and  made  what  he  called  his  second 
visit.  At  San  Luis  Rey  he  experienced  dif- 
ficulties somewhat  similar  to  those  encoun- 
tered at  San  Rafael.  He  appointed  Josd 
Antonio  Estudillo  major-domo,  but  Pio  Pico, 
the  former  administrator,  and  Andres  Pico, 
his  brother,  who  was  acting  under  his  instruc- 
tions, refused  to  deliver  up  possession,  and 
assumed  to  manage  the  establishment  and 
its  dependencies  of  Pala  and  Temecula,  very 
much  as  they  pleased.  The  condition  of  the 


Indians  was  pitiable,  and  particularly  so  at 
Pala.  All  they  had  to  clothe  themselves 
with  were  rags.  The  women,  especially,  who 
were  compelled  to  resort  to  tule  aprons, 
complained  that  they  had  devoted  their  whole 
lives  to  the  service  of  the  mission,  and  their 
only  recompense  was  barely  enough  food  to 
support  life,  nakedness,  and  a  heritage  of 
misery.  All  were  violently  opposed  to  the 
administration  of  the  Picos,  and  charged 
them  with  all  manner  of  oppression.  At 
San  Juan  Capistrano,  Hartnell  appointed  Ra- 
mon Arguello  major-domo  ;  but  the  Indians 
complained  of  all  the  Arguellos ;  and  it  was 
finally  deemed  prudent  to  remove  him,  and 
appoint  Agustin  Jansens  in  his  place.  At 
San  Gabriel  there  were  complaints  against 
Juan  Bandini,  the  ex-administrator;  but  that 
person  appeared  before  Hartnell  and  satis- 
factorily explained  his  conduct ;  and  the  es- 
tablishment was  harmoniously  turned  over  to 
the  care  of  Juan  Perez,  as  major-domo. 
Meanwhile,  the  Picos  had  resorted  to  various 
strategems  to  avoid  relinquishing  their  hold 
on  San  Luis  Rey,  and  Hartnell  had  at  length 
applied  to  the  prefect  for  the  necessary  force 
to  compel  them  to  obey  the  orders  of  the 
government.  This  movement  had  its  desired 
effect,  and  Estudillo  was  finally  placed  in 
possession. 

During  these  last  visits,  there  was  much 
said  about  giving  the  Indians  at  several  of 
the  ex  missions  their  liberty,  and  organizing 
them  into  regular  Indian  pueblos,  as  had 
been  contemplated  by  the  original  acts  of 
secularization.  The  small  number  and  mis- 
erable condition  of  the  Indians  at  San  Fran- 
cisco, for  example,  induced  Hartnell  to 
recommend  that  they  should  be  collected 
together  at  San  Mateo,  and  formed  into  a 
pueblo  at  that  place;  at  San  Juan  Capistrano, 
a  somewhat  similar  proposition  for  the  estab- 
lishment of  a  pueblo  was  made  by  the  In- 
dians themselves  :  and,  if  Hartnell  had  con- 
tinued in  office,  it  is  likely  something  would 
have  been  done  for  the  San  Francisco  In- 
dians, as  was  afterwards  actually  done,  or  at- 
tempted to  be  done,  at  San  Juan  Capistrano. 
But  the  many  difficulties  he  experienced  in  at- 
tempting to  regulate  the  disorders  everywhere 


1885.] 


Juan  Bautista  Alvarado,  Governor  of  California. 


479 


existing,  rendered  his  office  extremely  dis- 
tasteful to  him.  Besides  the  unpleasant  ren- 
counters with  Vallejo  and  the  Picos,  he  in 
August,  1840,  met  with  a  rebuff  from  the 
government  itself,  in  relation  to  the  appoint- 
ment of  a  major-domo  for  San  Fernando. 
This  thoroughly  disgusted  him.  On  Sep- 
tember yth,  1840,  he  resigned.  The  resig- 
nation was  accepted,  and  the  Secretary  of 
State  directed  to  look  after  the  affairs  of  the 
vacated  office. 

One  of  the  great  difficulties  continually 
experienced  in  all  attempts  to  regulate  the 
mission  establishments,  was  their  anomalous 
position  in  point  of  law.  The  mission  sys- 
tem had  been  abolished ;  the  missions  them- 
selves had  been  declared  secularized,  and  in 
repeated  instances  the  establishments  were 
already  called,  and  in  some  respects  treated 
as,  Indian  pueblos.  But,  on  the  other 
hand,  they  were  not  pueblos,  properly  speak- 
ing. They  had  no  existence  as  organized 
municipalities.  Their  real  condition  may 
perhaps  be  best  explained  by  saying  that 
their  control  and  internal  management  had 
merely  passed  from  the  hands  of  the  mission- 
aries into  those  of  the  political  government. 
Though  ex-missions  in  law,  they  were  still 
treated  by  the  government  as  missions  in  fact. 
The  Indians  were  still  regarded  as  held  in  tu- 
telage, but  in  tutelage  under  the  civil  instead 
of  the  ecclesiastical  authorities.  It  was  upon 
the  ground  that  San  Rafael  was  a  pueblo,  and 
not  a  mission,  that  Vallejo  attempted  to  jus- 
tify his  opposition  to  Hartnell,  though  his 
claim  was  not  admitted.  So,  although  the  es- 
tablishment at  Doloreswas  sometimes  spoken 
of  as  a  pueblo,  it  was  not,  properly  speaking, 
a  pueblo,  but  an  ex-mission.  In  1839,  J°s^ 
Castro,  the  prefect,  at  the  solicitation  of  the 
inhabitants,  made  an  application  to  the  gov- 
ernment for  the  organization  of  a  pueblo ; 
and  the  government  did,  as  a  matter  of  fact, 
authorize  the  granting  of  building  lots;  but 
there  was  no  authoritative  organization  or 
recognition  of  the  place  as  a  pueblo,  in  the 
sense  in  which  either  San  Jose,  or  Los  An- 
geles, or  the  Indian  Las  Flores,  San  Pasqual, 
and  San  Dieguito,  were  pueblos. 

The  only  one  of  the  ex-missions  that  was 


regularly  erected  into  an  Indian  pueblo  was 
San  Juan  Capistrano.  This  was  effected  in 
accordance  with  a  series  of  regulations  issued 
by  Alvarado  on  July  29,  1841.  They  pro- 
vided that  the  Indian  population  should  be 
organized  into  a  municipality  ;  that  distribu- 
tions of  house-lots,  cultivable  fields,  cattle', 
agricultural  implements,  and  other  property, 
should  be  made,  and  a  regular  system  of  mu- 
nicipal government  established.  There  were 
various  provisions  designed  to  protect  the 
Indians  against  the  whites,  and  to  insure  their 
equal  rights  ;  and,  if  either  Indians  or  whites 
abandoned  the  lands  granted  to  them  for  a 
year,  there  was  to  be  a  forfeiture  of  such 
lands,  which  might  then  be  granted  by  the 
municipality  to  other  persons.  To  carry 
into  practical  operation  the  plan  thus  formed, 
Juan  Bandini  was  appointed  commissioner, 
and  in  September  he  proceeded  to  the  spot. 
Finding  the  Indians  very  much  divided  in 
opinion,  some  being  in  favor  of  the  new 
pueblo  and  some  in  favor  of  remaining 
under  the  mission  system,  and  wishing  to  as- 
certain the  strength  of  the  respective  parties, 
he  divided  them  into  two  separate  compa- 
nies, and  found  that  those  in  favor  of  the 
pueblo  were  seventy,  while  those  in  favor  of 
the  mission  were  only  thirty,  chiefly  women 
and  very  old  men.  He  spoke  to  the  latter, 
representing  the  desire  of  the  government 
that  they  should  be  entirely  free  from  tutel- 
age, so  as  to  enjoy  for  themselves  the  entire 
product  of  their  own  labors ;  and  in  a  short 
time  several  of  the  minority  crossed  over  and 
swelled  the  numbers  of  the  majority.  He 
then,  in  the  presence  of  them  all  and  in  the 
name  of  the  government,  proclaimed  that 
what  had  theretofore  been  the  mission  had 
become,  and  thereby  became,  the  pueblo  of 
San  Juan  Capistrano  ;  and  from  that  date 
the  new  pueblo  commenced  a  sickly  kind  of 
existence.  In  a  short  time  afterwards  Ban- 
dini resigned.  In  the  returns  made  two 
years  later,  it  appeared  that  of  about  one 
hundred  and  fifty  persons  to  whom  lots  had 
been  distributed,  sixty-four,  including  forty- 
six  Indians  and  all  the  whites,  had  forfeited 
their  grants. 

After  the  plan  of  secularization  had  been 


480 


Juan  Bautista  Aluarado,  Governor  of  California. 


[Nov. 


adopted  in  1834,  by  the  terms  of  which 
among  other  things  the  ecclesiastical  juris- 
dictions of  the  missions  were  to  be  changed 
into  curacies  and  the  missionaries  to  be  re- 
placed with  curates,  it  was  thought  desirable 
to  erect  the  two  Californias,  which  had  hith- 
erto been  dependent  ecclesiastically  upon 
Sonora,  into  a  separate  bishopric.  The  sub- 
ject having  been  brought  to  the  attention  of 
the  Mexican  congress,  that  body,  on  Septem- 
ber 19,  1836,  decreed  that  in  case  such  a 
bishopric  were  created,  the  bishop,  whom  it 
reserved  the  right  to  confirm,  should  receive 
a  salary  of  six  thousand  dollars,  and  that 
the  pious  fund  of  the  Californias  should  be 
placed  under  his  care  and  charge.  During 
the  troubles  which  followed,  no  further  step 
appears  to  have  been  taken  in  relation  to  the 
subject;  but  on  June  22,  1839,  about  the 
same  time  that  Alvarado  was  appointed  con- 
stitutional governor,  a  new  diocese  was  creat- 
ed of  the  Californias,  and  Father  Francisco 
Garcia  Diego,  who  had  first  come  to  the 
country  with  Figueroa,  in  1833,  from  the 
convent  of  Guadalupe  de  Zacatecas,  was  ap- 
pointed bishop.  He  took  the  constitutional 
oath  of  office  at  the  hands  of  the  President 
of  the  Republic  in  the  city  of  Mexico,  on 
September  19,  1840,  and  towards  the  end  of 
the  next  year,  returning  to  California,  arrived 
at  San  Diego  on  December  n,  1841. 

The  news  of  the  bishop's  arrival  was  re- 
ceived with  the  most  enthusiastic  expressions 
of  joy,  especially  at  Santa  Barbara,  where  he 
proposed  to  reside.  He  reached  that  place 
on  January  n,  1842,  and  was  welcomed  by 
the  entire  population.  Triumphal,  arches 
had  been  prepared  ;  the  troops  were  called 
out ;  and  a  carriage  of  state  was  in  waiting 
at  the  beach.  When  he  disembarked,  and 
had  blessed  the  multitude,  a  procession  was 
formed,  and,  as  it  moved,  the  great  guns  of 
the  presidio  thundered  forth  and  were  an- 
swered in  glad  acclaim  by  those  of  the  bark 
"  Guipuzcoana  "  in  the  roadstead.  As  the 
procession  went  on  towards  the  mission, 
the  people  grew  wilder  and  wilder  in  their 
enthusiasm ;  they  took  the  horses  from  the 
carriage  and  dragged  it  along  themselves. 
The  bishop  himself  partook  of  the  general 


excitement.  Halting  at  a  small  house  on  the 
wayside,  he  alighted,  went  in,  and  put  on  his 
pontifical  robes  ;  and  then,  resuming  his  seat, 
he  was  carried  like  a  conqueror  in  triumph 
to  the  church,  which  was  to  be  the  seat  of 
his  episcopal  see. 

Almost  immediately  upon  his  arrival,  the 
bishop  commenced  the  exercise  of  his  func- 
tions, and,  among  others,  those  of  an  eccle- 
siastical judge.  His  first  case  was  what  the 
French  call  a  cause  celebre.  Casilda  Sep- 
ulveda,  daughter  of  Enrique  Sepulveda  of 
Los  Angeles,  complained  that  she  had  been 
married  to  Antonio  Teodoro  Truxillo  against 
her  will,  and  asked  for  a  decree  annulling  the 
marriage.  The  facts  appeared  to  be  that  her 
father  had  violently  assumed  to  dispose  of 
her  hand  without  her  own  consent,  and,  in 
fact,  against  her  open  and  express  protesta- 
tions. Being  a  lady  of  spirit,  she  refused  to 
submit,  declined  to  recognize  Truxillo  as  her 
husband,  and  appealed  to  the  bishop.  The 
novel  character  of  the  complaint,  and  the 
prominence  in  social  life  of  the  parties,  ren- 
dered the  case  one  of  extraordinary  interest 
to  the  Californians  of  those  times.  Father 
Narciso  Duran  was  appointed  theological 
counsel ;  a  great  deal  of  testimony  was  taken, 
and  finally,  after  submitting  the  cause  to  the 
arbitrament  of  God,  as  was  substantially  said, 
the  bishop  pronounced  the  marriage  null  and, 
void.  The  father  was,  at  the  same  time,  di- 
rected by  the  bishop's  sentence  to  thenceforth 
treat  his  daughter  with  love  and  kindness,  and 
draw  a  veil  over  the  past;  and  he  was  threat- 
ened with  severe  punishment  if  he  acted  oth- 
erwise. But  neither  was  Casilda  willing  to 
return  to  her  father's  roof,  nor  was  her  father 
willing  to  receive  or  any  longer  recognize  her 
as  his  daughter.  Whether  it  was  that  the 
interference  of  the  bishop  roused  animosities 
that  could  not  be  allayed,  or  whether  it  was 
merely  because  the  same  hot  blood  animated 
one  that  animated  the  other,  it  is  certain  that 
the  father  and  daughter  were  never  recon- 
ciled. On  the  contrary,  the  quarrel  between 
them  appears  to  have  grown  more  and  more 
bitter,  and  to  have  led  to  several  other  vio- 
lent and  scandalous  quarrels — one  between 
Enrique  and  his  wife,  and  one  between  En- 


1885.] 


Juan  Bautista  Alvarado,  Governor  of  California. 


481 


rique  and  the  judges  of  Los  Angeles,  acting 
in  assistance  to  the  ecclesiastical  court.  It 
was  an  unfortunate  business  all  around. 

The  bishop  entertained  grand  projects  of 
improvement.  He  undertook  to  erect  at 
Santa  Barbara  a  cathedral,  an  episcopal  pal- 
ace, a  monastery,  and  a  theological  school. 
Plans  were  drawn,  and  large  piles  of  stone 
heaped  up  in  various  places  to  be  used  in 
the  foundations  of  the  new  buildings.  The 
people,  upon  being  called  on,  contributed 
towards  the  cost ;  but  the  chief  reliance  for 
resources  was  upon  the  pious  fund  of  the 
Californias,  which,  as  will  be  recollected,  the 
Mexican  congress  in  1836  had  ordered  to 
be  turned  over  to  the  care  and  management 
of  whoever  should  be  appointed  bishop.  In 
February,  1842,  however,  Santa  Anna,  who 
in  the  political  discords  of  the  period  had 
again  been  lifted  to  the  presidency  of  the  re- 
public, refused  to  recognize  the  bishop's 
right ;  transferred  the  administration  of  the 
fund,  then  supposed  to  amount  in  value  to 
two  million  dollars,  to  one  of  his  subordinate 
officers,  and  soon  afterwards  ordered  all  the 
property  of  which  it  consisted  to  be  sold  in 
a  mass,  and  the  proceeds  to  be  paid  into 
the  national  treasury.  This  confiscation  de- 
prived the  bishop  of  his  strength,  and  put  an 
end  to  his  projects.  It  was  a  long  time,  on 
account  of  disarrangement  of  the  mails,  be- 
fore definite  information  of  these  facts 
reached  California  ;  but  when  they  became 
known,  the  work  at  Santa  Barbara  stopped  ; 
and  the  stone  heaps  remained  stone  heaps, 
and  nothing  more. 

There  was  a  very  great  difference  between 
the  bishop  and  the  government,  in  respect 
to  the  promptitude  with  which  they  organ- 
ized their  respective  courts  and  assumed  ju- 
dicial jurisdiction.  The  bishop,  as  has  been 
seen,  made  no  delay,  but  at  once  intervened 
as  an  ecclesiastical  judge  in  the  most  impor- 
tant relations  of  civil  society.  The  govern- 
ment, on  the  other  hand,  experienced  the 
greatest  difficulty  in  organizing  its  superior 
tribunal  of  justice,  or  anything  above  the  in- 
ferior tribunals  known  as  courts  of  first  in- 
stance, which  were  usually  held  by  alcaldes 
or  justices  of  the  peace.  In  1839  Alvarado 
VOL  VI.— 31. 


had  particularly  urged  upon  the  attention  of 
the  departmental  junta  the  importance  of 
organizing  a  superior  court ;  and,  in  accord- 
ance with  his  recommendations,  four  judges 
and  a  fiscal  or  attorney-general,  had  been 
appointed  ;  but  several  of  the  judges  and  the 
fiscal  declined  to  act ;  and  for  a  year  or  two 
nothing  further  was  done.  On  April  i,  1841, 
in  a  proclamation  relating  to  a  horrible  mur- 
der which  had  been  committed  in  the  pre- 
vious January,  upon  the  person  of  Nicholas 
Fink,  a  German  merchant  of  Los  Angeles, 
Alvarado  again  called  attention  to  the  sub- 
ject. He  said  that  the  murderers  had  been 
tried  in  the  court  of  first  instance,  convicted, 
and  sentenced  to  death,  and  that  the  sen- 
tence had  been  remitted  to  the  capital  of  the 
republic  for  approval;  but  that  the  delays 
occasioned  by  this  circuitous  mode  of  pro- 
ceeding, and  particularly  in  view  of  the  anar- 
chical state  of  affairs  at  Mexico,  were  intol- 
erable. There  might  have  been  a  remedy, 
he  continued,  if  the  superior  tribunal  had 
organized,  but  it  had  not,  and  the  depart- 
mental junta  could  not  at  that  time  be  le- 
gally convened  to  fill  up  the  vacancies  ;  and, 
under  the  circumstances,  he  was  of  opinion 
that  the  judges  of  first  instance  should,  un- 
til the  superior  tribunal  could  be  regularly 
installed,  be  authorized  to  execute  even  capi- 
tal sentences. 

Within  less  than  a  month  after  this  proc- 
lamation, another  brutal  murder  was  com- 
mitted upon  the  person  of  an  Englishman 
named  Anthony  Campbell,  near  Santa  Clara. 
There  being  no  British  vessel  then  on  the 
coast,  complaint  was  made  to  Captain  For- 
rest, of  the  United  States  sloop-of-war  St. 
Louis,  then  at  Monterey;  and  he  at  once  ad- 
dressed a  note  to  Alvarado,  calling  his  atten- 
tion to  the  subject,  and  asking  that  an  inves- 
tigation might  be  made  and  justice  done.  A 
few  months  afterwards  a  somewhat  similar  let- 
ter was  received  from  Duflot  de  Mofras,  of 
the  French  scientific  expedition  then  on  the 
coast,  complaining  of  the  murder,  in  1840, 
of  a  Frenchman,  named  Pierre  Duboise,  at 
Sonoma,  and  also  asking  for  the  prosecution 
of  the  murderer.  About  the  same  time  news 
came  from  Todos  Santos  in  Lower  Califor- 


482 


Juan  Bautista  Alvarado,   Governor  of  California. 


[Nov. 


nia,  that  Jose  Antonio  Garraleta,  the  coman- 
dante  at  that  point,  had  been  stabbed  to 
death  by  Juanita  Gastelum,  though  it  ap- 
peared from  the  accounts  that  the  girl  had 
inflicted  the  mortal  blow  to  save  her  mother 
from  a  threatened  assault,  and  was  entirely 
justified.  These  repeated  reminders  of  the 
necessity  of  effective  measures  to  stem  the 
course  of  crime,  together  with  the  governor's 
plainly  expressed  opinions,  finally  led  to  an 
extraordinary  session  of  the  departmental 
junta,  for  the  purpose  of  filling  the  vacancies 
in  the  superior  tribunal  of  justice  and  put- 
ting that  court  into  working  order.  The  junta 
met  on  May  31,  1842,  and  elected  Manuel 
Castanares  fiscal  in  the  place  of  Juan  Ban- 
dini,  with  Jose"  Maria  Castanares  as  substi- 
tute, and  Eugenio  Montenegro,  Joaquin 
Gomez,  Tiburcio  Tapia,  and  Juan  Anzar, 
substitute  members  of  the  court,  to  fill  vacan- 
cies that  had  occurred  or  might  occur.  The 
tribunal  organized  and  did  some  work ;  but 
it  cannot  be  said  to  have  distinguished  itself 
either  for  learning,  diligence,  or  effectiveness. 
None  of  the  judges  were  lawyers,  nor  were 
there  lawyers  in  the  country.  Between  1827 
and  1831  there  were  only  two,  and  when  they 
died  there  was  none.  At  the  end  of  1839 
there  was  but  a  single  one. 

As  governor  of  Lower  California  Alvarado 
did,  and  could  do,  but  little.  Affairs  there, 
ever  since  the  erection  of  the  Department  of 
the  Californias  under  the  constitution  of 
1836,  which  joined  it  to  Alta  California,  had 
been  in  a  very  unruly  and  unsatisfactory 
state.  In  1839,  soon  after  Alvarado  was  ap- 
pointed constitutional  governor  of  the  de- 
partment, he  suggested  to  the  Mexican  presi- 
dent the  propriety  and  importance  of  mak- 
ing a  personal  tour  of  inspection  to  the 
various  populated  points  of  Lower  California, 
as  well  as  to  those  of  Alta  California,  for  the 
purpose  of  reconciling  conflicting  interests, 
restoring  tranquillity,  and  regulating  the  gov- 
ernment. But  the  central  authorities,  prob- 
ably deeming  Lower  California  of  little 
account,  replied  that  he  should  confine  his 
visits  to  Alta  California.  At  that  time  Luis 
del  Castillo  Negrete,  who  succeeded  Fer- 
nando de  Toba,  in  1837,  was  acting  in  the 


capacity  of  political  chief  of  Lower  Califor- 
nia. In  1840,  when  Alvarado,  as  governor, 
issued  a  decree  in  relation  to  the  disposi- 
tion of  the  property  of  those  mission  estab- 
lishments where  there  no  longer  existed  any 
community  of  neophytes,  Castillo  Negrete 
attempted  to  execute  it  within  his  jurisdic- 
tion, but  the  attempt  evoked  a  determined 
opposition  on  the  part  of  the  missionaries. 
In  a  short  time  the  quarrel  assumed  a  belli- 
cose character.  Francisco  Padilla  put  him- 
self at  the  head  of  the  malcontents;  marched 
with  a  small  body  of  troops  against  Castillo 
Negrete  at  Todos  Santos;  assaulted  and  took 
the  place,  and  on  July  10,  1842,  compelled 
Negrete  to  deliver  up  the  political  command. 
The  great  distance  of  the  seat  of  disturbance 
from  Monterey,  and  the  arid,  mountainous, 
and  almost  impassable  character  of  the  coun- 
try for  hundreds  of  miles  south  of  San  Diego, 
not  only  prevented  Alvarado  from  taking  any 
part  in  the  controversy  but  even  from  as- 
certaining anything  definite  about  its  exist- 
ence. All  he  knew,  as  he  wrote  to  Mexico 
in  June,  1842,  was  that  Lower  California, 
though  an  integral  part  of  the  department, 
and  in  law  politically  dependent  upon  Alta 
California,  was,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  practi- 
cally independent  of  it. 

It  was  in  Alvarado's  time,  and  about 
March,  1842,  that  gold  was  first  discovered 
in  Alta  California.  It  is  true  that  among 
the  various  reports  of  Drake's  voyage,  there 
is  one  which,  in  speaking  of  his  landing  at 
New  Albion,  in  1578,  says  that  "  there  is  no 
part  of  earth  to  be  here  taken  up,  wherein 
there  is  not  a  reasonable  quantity  of  gold  or 
silver."  But  it  seems  probable  that  this  state- 
ment was  an  interpolation.  Whether  so  or 
not,  it  is  very  certain  that  Drake  saw  neither 
gold  nor  silver  on  the  coast.  There  is  no 
pretence  that  he  did  in  a  very  minute  and 
circumstantial  narrative,  entitled  "  World 
Encompassed,"  by  his  chaplain,  Francis 
Fletcher,  who  would  hardly  have  omitted  a 
matter  of  so  much  importance,  if  known ; 
nor  is  there  any  reference  to  gold  or  silver  in 
any  of  the  narratives  of  the  sailors  appended 
to  and  published  with  the  "  World  Encom- 
passed." For  these  reasons,  and  on  account 


1885.] 


Juan  Bautista  Alvarado,   Governor  of  California. 


483 


also  of  the  very  general,  indefinite,  and  in- 
terjectional  character  of  the  statement  itself, 
it  must  be  rejected  as  a  fabrication.  It  is 
further  true,  that  there  were  reports  that  Cap- 
tain Jedediah  S.  Smith,  the  first  American 
who  arrived  in  California  overland,  found 
gold  in  the  Sierra  Nevada  mountains  about 
the  year  1826  ;  but  his  discovery,  if  it  were 
true,  took  place  on  the  eastern  side  of  the 
Sierra,  and  not  within  what  is  now  known  as 
California.  But  in  1841,  Andres  Castillero, 
the  same  person  who  afterwards  discovered 
the  New  Almaden  quicksilver  mine  in  Santa 
Clara  county,  while  traveling  from  Los  An- 
geles to  Monterey,  found  near  the  Santa 
Clara  river  a  number  of  water-worn  pebbles, 
which  he  gathered  up  and  carried  with  him 
to  Santa  Barbara.  He  there  exhibited  them, 
said  they  were  a  peculiar  species  of  iron 
pyrites,  and  declared  that,  according  to  Mex- 
ican miners,  wherever  they  were  found,  there 
was  a  likelihood  of  gold  being  also  found. 
A  ranchero,  named  Francisco  Lopez,  who 
was  living  on  Piru  creek,  a  branch  of  the 
Santa  Clara  river,  but  happened  at  the  time 
to  be  at  Santa  Barbara,  heard  Castillero's 
statement  and  examined  his  specimens. 
Some  months  afterwards,  having  returned 
home,  he  went  out  on  a  search  for  strayed 
cattle.  At  noon,  when  he  dismounted  from 
his  horse  for  the  purpose  of  resting,  he  ob- 
served a  few  wild  onions  growing  near  where 
he  lay.  He  pulled  them  up,  and  in  doing 
so  noticed  the  same  kind  of  pebbles  as  those 
to  which  Castillero  had  called  his  attention. 
Remembering  what  Castillero  had  said  about 
them,  he  took  up  a  handful  of  earth,  and, 
upon  carefully  examining  it,  discovered  gold. 
The  news  of  the  discovery,  the  exact  loca- 
tion of  which  was  a  place  called  San  Francis- 
quito,  about  thirty-five  miles  northeast  of 
Los  Angeles,  soon  spread ;  and  in  a  few 
weeks  a  great  many  persons  were  engaged  in 
washing  and  winnowing  the  sands  and  earth 
in  search  of  gold.  The  auriferous  fields  were 
found  to  extend  from  a  point  on  the  Santa 
Clara  river,  about  fifteen  or  twenty  miles 
above  its  mouth,  over  all  the  country  drained 
by  its  upper  waters,  and  thence  easterly  to 
Mount  San  Bernardino.  On  May  14,  1842, 
Alvarado  wrote  to  the  prefect  of  the  district. 


reproving  him  for  not  having  given  official 
notice  of  the  discovery,  and  directing  him  to 
gather  and  forward  an  account  of  all  circum- 
stances of  interest  relating  to  the  gold  for 
transmission  to  the  supreme  government. 
From  that  time  to  this  day,  there  has  been 
more  or  less  working  of  these  mines ;  but 
no  places  of*  very  great  richness  have  been 
found,  and  none  to  compare  with  those  after- 
wards discovered  on  the  tributaries  of  the 
Sacramento  and  San  Joaquin.  Taking  the 
whole  country  together,  however,  from  the 
Santa  Clara  river  to  Mount  San  Bernardino, 
a  very  considerable  quantity  of  gold  has  been 
extracted.  During  the  first  year,  though  the 
methods  of  working  were  exceedingly  rude, 
it  is  said  that  Lopez  and  a  partner,  named 
Charles  Barec,  with  a  company  of  Sonorians, 
took  out  about  eight  thousand  dollars.  In 
November,  1842,  a  package  of  about  eigh- 
teen ounces  of  the  gold  was  sent  by  Abel 
Stearns  to  the  United  States  mint  at  Phila- 
delphia ;  and,  upon  assay,  it  was  found  to  be 
worth  a  little  over  three  hundred  and  forty- 
four  dollars. 

In  person,  Alvarado  was  a  fine  looking, 
well-proportioned  man.  In  an  old  military 
document,  made  at  Loreto  in  1797,  his  fa- 
ther, Jose  Francisco  Alvarado,  then  twenty 
years  of  age,  was  described  as  a  little  over 
five  feet  one  inch  in  height,  hair  chestnut, 
eyes  gray,  color  white,  nose  sharp  and  in- 
clined to  aquiline,  face  without  beard  or  scar ; 
and  this  description,  increasing  the  height  a 
few  inches  and  darkening  the  hair  and  eyes, 
would  apply  also  to  the  son.  He  was  strong, 
active,  and  athletic.  In  1739,  while  govern- 
or, at  the  age  of  thirty,  he  married  Martina, 
daughter  of  Francisco  Maria  Castro,  of  San 
Pablo.  It  was  a  marriage  by  proxy,  Alva- 
rado being  at  the  time  in  Santa  Clara,  while 
the  bride  was  at  home.  Soon  after  the  cere- 
mony she  was  conducted  by  her  brothers  to 
her  husband's  house  at  Monterey,  and  the 
pair  continued  to  live  there  until  1848,  when 
they  removed  to  San  Pablo.  Their  eldest 
children  were  "  born  in  the  purple  "  at  Mon- 
terey. 

Notwithstanding  his  good  constitution  and 
excellent  general  health,  Alvarado,  in  Sep- 
tember, 1841,  had  a  severe  attack  of  illness, 


484  Fulfillment.  [Nov. 

and  found  himself  obliged  to  retire  for  a  num-  hearing  of  Micheltorena's  arrival  at  San  Die- 

ber  of  months  from  the  cares  of  office.     He  go,  Alvarado  issued  a  proclamation  to  the 

accordingly  devolved  the  government  tern-  people  of  the  department,  announcing  that 

porarily  upon   Manuel  Jimeno  Casarin,  the  he  had  asked  to  be  relieved  from  office,  and 

"  primer  vocal "  of  the  departmental  junta,  congratulating  them  upon  the  appointment 

But  on  January  i,  1842,  having  recovered  of  a  successor  so  well  spoken  of  for  military 

his  health,  he  again  resumed  his  position  as  ability  and  nobility  of  character, 
head  of  affairs.     Meanwhile,  his  representa-        On  December  20,  1842,  before  Michelto- 

tions  to  the  supreme  government  at  Mexico  rena  arrived  at  Monterey  to  take  possession 

of  the  defenseless  condition  of  California,  of  his  office,  Alvarado  having  another  attack 

the  great  number  of  Americans  that  were  of  illness,  he  again  devolved  the  government 

commencing  to  pour  in,  and  the  danger  of  upon  Jimeno  Casarin  for  delivery  to  his  suc- 

the  country's  experiencing  the  fate  of  Texas,  cessor,  and  finally  withdrew.     His  adrninis- 

induced  Santa  Anna,  then  again  in  posses-  tration  had  lasted  from  December  20,  1836, 

sion  of  power,  to  appoint  a  new  governor  in  when  he  took  the  oath  as  revolutionary  gov- 

the  person  of  a  general  of  brigade  in  the  ernor  of  the  freehand  sovereign  State  of  Alta 

Mexican  army  named  Jose  Manuel  Michel-  California,  until  his  resignation  as  constitu- 

torena,  who  had  been  with  him  in  the  Texan  tional   governor  of  the  Department  of  the 

campaign.     On  September  24,   1842,  upon  Californias,  a  period  of  exactly  six  years. 

Theodore  H.  Hittell, 


FULFILLMENT. 

ALL  the  skies  had  gloomed  in  gray, 
Many  a  week,  day  after  day. 
Nothing  came  the  blank  to  fill, 
Nothing  stirred  the  stagnant  will. 
Winds  were  raw ;  buds  would  not  swell : 
Some  malign  and  sullen  spell 
Soured  the  currents  of  the  year, 
And  filled  the  heart  with  lurking  fear. 

In  his  room  he  moped  and  glowered, 
Where  the  leaden  daylight  lowered ; 
Drummed  the  casement,  turned  his  book, 
Hating  nature's  hostile  look. 

Suddenly  there  came  a  day 
When  he  flung  his  gloom  away. 
Something  hinted  help  was  near : 
Winds  were  fresh  and  sky  was  clear; 
Light  he  stepped,  and  firmly  planned, — 
Some  good  news  was  close  at  hand. 

Truly :  for  when  day  was  done, 
He  was  lying  all  alone, 
Fretted  pulse  had  ceased  to  beat, 
Very  still  were  hands  and  feet, 
And  the  robins  through  the  long 
Twilight  sang  his  slumber  song. 

E.  R.  Sill 


1885.] 


Zegarra:  A  Tale  of  the  Scotch  Occupation  of  Darien. 


485 


ZEGARRA:  A  TALE  OF  THE  SCOTCH  OCCUPATION  OF  DARIEN. 


I. 


"THIS  Darien  scheme  of  M.  De  Lesseps," 
said  Colin  Fletcher,  "is  neither  new  nor  wise; 
though  that  is  little  to  discredit  it,  for  nov- 
elty and  wisdom  are  somewhat  at  a  discount 
now-a-days,  and  therein  we  imitate  the  exam- 
ple of  our  ancestors." 

"Timothy  sows,  the  other  chap  waters, 
and  the  middleman  takes  all  the  profit," 
was  the  comment  of  young  Sparks,  who 
came  from  the  West,  and  made  up  in  Gran- 
ger enthusiasm  what  he  lacked  in  Biblical 
lore. 

"Yes,"  continued  Fletcher,  "from  the 
time  the  Spaniard  stood  upon  the  heights  of 
Panama,  and  turned  his  gaze  from  the  stormy 
Atlantic  to  the  great  ocean  that  stretched  to 
the  shores  of  India  and  Far  Cathay,  down  to 
the  Paris  hocus-pocus  and  proposed  lottery 
to  capture  the  populace,  the  cut  across  the 
Isthmus  has  been  the  dream  of  mariners, 
and  the  problem  of  engineers.  And,  by  the 
way,  an  ancestor  of  my  own  was  early  in  the 
field  of  Darien  possession,  and  but  for  the 
collapse  of  the  Paterson  colony  at  Acta,  I 
might  have  been  a  Creole ;  and  I  might  have 
been  a  girl." 

"  In  these  times,"  remarked  Sparks,  "  any 
change  would  be  for  the  better." 

"  Thank  you,"  said  Fletcher,  "  but  your 
remark  is  foreign  to  the  issue.  I  was  about 
to  propose  a  reference  in  the  nature  of  rem- 
iniscences, to  the  part  the  Fletchers  played 
in  the  early  Darien  scheme.  I  might  have 
imparted  some  historical  information,  by  the 
convenient  channel  of  a  story.  You  Gran- 
gers, however,  seem  to  prefer  depressing  an- 
ticipation to  instructive  retrospection.  I 
don't  want  to  intrude,  but — " 

When  a  Fletcher  begins  in  that  vicious 
strain,  there  is  a  quarrel  impending,  and  on 
this  occasion  it  required  our  united  placation 
and  persuasion  to  clear  the  charged  atmos- 
phere. Even  Sparks  expressed  a  desire  to 


hear  the  story  his  inflammable  friend   was 
bursting  to  tell. 

"Well,  then,"  said  Fletcher,  "here  goes." 

On  the  26th  of  July,  1698,  the  inhabitants 
of  Edinburgh  flocked  to  the  seaport  of  Leith 
to  bid  farewell  and  God-speed  to  the  colony 
of  twelve  hundred  men  and  six  ships,  which, 
under  command  of  William  Paterson,  set 
sail  that  day  for  Darien.  Paterson  had  been 
to  America,  and,  being  a  sharp,  shrewd  man, 
was  impressed  with  the  importance  of  the 
Isthmus  in  a  military,  no  less  than  a  com- 
mercial sense.  On  his  return  to  England,  he 
vainly  tried  to  interest  the  English  merchants 
and  government  in  a  colonization  scheme 
which  had  some  flavor  of  conquest  in  it,  but 
not  enough  to  rouse  martial  ardor,  or  stim- 
ulate national  cupidity.  ^  In  the  Low  Coun- 
tries he  fared  badly,  while  trying  to  induce 
the  Dutch  to  seize  the  opportunity  of  dom- 
inating the  commerce  of  the  world.  Dis- 
heartened and  weary,  he  retraced  his  steps 
to  Scotland,  his  native  land,  and,  after  many 
hardships,  finally  fell  in  with  Fletcher  of  Sal- 
toun,  from  whose  family  I  am  come. 

That  celebrated  Scot  was  neighbor  to 
Tweeddale,  the  marquis,  and  representative 
of  Scotland  at  the  English  court, — for  this 
was  before  the  Act  of  Union,  and  while  the 
English  and  Scotch  were  virtually  two  na- 
tions. The  minister  caught  warmth  and 
light  from  Fletcher  of  Saltoun,  entered  with 
vigor  into  Paterson's  scheme  for  national 
aggrandizement,  and  procured  from  the  Eng- 
lish Parliament  and  King  an  act  of  incorpo- 
ration and  charter  for  the  Darien  colony. 
Hundreds  of  thousands  of  pounds  were  sub- 
scribed in  Edinburgh,  London,  and  La 
Hague ;  and  though  the  Dutch  and  English 
merchants  withdrew  their  subscriptions  when, 
through  court-craft,  William  in.,  the  phleg- 
matic Orange  King  of  England,  was  turned 
against  the  project,  there  was  cash  and  vim 
enough  in  Scotia  to  keep  the  scheme  afloat. 


486 


Zegarra:  A  Tale  of  the  Scotch  Occupation  of  Darien.  [Nov. 


Twelve  hundred  men  were  called  for; 
twelve  thousand  volunteered,  and  the  men 
who  sailed  from  Leith  that  day  in  1698  were 
the  pick  of  Scotland's  bone  and  sinew,  pluck 
and  worth. 

On  the  quay  at  Leith  stood  Elsie  Mac- 
lean, and  from  the  deck  of  the  "  Lomond," 
Paterson's  own  ship,  Andrew  Fletcher,  nephew 
to  him  of  Saltoun,  waved  her  a  farewell. 

Save  for  the  space  of  four  years,  which 
he  had  spent  in  the  Spanish  city  of  Cadiz  as 
correspondent  for  his  father's  commercial 
house  in  Edinburgh,  there  had  hardly  elapsed 
a  day,  from  her  infancy  up,  that  Elsie  had 
not  seen  Andrew  Fletcher.  They  had  been  in 
plighted  troth  for  some  months  now,  and 
but  for  this  venture  to  the  Spanish  Main  in 
far  America,  would  have  been  married  within 
a  twelvemonth.  His  readiness  in  the  Span- 
ish tongue,  and  his  mercantile  connection 
with  the  traders  of  Spain  and  the  Isthmus, 
made  Fletcher  a  valuable  acquisition  to  the 
venturesome  band  under  the  enthusiastic 
leadership  of  Paterson. 

Midway  between  Portobello  and  Cartha- 
gena,  near  fifty  leagues  from  either,  at  a 
place  called  Acta,  now  Port  Escosas,  in  the 
mouth  of  the  river  Darien,  there  was  a  nat- 
ural harbor,  capable  of  receiving  the  greatest 
fleets,  and  defended  from  storms  by  islands. 
Above  it  was  a  promontory,  on  which  might 
be  erected  defensive  works.  On  the  other 
side  of  the  isthmus,  and  in  the  same  tract 
of  country,  there  were  natural  harbors  equal- 
ly capacious  and  well  defended.  The  two 
regions  were  connected  by  a  ridge  of  hills, 
which,  by  their  height,  created  a  temperate 
climate  in  the  midst  of  the  most  sultry  lat- 
itudes. And  here,  in  this  land,  which  seemed 
an  Eden  by  contrast  with  hard-favored  Cale- 
donia, the  adventurers  landed,  after  a  peril- 
ous voyage  of  two  months. 

They  knew  full  well  that  they  had  to  en- 
counter the  hostility  of  the  Spaniards,  jealous 
of  intrusion  into  their  El  Dorado ;  but  fear 
had  so  little  control  in  the  breasts  of  those 
hardy  colonists,  that  in  little  bands,  and  'not 
seldom  alone,  they  penetrated  the  forests  in 
all  directions  for  game ;  followed  the  Darien 
river,  or  fished  in  its  sluggish  waters;  or 


climbed  the  high  land,  to  feast  their  eyes  on 
the  fairy  landscape.  The  natives  were  friend- 
ly ;  in  fact,  they  were  intensely  hostile  to  the 
Spaniards,  and  early  learned  to  regard  the 
Darien  colonists  as  their  friends.  So,  until 
they  came  to  Swatee,  eighteen  miles  away 
east  of  southerly,  and  Tubugantee,  eight 
miles  further  on,  their  way  was  entirely  free 
from  molestation  by  the  jealous  Spaniard. 

In  these  solitary  expeditions  young  Andrew 
Fletcher  exceeded  all  his  comrades  ;  and  as 
he  brought  back  little  game,  they  concluded 
that  he  was  roaming  love-lorn,  and  mourning 
about  Elsie  Maclean,  who,  they  knew,  was 
waiting  in  Bishop-close  for  tidings  of  her 
Andy  over  the  sea. 

One  morning  in  January,  1699,  Fletcher 
approached  the  landward  gate  in  the  stock- 
ade which  formed  the  primitive  defense  the 
new-comers  had  erected,  when  he  was  ac- 
costed by  one  evidently  in  authority  with  the 
demand:  "Where  are  ye  gaun  sae  soon  i' 
the  day,  Andy  Fletcher,  an'  for  why  d'ye  no 
obey  the  wishes  o'  the  Assembly  anent  the 
attendance  at  kirk  ?  " 

"Tush!"  said  Fletcher  angrily.  "Tis 
enow  to  be  coopit  up  sax  hours  on  the  Sab- 
bawth,  list'nin'  to  the  clapper-clawing  o'  they 
three  dreary  expounders ;  but  o'  Weensday, 
too,  an'  the  sun  just  peltin'  on  they  guard- 
hoose,  fit  to  melt  baith  body  an'  heart  o'  the 
most  obdurate — I  tell  'ee,  Campbell  o'  Finab, 
it's  a  folly." 

"  Ye're  no  to  be  the  judge,"  replied  Camp- 
bell, "  the  General  Assembly  an'  Kirk  o' 
Scotland  charged  they  divines  wi'  oor  spirit- 
ual care,  an'  if  they  direct  that  it  will  be  twal ' 
hours  an'  sax  days  i'  th'  week,  we  maun  aye 
be  content  to  listen  to  th'  word." 

"  Liberty  o'  conscience,  then,  accordin'  to 
Paterson  an'  the  Kirk,  is  just  the  liberty  to 
endure  a'  the  preachin'  the  wakin'  hours  will 
permit  ?  "  queried  Fletcher. 

"Thot's  as  may  be,"  replied  Campbell, 
"but  where  are  ye  gaun?" 

"  Tubugantee  towards." 

"  Is  it  for  game  ye  go  ? "  again  asked 
Campbell. 

"Aye — an'  sic  a  game,"  muttered  Fletcher 
to  himself.  Then  turning  his  face  to  the 


1885.] 


Zegarra:  A   Tale  of  the  Scotch  Occupation  of  Darien. 


487 


gate,  he  called  back  over  his  shoulder  to 
Campbell,  "  I'll  be  back  on  the  morrow,  be- 
fore my  watch  is  called."  The  sentry  at  the 
gate  nodded  him  a  "good-day,"  and  Fletch- 
er plunged  into  the  tropical  forest. 

Now,  traveling  through  a  forest  in  New 
Granada,  where  the  path  that  was  trodden 
yesterday  is  all  overgrown  with  mimosa  and 
trailing  vines  today,  and  the  fact  of  a  path  is 
resolved  to  a  little  less  chopping  and  hewing 
with  the  heavy  machete  than  when  one  en- 
counters the  unbroken  tract,  is  a  terrible 
task.  Though  he  had  started  out  before 
four  o'clock,  it  was  after  twelve  when  he 
stopped  just  without  the  border  of  a  glade 
between  Swatee  and  Tubugantee,  and  seated 
himself  to  rest  in  the  loop  of  a  snake-like 
vine  which  swung  between  two  gigantic  trees. 
At  the  upper  edge  of  the  glade,  which  sloped 
toward  the  North  where  he  stood,  was  a 
house  that,  in  an  architectural  sense,  was  a 
vast  improvement  on  the  usual  Isthmian  hut, 
but  which  in  our  country  and  day  would 
scarcely  be  considered  a  rival  to  a  Maine 
lumberman's  shanty.  Yet  in  1699,  and  on 
Darien,  the  residence  of  El  Capitan  Zegarra 
was  ranked  as  a  palace,  and  cited  as  a  mar- 
vel. 

Jose  De  Lopez  Zegarra  had  been  in  su- 
preme command  at  Portobello  before  the  ad- 
vent of  Commander  Carriljo,  and  his  trans- 
fer to  the  distant  miasma-infested  district  of 
Tubugantee  almost  cost  Spain  the  services 
of  a  gallant  officer.  In  his  disappointment 
and  resentment,  he  removed  his  family,  con- 
sisting of  Seiiora  Zegarra,  and  their  children, 
Inez  and  Eduardo,  to  his  new  command  ; 
and  discovering  the  beautiful  glade  to  the 
westward  of  the  town,  he  took  up  his  quar- 
ters there,  leaving  Lieutenant  Eduardo  in 
charge  of  the  garrison.  The  intrusion  of 
the  Scotchmen  between  Tubugantee  and 
Portobello  cost  him  no  uneasiness;  it  rather 
pleased  him,  for  their  implied  antagonism 
and  supposed  desire  to  cut  communication 
between  the  various  Spanish  posts  afforded 
him  excuse  for  not  writing,  and  explanation 
in  case  he  should  be  called  to  account  for 
his  remissness.  So,  since  the  first  of  October 
preceding,  he  had  neither  written  to,  nor  re- 


ceived writing  from  the  hand  of,  the  hated 
Commander  Carriljo. 

Fletcher  was  dozing  and  nodding  to  a  fall 
from  his  insecure  perch.  Under  the  vertical 
sun  the  forest  was  hushed  ;  chattering  mon- 
key and  paroquet,  the  myriads  of  gay-col- 
ored insects  and  humming-birds  were  silent; 
not  even  a  serpent  stirred  the  tendrils  of  the 
vines,  or  gleamed  in  the  fronds  of  the  palm. 

Across  the  shining  sward,  braving  the 
scorching  rays,  a  slight  girlish  form,  clad  all 
in  white,  her  face  shaded  by  a  broad-leafed 
hat,  tripped  rapidly  from  the  hacienda  to  the 
forest.  It  was  Inez,  the  princess  of  Darien. 
The  war-scarred  Don,  her  father,  and  all  the 
household  were  forgetting  the  heat  in  the 
noon-tide  siesta,  and  she  seemed  the  only 
living  thing  astir.  In  the  shadow  of  tiiefialo 
de  vacca,  she  stopped,  and  smilingly  observed 
the  drowsy  Scot. 

"Andreas,"  she  called,  "I  thought  a  sol- 
dier never  slept  on  his  post." 

"  I  can  only  plead  fatigue,"  he  replied, 
"and  throw  myself  upon  the  mercy  of  the 
court." 

"  A  weak  court  for  so  grave  an  offense.  I 
am  glad  you  came  today,  for  tomorrow  the 
rains  come  on,  and  El  Capitan  says  the  2oth 
of  this  month  always  brings  the  storm.  Then 
for  weeks  the  journey  from  the  river  to  Swatee 
is  impossible  for  a  native." 

"  But  not  for  a  Scotchman  in  love,"  re- 
joined Fletcher,  with  a  gallantry  born  of  de- 
termination. "  I  have  been  on  the  Tay  and 
Guadalquiver  when  the  floods  were  out,  and 
even  a  tempest  on  Darien  will  fail  to  daunt 
me." 

"  I  can  well  believe,"  said  Inez,  "  that  the 
brave  Inglese,  who  could  peril  his  life,  and, 
single-handed  and  without  weapon,  attack 
and  slay  the  fierce  puma  that  threatened  the 
life  of  the  poor  Senorita  Inez  Zegarra,  would 
face  the  storm  to  tell  his  love  to  the  grateful 
girl  he  saved ;  but  the  storm  brings  out  the 
wild  beasts  and  serpents,  a  thousandfold 
more  fierce  and  deadly  then,  and  it  would 
be  worse  than  madness  to  attempt  the  jour- 
ney." 

"  But  the  Spaniah  troopers  that  are  afoot 
between  Swatee  and  New  St.  Andrew,  spying 


488 


Zegarra:  A  Tale  of  the  Scotch  Occupation  of  Darien. 


[Nov. 


out  our  location  and  our  plans,  will  be 
housed,  and  their  presence  I  have  more  rea- 
son to  dread  than  the  beasts  or  serpents." 

"  Spanish  troopers  ?  "  queried  Inez. 

"  Yes  !  And  we  have  supposed  they  came 
from  Tubugantee." 

"  Indeed,  no  !  My  brother  Eduardo  was 
at  the  hacienda  yesterday,  and  told  us  how 
the  soldiers  there  were  eating  their  hearts  in 
very  inaction,  and  now  for  four  weeks  they 
will  be  perforce  kept  idle.  They  are  afraid 
they  will  not  be  made  to  move  before  El 
Veranito  di  San  Juan — the  Little  Summer 
of  St.  John." 

"  They  are  hardly  from  Portobello," mused 
Fletcher. 

"  No ! "  said  Inez,  catching  the  words, 
"  they  must  be  from  over  the  range — Pana- 
ma, you  know." 

"That  means  concerted  danger,  then," 
thought  Fletcher. 

A  bustle  about  the  wattled  and  thatched 
huts  that  stood  near  the  hacienda  betokened 
the  hour  of  four  o'clock,  and  the  appearance 
of  the  sleepers ;  and,  with  an  embrace  and 
" hasta  la  manana"  the  Northman  and  the 
dark-skinned  daughter  of  Spain  separated. 


II. 


"  GIN  yon  Andy  Fletcher  makes  the  gate 
the  nicht,  ye'll  bring  him  to  the  guard,  and 
ca'  me  up,"  was  the  charge  that  Paterson 
gave  to  Peter  MacLaren,  as  that  trusty  son 
of  Inverness  took  his  evening  station  at  the 
stockade. 

Peter  had  been  five  weary  hours  watching 
the  twinkling  gleam  of  the  fire-flies,  and  slap- 
ping vigorously  to  protect  himself  from  the 
swarms  of  mosquitos,  indulging  between 
whiles  in  complimentary  references  to  Peter- 
head  and  the  comparative  discomforts  of 
Acta,  when  Andrew  Fletcher  emerged  from 
the  black  shadow  of  the  forest,  and  crossed 
the  open  space  to  the  gate. 

"I'm  to  hale  ye  to  the  guard,"  was  Mac- 
Laren's  greeting ;  "  there's  like  to  be  trouble 
in  store  for  ye,  Andy,  an'  I  doubt  ye've  gude 
reason  to  set  yerself  fair  before  the  council." 

"Whose    business   is    it   to   interfere  wi' 


me?"  asked  Fletcher.  "  An'  what  do  they 
say?" 

"  No  much,  but  that  ye're  foregathering 
wi'  the  Dons." 

"And  then?" 

"  And  then  ?  mayhap  ye'll  be  able  to  tell 
whaur  they  came  frae,  what  they  want,  and 
how  mony  there  may  be  to  enforce  their  de- 
mand." 

The  tone  of  MacLaren's  reply  set  Fletcher's 
blood  tingling  in  his  veins.  "  They  suspect 
me,  then,  of  covenanting  wi'  the  Spaniard?  " 

"  You  alone  of  all  in  New  Caledonia  have 
the  tongue;  an'  'a  Fletcher  makes  the  best 
shaft  for  his  ain  sel','  I've  heard  them  say  in 
Inverness." 

"The  inference  being  that  I  would  sell 
my  countrymen  for  Spanish  gold?" 

"  I'm  to  hale  ye  to  the  guard,  an'  not  to 
be  counsel  nor  accuser,"  was  MacLaren's 
decisive  reply. 

Had  Fletcher  been  left  until  the  morrow 
to  himself,  he  would  have  told  Paterson  and 
the  Council  what  he  had  learned  concerning 
the  garrison  at  Tubugantee,  and  the  probable 
source  from  which  the  troopers  of  the  enemy 
came.  MacLaren's  imprudent  speech  had 
put  him  on  his  mettle,  and  to  his  questioners 
that  night  he  simply  remarked  that  he  "  had 
been  taking  his  tent,  and  feared  the  Span- 
iards as  little  as  he  meditated  treason." 

He  was  informed  that  he  was  to  consider 
himself  under  surveillance,  and  on  no  ac- 
count to  go  beyond  the  forest  or  the  water's 
edge  without  specific  leave. 

Andrew  Fletcher's  private  grief  was  only 
part  of  the  sorrow  that  brooded  over  Pater- 
son's  doomed  colony  in  New  Caledonia. 
Famine  threatened  them,  and  open  discon- 
tent, because  the  gold  they  fancied  was  to  be 
had  for  the  mere  picking  up  did  not  appear, 
broke  out  in  murmurs  and  mutiny.  By  or- 
der of  the  Orange  King  of  Britain,  given  to 
curry  favor  with  the  treacherous  Spaniard, 
the  English  colonies  and  possessions  in  Amer- 
ica were  forbid  to  supply  the  people  of  New 
Caledonia  with  food  or  munitions.  It  would 
havefared  hardly  with  the  unfortunate  Scotch- 
men, had  not  the  friendly  natives  volunteered 
themselves  as  purveyors  of  fish  and  game, 


1885.] 


Zegarra:  A  Tale  of  the  Scotch  Occupation  of  Darien. 


489 


and  kept  the  colony  alive  until  the  rains 
came  on  and  drove  the  Indians  to  their  dis- 
tant tracts. 

Then  the  rainy  season  set  in.  "On  the 
Isthmus,"  says  Dampier,  "  the  rains  are  ush- 
ered in  by  a  perfect  deluge  tumbling  from 
the  sky;  the  trickling  streams  swell  suddenly 
into  roaring  and  destructive  torrents ;  the 
plains  are  quickly  flooded,  the  whole  country 
is  swamped.  All  the  while  a  close  and  ter- 
rible heat  pervades  the  darkened  atmosphere; 
noisome  insects  fill  the  air  and  swarm  upon 
the  ground.  To  breathe  is  an  effort,  and 
miasma  creeps  into  the  lungs  at  every  labored 
respiration.  When  the  rain  ceases  for  some 
time  in  the  night,  the  wan  moon  gleams 
down  upon  a  ghastly  world  of  waters,  whence, 
among  drowned  groves,  rises  up  pestilence 
in  the  visible  form  of  murky  vapors." 

No  wonder  that  the  prospect  of  extermi- 
nation at  the  hands  of  the  Don,  added  to  the 
score  of  miseries  already  set  against  them, 
made  Andrew  Fletcher  an  object  of  suspi- 
cion when  the  colonists  received  and  enter- 
tained the  impression  that  he  was  in  commu- 
nication with  their  most  dreaded  enemy.  As 
death  stalked  among  them  and  left  not  one 
in  ten  alive  and  well,  they  said  that  the 
Spaniard  and  Andrew  Fletcher  only  bided 
their  time,  while  their  ally,  disease,  made 
havoc  in  the  Scottish  ranks. 

In  the  midst  of  their  calamity  they  were 
surprised,  one  morning,  by  the  appearance 
of  a  Spaniard  and  two  blacks  paddling  across 
the  mouth  of  the  Darien  to  Fort  St.  Andrew 
and  its  artificial  island.  Such  of  the  men- 
at-arms  as  could  still  handle  musket  and 
wield  claymore  were  hastily  summoned  and 
drawn  up  to  the  defense  of  the  gate,  from 
which  issued  Campbell  of  Finab  and  young 
Torwoodlee.  The  Spaniard  responded  to 
their  hail  by  waving  a  white  flag  and  crying 
"  amigo"  for  he  could  speak  no  word  of 
English.  Paterson  was  away  from  the  fort, 
and  Andrew  Fletcher  was  the  only  man 
therein  who  could  hold  converse  with  the 
Spaniard.  He  at  once  recognized  the  stran- 
ger as  El  Capitan  Zegarra,  for,  unseen  him- 
self, he  had  frequently  watched  the  coming 
and  going  of  Inez's  father  about  the  hacienda. 


At  his  first  word  of  greeting  El  Capitan 
interrupted  him,  to  ask  if  he  were  not  "  An- 
dreas," on  which  a  look  that  boded  no  good 
to  Fletcher  was  exchanged  among  the  by- 
standers. 

"  I  am  Andrew  Fletcher,"  was  the  quiet 
response,  though  Fletcher  realized  how  un- 
fortunate for  him  was  this  query. 

"Then,"  said  the  Spaniard,  "here  is  a  let- 
ter for  thee.  I  have  brought  also  for  thee 
anodynes  against  the  fever,  and  simples  which 
the  natives  here  cull  in  the  rainy  season  as 
nature's  antidote  for  the  vapors  of  death 
which  then  arise." 

Securing  the  letter  in  his  bosom,  Fletcher 
turned  away  from  the  package  the  Spaniard 
held  towards  him,  exclaiming:  "  Not  for  me. 
Unless  for  all,  Andrew  will  none  of  thy 
simples  or  anodynes.  I  thank  El  Capitan 
Zegarra  for  his  kindness,  and  beg  that  he  will 
send  us  here  these  medicaments  for  our  hos- 
pital, now  full  with  fever-stricken  men." 

"Who  told  thee  my  name?"  demanded 
the  Spaniard;  then  added  under  breath,  "The 
Scot  who  lurked  in  the  forest ! " 

That  expression,  faintly  overheard,  re- 
moved the  doubts  that  had  arisen  in  Fletch- 
er's mind  regarding  the  honesty  of  the  old 
Spaniard's  intentions.  From  having  been  sin- 
gled out  to  receive  the  letter  and  remedies, 
he  thought  the  father  had  discovered  in  him 
the  heretic  lover  of  Inez,  and,  in  the  guise  of 
a  benefactor,  had  come  to  poison,  infect,  or 
otherwise  do  him  mortal  harm.  But  the 
Spaniard's  expression  testified  to  the  igno- 
rance he  had  been  in  as  to  the  man  or  his 
motive  who  had  been  seen  among  the  trees. 

"  A  spy,"  thought  the  Don,  as  he  regarded 
Andrew  with  a  contemptuous  look.  As  if 
his  unspoken  words  had  found  echo  in  living 
breasts,  the  cry  arose  from  a  body  of  the 
Scotch,  who  had  been  talking  apart,  "  A  spy, 
a  spy,"  and  they  fell  upon  El  Capitan  Ze- 
garra and  bore  him  to  the  guard-house  before 
Campbell  of  Finab  or  Fletcher  could  inter- 
pose a  word. 

A  second  hasty  consultation  ended  in  the 
seizure  of  Fletcher,  who  was  thrust  with  Ze- 
garra into  the  narrow,  damp,  and  death- 
breeding  "  strong-room  "  of  the  guard-house. 


490 


Zegarra:  A   Tale  of  the  Scotch  Occupation  of  Darien. 


[Nov. 


At  the  hasty  court  which  was  convened, 
Peter  MacLaren  was  chief  spokesman  for 
the  accusers,  and  his  efforts  were  ably  second- 
ed by  the  preachers,  whose  authority  had 
been  decried  by  Fletcher.  These  zealous 
chiefs  of  what  they  pleased  to  consider  a 
theocracy,  inflamed  the  minds  of  their  lis- 
teners with  all  uncharitableness,  and  de- 
nounced Fletcher  as  a  rebel  against  the  Kirk 
and  a  "foregatherer  wi'  the  heathen."  In 
vain  did  Campbell  speak  words  of  wisdom 
and  counsel  moderation.  The  sufferings  of 
the  colonists  demanded  a  sacrifice,  and 
Fletcher  and  the  Spaniard  were  demanded 
as  victims  to  their  fury. 

During  the  brief  time  they  had  been  left 
together,  Fletcher  had  satisfied  himself  that 
Zegarra  was  unconscious  of  the  passion  his 
daughter  had  conceived  for  the  scion  of  the 
alien  race,  and  viewed  the  Scotchman's  visits 
to  Swatee  and  Tubugantee  with  a  soldier's 
and  not  a  parent's  apprehension. 

When  called  upon  for  his  defense,  Fletch- 
er answered  not  a  word  for  himself,  but  plead- 
ed for  the  Captain,  who  had  come  as  a  friend 
and  benefactor.  He  did  not  advert  to  the 
letter  which  he  had  read  and  destroyed,  and 
which  contained  merely  expressions  of  good 
will  from  Lieutenant  Eduardo,  who  had  been 
moved  to  write  and  send  the  simple  remedies 
to  the  Scot  by  the  representations  of  Inez. 
His  plea,  however,  was  of  no  avail  against 
the  exaggerations  of  MacLaren,  the  denun- 
ciations of  the  preachers,  and  the  miscon- 
structions which  were  placed  on  his  frequent 
absences  from  the  fort.  He  was  too  brave 
and  too  loyal  to  acknowledge  Inez's  love  for 
him,  and  his  forgetfulness  of  Elsie  Maclean. 

The  judgment  of  the  -court,  delivered  at 
the  mouth  of  the  ruffian,  Captain  Pennicuik, 
was  that  Andrew  Fletcher,  traitor,  scoffer, 
and  false  Scot,  and  the  insolent  Spanish  spy, 
should  be  shot  at  morning's  light  of  the 
second  day,  on  the  beach  below  the  fort. 

III. 

THE  blacks  had  paddled  hastily  away  when 
they  saw  their  master  seized,  and,  before  pur- 
suit could  be  made  from  the  fort,  had  shot 


into  the  leafy  curtain  overhanging  the  river, 
and,  turning  into  one  of  those  tortuous  and 
forest-bordered  lagoons  which  fringe  all  trop- 
ical rivers,  were  soon  beyond  reach  of  cap- 
ture. It  was  scarcely  afternoon  when  they 
reached  the  hacienda  of  the  Zegarras,  where 
the  story  of  their  master's  seizure  was  re- 
ceived with  the  utmost  dismay.  Don  Ed- 
uardo and  the  dozen  carbineers  who  had 
accompanied  him  from  Tubugantee,  declared 
themselves  ready  on  the  instant  to  start  for 
St.  Andrews,  storm  the  fort,  perform  prodi- 
gies of  valor,  and  release  the  incarcerated 
master;  but  the  utter  impossibility  of  such  an 
undertaking  made  itself  apparent  to  them 
while  yet  their  resentment  was  at  its  height. 

"  I  knew  them  to  be  brave  and  uncom- 
promising," said  Don  Eduardo  to  his  sister, 
"  but  I  never  suspected  that  the  Scot  would 
be  so  treacherous  as  to  seize  an  unarmed 
man  on  a  friendly  mission,  or  so  cruel  as  to 
outrage  an  old  man,  whose  only  intent  was 
to  do  them  good." 

"  Bah  !  those  Northerners  are  all  a  mean, 
suspicious,  trustless  crew,"  retorted  a  cabal- 
lero. 

"  I  was  a  fool  to  have  trusted  even  one 
whose  fortitude  was  no  index  to  his  treach- 
ery," said  Don  Eduardo;  "but  having,  in  a 
moment  of  weakness  toward  the  preserver  of 
my  sister's  life,  periled  my  father,  I  shall 
rescue  or  suffer  with  him." 

"  Your  impetuosity  is  as  vain  as  your  fa- 
ther's hardihood,"  replied  the  caballero. 

"  It  was  his  idea,"  continued  Don  Eduar- 
do, "  to  vfeit  the  Scots  in  their  abandon- 
ment and  misery,  and  treat  them  as  a  man, 
forgetting  the  Spaniard  and  the  mandates  of 
Holy  Church,  which  forbid  succor  to  its  ene- 
mies. 

"  He  that  toys  with  the  bushmaster,  the 
deadliest  snake  of  the  savanna,  will  touch 
his  fangs,"  was  the  caballerd's  proverbial  re- 
sponse. 

Ghooba,  one  of  the  blacks  who  had  ac- 
companied El  Capitan,  approached  Don  Ed- 
uardo, and  receiving  a  signal  to  speak,  said  : 
"  If  the  young  soldier  will  listen  to  the  Icay- 
maca,  the  way  may  be  found  from  the  North- 
ern's prison  to  Tubugantee." 


1885.] 


Zegarra:  A  Tale  of  the  Scotch  Occupation  of  Darien. 


491 


"  Go  on,"  said  Don  Eduardo,  testily. 

"The  Indian  Arivolho,  whose  life  the 
young  soldier  spared  in  the  fight  at  Panama, 
is  with  his  tribe  upon  the  ridge  which  over- 
looks the  Eastern  Sea.  Ghooba  will  send 
him  to  the  whites,  whose  friend  he  is,  and 
he  will  bring  back  El  Capitan.  Arivolho  is 
secret  as  the  sloth,  and  noiseless  as  the  ser- 
pent." 

Before  the  black  had  finished,  the  Indian 
stood  beside  them,  and  respectfully  returned 
the  salute  of  Don  Eduardo. 

"  I  know,  I  know,"  said  he,  anticipating 
Eduardo's  communication,  "\<S>?C<N  El  Capitan 
taken  by  the  Scot,  and  hastened  to  my  king 
to  tell  him  of  it.  He  has  sent  messengers 
to  the  fort,  and  bade  me  come  hither,  with 
his  assurance." 

"Thanks,"  returned  Eduardo,  "but  I  have 
little  confidence  in  messages  or  diplomacy 
now,  and  would  enlist  your  cunning,  in  case 
the  interference  of  your  king  should  fail." 

"  It  is  well,"  said  Arivolho ;  "  my  life  is 
yours." 

Inez  had  been  an  agitated  auditor  of  the 
consultation,  and  when  the  Indian  withdrew 
she  followed  him,  overtaking  him  on  the 
edge  of  the  forest. 

'•  I  am  going  with  you,"  was  all  the  expla- 
nation she  gave  the  Indian's  look  of  aston- 
ishment. 

"  The  fair  daughter  of  El  Capitan  is  no 
companion  on  such  a  dangerous  errand." 

"  I  am  going  with  you,"  was  the  quiet  but 
determined  reply. 

Arivolho  answered  not  another  word ;  but, 
placing  himself  in  advance  of  the  damsel, 
plunged  deeper  into  the  forest,  hewing  a  path 
with  his  broad,  heavy  machete.  He  showed 
greater  signs  of  fatigue  than  the  slight  girl, 
when,  after  six  hours  of  toil,  they  stood  on 
the  landward  brink  of  the  narrow  channel 
which  separated  Fort  St.  Andrew  from  the 
main  land. 

They  had  stood  thus  but  a  few  minutes, 
when  they  were  joined  by  Don  Eduardo,  the 
caballero,  and  a  full  dozen  of  the  trustiest 
carbineers,  who  had  followed  in  their  path 
the  moment  that  Inez's  absence  was  noticed. 

"Sister,"  exclaimed  Eduardo,  "what  would 
you  on  such  a  mission  as  this?" 


"  Our  father  is  there,"  replied  Inez,  indi- 
cating the  fort,  "  and  whatever  danger  is  in- 
curred in  his  rescue  or  his  remaining  there, 
I  will  share  it." 

"  It  is  men's  work,"  said  Eduardo,  "  and 
not  for  such  as  thou  art." 

"  I  will  at  least  be  here  to  welcome  his  re- 
lease ;  and  shall  not  go  hence  without  him," 
was  Inez's  final  reply. 

In  the  meanwhile  the  Indian  had  slipped 
into  the  water,  and,  with  a  few  vigorous 
strokes,  crossed  the  narrow  channel.  Drawing 
himself  up  under  the  shadow  of  the  dripping 
fronds  of  the  fringing  ferns,  Arivolho  marked 
the  beat  of  the  sentry  inside  the  rough  en- 
closure, and  timing  his  motions  to  the  turn- 
ing Scot,  he  passed  the  limit  of  his  watch. 
By  slow  degrees,  he  made  his  way  to  the  part 
of  the  wall  opposed  to  the  guard-house,  and 
swiftly  and  silently  as  a  serpent  he  rose  over 
the  wall  and  dropped  within.  A  friendly 
growth  of  mimosa  received  and  concealed 
him. 

It  was  an  hour's  task  to  cross  the  few  yards 
from  the  wall  to  the  black  shadow  of  the 
guard-house ;  and  even  that  would  not  have 
sufficed  had  it  not  been  for  the  blunted  sense 
of  the  half-sick  and  wholly  tired  boy,  who 
wearily  waited  for  the  midnight  relief.  Once 
under  the  guard-house  wall,  Arivolho's  er- 
rand was  half  fulfilled,  for  he  was  instantly 
in  communication  with  the  anxious,  wakeful 
prisoners  within.  By  another  half-hour  his 
useful  machete  had  tunneled  a  way  under  the 
guard-house  wall,  and  the  Indian  crept  into 
the  room.  Instantly  he  cut  the  thongs  that 
bound  the  prisoner's  arms,  and  half  dragged 
the  Spaniard  to  the  opening. 

"Haste,"  he  cried,  "  in  another  half-hour 
the  climbing  moon  will  shine  upon  the 
western  wall,  and  the  Scot  will  cut  off  our 
retreat.  Already  the  shadow  has  crept  half 
way  to  the  dirt  heap  without." 

It  was  in  vain  that  El  Capitan  urged 
Fletcher  to  make  his  escape. 

"  To  go  would  be  to  confess,"  replied  An- 
drew to  the  urgent  solicitation,  "and  I  have 
no  sin  upon  my  conscience." 

"  Better  to  live  innocent,  than  to  die  inno- 
cent," said  El  Capitan. 

"  Better  to  die  falsely  accused  than  to  live 


492 


Zegarra:  A  Tale  of  the  Scotch  Occupation  of  Darien. 


[Nov. 


accursed,"  was  Fletcher's  sturdy  reply,  as  he 
withdrew  to  the  upper  end  of  the  narrow 
room. 

"  Haste,"  cried  the  Indian,  with  such  im- 
petuosity that  Zegarra,  mindful  of  the  faith- 
ful fellow's  safety,  as  well  as  his  own,  hastily 
wrung  Fletcher's  hand,  and  followed  Arivol- 
ho  through  the  opening. 

They  reached  the  channel  undiscovered, 
and  were  just  lowering  themselves  into,  the 
water,  when  the  sentry — none  other  than 
Peter  MacLaren — discharged  his  musket,  at 
almost  point  blank  range  at  the  Indian.  Of 
the  two  figures,  he  chose  the  one  he  saw  was 
not  the  Spaniard. 

A  few  lusty  strokes  sufficed  to  land  the 
fugitives  on  the  bank,  where  Inez  and  Don 
Eduardo  and  his  followers  awaited  them. 

"And  Andreas — the  Scot,  I  mean — " 
queried  Inez,  "  he  has  not  perished  ?  " 

"  A  brave  man,  but  a  stubborn,"  replied 
El  Capitan ;  "  he  would  not  flee  from  his 
countrymen.  But  the  soundest  heart  is  soft- 
er than  a  bullet,  and  his  will  prove  it  so." 

"  He  is  to  die  ?  "  asked  the  fair  daughter 
of  Castile. 

"  Tomorrow,  at  day-break." 

His  daughter's  cry  told  him  what  Andrew 
had  withheld — that  they  were  more  than 
friends. 

"Baste!"  exclaimed  the  Don;  "so  you 
have  made  me  but  Pander,  to  trip  with  love 
missives  between  you  two  ?  " 

"Nay,  father,"  interposed  Don  Eduardo  ; 
"  the  letter  bore  no  word  nor  token  of  love. 
I  wrote  it,  and  it  contained  the  thanks  of  a 
brother,  who  will  now  write  them  rather  with 
the  sword  than  the  pen." 

As  yet  they  had  not  moved,  and  had  hard- 
ly done  speaking,  when  half  a  dozen  of  the 
Scotchmen  broke  upon  them. 

The  intruders,  expecting  to  find  only  the 
two  fugitives,  were  sadly  discomfited  when 
they  found  themselves  surrounded  by  more 
than  twice  their  number  of  well-armed  and 
determined  men.  The  pursuers  were  in 
neither  health  nor  heart  to  fight,  and  at  the 
first  word  of  challenge  desisted  from  show 
of  hostility. 

Don  Eduardo,  who  spoke  some  English, 


approached  the  leader  of  the  band,  young 
Torwoodlee,  and  in  half  a  dozen  words  told 
their  peaceful  intentions,  now  their  mission 
of  releasing  his  father  was  accomplished. 
Andrew  Fletcher's  part  was  then  explained, 
to  the  great  relief  of  Torwoodlee,  who  loved 
him  well,  and  was  in  some  sort  his  kinsman. 

Then  the  parties  went  their  several  ways, 
the  Scots  assured  that,  though  El  Capitan 
Zegarra  was  a  Spaniard,  his  treatment  had 
been  such  as  to  make  him  no  enemy,  if  not 
the  avowed  friend,  of  the  Northerns. 

Next  day,  Paterson  returned  to  St.  An- 
drew, and  Fletcher's  honesty  was  cleared 
from  imputation.  The  men  who  had  so 
lately  stood  his  accusers  were  none  the  less 
delighted  that  Fletcher  had  been  so  bold  and 
manful,  and  that  his  clearance  had  come 
from  without. 

IV. 

FROM  day  to  day  the  condition  of  the  ill- 
starred  colonists  became  worse  and  worse. 
The  expected  relief  and  addition  from  Scot- 
land came  not.  Alice,  the  patient,  faithful 
wife  of  William  Paterson,  sickened  and  died. 
The  graves  about  the  fort  were  ten  times  in 
number  the  haggard  men  who  haunted  its 
close  and  decaying  huts,  and  the  two  re- 
maining ships  that  had  sailed  so  merrily  from 
Leith  were  scantily  furnished  for  return. 

At  length  a  breeze  sprung  up,  and  the 
leaky,  sun-scorched  ships,  with  tattered  sails 
and  spectral  crews,  moved  out — away  from 
Darien.  As  its  last  peak  was  about  to  dis- 
appear from  the  horizon,  the  feverish  eyes 
of  the  broken-hearted  leader  turned  toward 
it  for  a  moment — then  closed  to  shut  out 
that  last,  last  vision. 

Andrew  Fletcher  stood  on  the  deck  of  the 
"  Lomond,"  and  caught  sight  of  a  white  speck 
on  the  crest  of  the  distant  inland  ridge. 

"  Hasta  la  manana  "  he  had  said  to  the 
weeping  Senorita  the  day  before. 

"  Hasta  la  manana"  was  the  tearful,  fear- 
ful response. 

The  "tomorrow"  was  never  to  be  for 
Inez.  Within  a  year  she  slept  in  Darien's 
mould,  and  Andy  Fletcher  had  already  mar- 
ried Elsie  Maclean. 

George  Dudley  Lawson. 


1885.] 


Rough  Notes  of  a  Yosemite   Camping  Trip. 


493 


ROUGH  NOTES  OF  A  YOSEMITE  CAMPING  TRIP.— II. 


August  2. — Started  this  morning  up  the 
valley.  As  we  go,  the  striking  features  of 
Yosemite  pass  in  procession  before  us.  On 
the  left,  El  Capitan,  Three  Brothers,  Yosem- 
ite Falls  ;  on  the  right,  Cathedral  Rock,  Ca- 
thedral Spires,  Sentinel  Rock.  Cathedral 
Spires  really  strongly  remind  one  of  a  huge 
cathedral,  with  two  tall,  equal  spires,  five 
hundred  feet  high,  and  several  smaller  ones. 
I  was  reminded  of  old  Trinity,  in  Columbia. 
But  this  was  not  made  with  hands,  and  is 
over  two  thousand  feet  high.  Stopped  at 
Hutchings's  and  took  lunch.  In  the  after- 
noon went  on  up  the  valley,  and  again  the 
grand  procession  commences.  On  the  left, 
Royal  Arches,  Washington  Column,  North 
Dome  ;  on  the  right,  Sentinel  Dome,  Glacier 
Point,  Half  Dome.  We  pitched  our  camp  in 
a  magnificent  forest,  near  a  grassy  meadow, 
on  the  banks  of  Tenaya  Fork,  under  the 
shadow  of  our  venerated  preacher  and  friend, 
the  Half  Dome,  with  also  North  Dome, 
Washington  Column,  and  Glacier  Point  in 
full  view. 

After  unsaddling  and  turning  loose  our 
horses  to  graze,  and  resting  a  little,  we  went 
up  the  Tenaya  Canon  about  a  half  mile 
to  Mirror  Lake,  and  took  a  swimming  bath. 
The  scenery  about  this  lake  is  truly  magnifi- 
cent. The  cliffs  of  Yosemite  here  reach  the 
acme  of  imposing  grandeur.  On  the  south 
side,  the  broad  face  of  South  Dome  rises  al- 
most from  the  water,  a  sheer  precipice,  near 
five  thousand  feet  perpendicular;  on  the 
north  side,  North  Dome,  with  its  finely 
rounded  head,  to  an  almost  equal  height. 
Down  the  canon,  to  the  west,  the  view  is 
blocked  by  the  immense  cliffs  of  Glacier 
Point  and  Washington  Column  •  and  up  the 
canon  to  the  east,  the  cliffs  of  the  Tenaya 
Canon  and  Clouds'  Rest,  and  the  peaks  of 
the  Sierras  in  the  background. 

On  returning  to  camp,  as  we  expected  to 
remain  here  for  several  days,  we  carried  with 
us  a  number  of  "  shakes  "  (split  boards),  and 


constructed  a  very  good  table,  around  which 
we  placed  logs  for  seats.  After  supper,  we 
sat  around  our  camp-fire,  smoked  our  cigar- 
ettes, and  sang  in  chorus  until  9.30  p.  M.; 
then  rolled  ourselves,  chrysalis-like,  in  our 
blanket  cocoons,  and  lay  still  until  morning. 

Already  I  observe  two  very  distinct  kinds 
of  structure  in  the  granite  of  this  region, 
which,  singly  or  combined,  determine  all  the 
forms  about  this  wonderful  valley.  These 
two  kinds  of  structure  are  the  concentric 
structure,  on  an  almost  inconceivably  grand 
scale ;  and  a  rude  columnar  structure,  or 
perpendicular  cleavage,  also  on  a  grand 
scale.  The  disintegration  and  exfoliation  of 
the  granite  masses  of  the  concentric  struc- 
ture give  rise  to  the  bald,  rounded  domes ; 
the  structure  itself  is  well  seen  in  Sentinel 
Dome,  and  especially  in  the  Royal  Arches. 
The  columnar  structure,  by  disintegration, 
gives  rise  to  Washington  Column,  and  the 
sharp  peaks,  like  Sentinel  Rock  and  Cathe- 
dral Spires.  Both  these  structures  exist  in 
the  same  granite,  though  the  one  or  the  other 
may  predominate.  In  all  the  rocks  about 
Yosemite  there  is  a  tendency  to  cleave  per- 
pendicularly. In  addition  to  this,  in  many, 
there  is  also  a  tendency  to  cleave  in  concen- 
tric layers,  giving  rise  to  dome-like  forms. 
Both  are  well  seen  combined  in  the  grand 
mass  of  Half  Dome.  The  perpendicular 
face-wall  of  this  dome  is  the  result  of  the  per- 
pendicular cleavage.  Whatever  may  be  our 
theory  of  the  formation  of  Yosemite  chasm 
and  the  perpendicularity  of  its  cliffs,  we  must 
not  leave  out  of  view  this  tendency  to  per- 
pendicular cleavage.  I  observe,  too,  that 
the  granite  here  is  very  coarse-grained,  and 
disintegrates  into  dust  with  great  rapidity. 

I  observed  today  the  curious  straw  and 
^rass-covered  stacks  in  which  the  Indians 
store  and  preserve  their  supplies  of  acorns. 

August  j. — This  has  been  to  me  a  day  of 
intense  enjoyment.  Started  off  this  morning 
with  six  others  of  the  party,  to  visit  Vernal 


Bough  Notes  of  a  Yosemite   Camping  Trip. 


[Nov. 


and  Nevada  Falls.  There  are  many  Indians 
in  the  valley.  We  do  not  think  it  safe  to 
leave  our  camp.  We,  therefore,  divide  our 
party  every  day,  a  portion  keeping  guard. 
The  Vernal  and  Nevada  Falls  are  formed  by 
the  Merced  river  itself;  the  volume  of  water, 
therefore,  is  very  considerable  in  all  seasons. 
The  surrounding  scenery,  too,  is  far  finer,  I 
think,  than  that  of  any  other  fall  in  the  val- 
ley. The  trail  is  steep  and  very  rough,  as- 
cending nearly  two  thousand  feet  to  the  foot 
of  Nevada  Falls.  To  the  foot  of  Vernal 
Falls,  the  trail  passes  through  dense  woods, 
close  along  the  banks  of  the  Merced,  which 
here  rushes  down  its  steep  channel,  forming 
a  series  of  rapids  and  cascades  of  enchanting 
beauty.  We  continued  our  way  on  horse- 
back, until  it  seemed  almost  impossible  for 
horses  to  go  any  farther;  we  then  dismount- 
ed, unsaddled,  and  hitched  our  horses,  and 
proceeded  on  foot.  We  afterwards  discov- 
ered that  we  had  already  gone  over  the  worst 
part  of  the  trail  to  the  foot  of  Vernal  Falls 
before  we  hitched ;  we  should  have  contin- 
ued on  horseback  to  the  refreshment  cabin 
at  the  foot  of  the  falls. 

The  Vernal  Falls  is  an  absolutely  perpen- 
dicular fall  of  four  hundred  feet,  surrounded 
by  the  most  glorious  scenery  imaginable. 
The  exquisite  greenness  of  the  trees,  the 
grass,  and  the  moss,  renders  the  name  pecu- 
liarly appropriate.  The  top  of  the  falls  is 
reached  by  a  step-ladder,  which  ascends  the 
absolutely  perpendicular  face  of  the  preci- 
pice. From  the  top  the  view  is  far  grander 
than  from  below ;  for  we  take  in  the  fall  and 
the  surrounding  scenery  at  one  view.  An 
immense  natural  parapet  of  rock  rises,  breast- 
high,  above  the  general  surface  of  the  cliff, 
near  the  fall.  Here  one  can  stand  securely, 
leaning  on  the  parapet,  and  enjoy  the  mag- 
nificent view.  The  river  pitches  at  our  very 
feet  over  a  precipice  four  hundred  feet  high, 
into  a  narrow  gorge,  bounded  on  either  side 
by  cliffs  such  as  are  seen  nowhere  except  in 
Yosemite,  and  completely  blocked  in  front 
by  the  massive  cliffs  of  Glacier  Point,  three 
thousand  two  hundred  feet  high ;  so  that  it 
actually  seems  to  pitch  into  an  amphitheater, 
with  rocky  walls  higher  than  its  diameter. 


Oh,  the  glory  of  the  view !  The  emerald 
green  and  snowy  white  of  the  falling  water ; 
the  dizzying  leap  into  the  yawning  chasm ; 
the  roar  and  foam  and  spray  of  the  deadly 
struggle  with  rocks  below;  the  deep  green 
of  the  somber  pines,  and  the  exquisite  fresh 
and  lively  green  of  grass,  ferns,  and  moss, 
wet  with  eternal  spray ;  the  perpendicular, 
rocky  walls,  rising  far  above  us  toward  the 
blue  arching  sky.  As  I  stood  there,  gazing 
down  into  the  dark  and  roaring  chasm,  and 
up  to  the  clear  sky,  my  heart  swelled  with 
gratitude  to  the  great  Author  of  all  beauty 
and  grandeur. 

After  enjoying  this  view  until  we  could 
spare  no  more  time,  we  went  on  about  a 
half  mile  to  the  foot  of  Nevada  Falls.  Mr. 

P and  myself  mistook  the  trail,  and 

went  up  the  left  side  of  the  river  to  the  foot 
of  the  falls.  '  To  attain  this  point,  we  had  to 
cross  two  roaring  cataracts,  under  circum- 
stances of  considerable  danger,  at  least  to 
any  but  those  who  possess  steady  nerves. 
We  finally  succeeded  in  climbing  to  the  top 
of  a  huge  boulder,  twenty  feet  high,  imme- 
diately in  front  of  the  fall,  and  only  thirty  or 
forty  feet  from  it.  Here,  stunned  by  the 
roar  and  blinded  by  the  spray,  we  felt  the 
full  power  and  grandeur  of  the  fall.  From 
this  place  we  saw  and  greeted  with  Indian 
yell  our  companions  on  the  other  side  of  the 
river.  After  remaining  here  an  hour,  we 
went  a  little  down  the  stream  and  crossed  to 
the  other  side,  and  again  approached  the 
fall.  The  view  from  this,  the  right  side,  is 
the  one  usually  taken.  It  is  certainly  the 
finest  scenic  view,  but  the  power  of  falling 
water  is  felt  more  grandly  from  the  nearer 
view  on  the  other  side.  The  lover  of  intense 
ecstatic  emotion  will  prefer  the  latter ;  the 
lover  of  quiet  scenic  beauty  will  prefer  the 
former.  The  poet  will  seek  inspiration  in 
the  one,  and  the  painter  in  the  other. 

The  Nevada  Fall  is,  I  think,  the  grandest 
I  have  ever  seen.  The  fall  is  six  hundred 
to  seven  hundred  feet  high.  It  is  not  an 
absolutely  perpendicular  leap,  like  Vernal, 
but  is  all  the  grander  on  that  account ;  as, 
by  striking  several  ledges  in  its  downward 
course,  it  is  beaten  into  a  volume  of  snowy 


1885.] 


Jlough  Notes  of  a  Yosemite  Camping  Trip. 


495 


spray,  ever  changing  in  form,  and  impossible 
to  describe.  From  the  same  cause,  too,  it  has 
aslight  S-like  curve,  which  is  exquisitelygrace- 
ful.  But  the  magnificence  of  the  Yosemite 
cascades,  especially  of  Vernal  and  Nevada 
Falls,  is  due,  principally,  to  the  accompany- 
ing scenery.  See  Mount  Broderick  (Cap  of 
Liberty)  and  its  fellow  peak,  rising  perpen- 
dicular, tall,  and  sharp,  until  actually  (I  speak 
without  exaggeration),  the  intense  blue  sky 
and  masses  of  white  clouds  seem  to  rest  sup- 
ported on  their  summits.  The  actual  height 
above  the  fall  is,  I  believe,  about  two  thou- 
sand feet. 

About  3  P.  M.  we  started  on  our  return. 
There  is  a  beautiful  pool,  about  three  hun- 
dred feet  long,  and  one  hundred  and  fifty  to 
two  hundred  feet  wide,  immediately  above 
the  Vernal  Fall.  Into  this  pool  the  Mer- 
ced river  rushes  as  a  foaming  rapid,  and 
leaves  it  only  to  precipitate  itself  over  the 
precipice,  as  the  Vernal  Fall.  The  fury  with 
which  the  river  rushes  down  a  steep  incline 
into  the  pool,  creates  waves  like  the  sea. 

August  4, — This  has  been  to  me  an 
uneventful  day ;  I  stayed  in  camp  as  one 
of  the  camp-guard,  while  the  camp-guard  of 
yesterday  visited  the  Vernal  and  Nevada 
Falls.  I  have  lolled  about  camp,  writing  let- 
ters home,  sewing  on  buttons,  etc. ;  but  most 
of  the  time  in  a  sort  of  day  dream — a  glori- 
ous day  dream  in  the  presence  of  this  grand 
nature.  Ah,  this  free  life  in  the  presence  of 
great  nature  is  indeed  delightful.  There  is 
but  one  thing  greater  in  this  world;  one 
thing  after  which,  even  under  the  shadow  of 
this  grand  wall  of  rock,  upon  whose  broad 
face  and  summit  line  projected  against  the 
blue  sky,  with  upturned  face  I  now  gaze — 
one  thing,  after  which  even  now  I  sigh  with  • 
inexpressible  longing,  and  that  is  home  and 
love.  A  loving  human  heart  is  greater  and 
nobler  than  the  grand  scenery  of  Yosemite. 
In  the  midst  of  the  grandest  scenes  of  yes- 
terday, while  gazing  alone  upon  the  falls  and 
the  stupendous  surrounding  cliffs,  my  heart 
filled  with  gratitude  to  God  and  love  to  the 
dear  ones  at  home  ;  my  eyes  involuntarily 
overflowed,  and  my  hands  clasped  in  silent 
prayer. 


August 5. — Today  to  Yosemite  Falls.  This 
has  been  the  hardest  day's  experience,  yet. 
We  thought  we  had  plenty  of  time,  and  there- 
fore started  late.  Stopped  a  moment  at  the 
foot  of  the  Falls,  at  a  saw-mill,  to  make  in- 
quiries. Here  found  a  man  in  rough  miller's 
garb,  whose  intelligent  face  and  earnest, 
clear  blue  eye  excited  my  interest.  After 
some  conversation,  discovered  that  it  was 
Mr.  Muir,  a  gentleman  of  whom  I  had  heard 
much  from  Mrs.  Professor  Carr  and  others. 
He  had  also  received  a  letter  from  Mrs.  Carr 
concerning  our  party,  and  was  looking  for 
us.  We  were  glad  to  meet  each  other.  I 
urged  him  to  go  with  us  to  Mono,  and  he 
seemed  disposed  to  do  so. 

We  first  visited  the  foot  of  the  lower  fall, 
which  is  about  four  hundred  feet  perpendic- 
ular, and  after  enjoying  it  for  a  half  hour  or 
more,  returned  to  the  mill.  It  was  now 
nearly  noon.  Impossible  to  undertake  the 
difficult  ascent  to  the  upper  fall  without  lunch. 
I  therefore  jumped  on  the  first  horse  I  could 
find  and  rode  to  Mr.  Hutchings's,  and  took  a 
hearty  lunch.  On  returning,  found  the  rest 
of  the  party  at  the  mill.  On  learning  my 
good  fortune,  they  also  went  and  took  lunch. 

We  now  began  the  ascent.  We  first  clam- 
bered up  a  mere  pile  of  loose  debris  (talus) 
four  hundred  feet  high,  and  inclined  at  least 
45°  to  50°.  We  had  to  keep  near  to  one 
another,  for  the  boulders  were  constantly 
loosened  by  the  foot,  and  went  bounding 
down  the  incline  until  they  reached  the  bot- 
tom. Heated  and  panting,  we  reached  the 
top  of  the  lower  fall,  drank,  and  plunged  our 
heads  in  the  foaming  water,  until  thoroughly 
refreshed.  After  remaining  here  nearly  an 
hour,  we  began  the  ascent  to  the  foot  of  the 
upper  fall.  Here  the  clambering  was  the 
most  difficult  and  precarious  I  have  ever 
tried ;  sometimes  climbing  up  perpendicular 
rock  faces,  taking  advantage  of  cracks  and 
clinging  bushes ;  sometimes  along  joint- 
cracks,  on  the  dizzy  edge  of  fearful  preci- 
pices ;  sometimes  over  rock  faces,  so  smooth 
and  highly  inclined  that  we  were  obliged  to 
go  on  hands  and  knees.  In  many  places  a 
false  step  would  be  fatal.  There  was  no  trail 
at  all ;  only  piles  of  stones  here  and  there  to 


496 


Hough  Notes  of  a  'Yosemite  Camping  Trip. 


[Nov. 


mark  the  best  route.  But  when  at  last  we 
arrived,  we  were  amply  repaid  for  our  labor. 
Imagine  a  sheer  cliff  sixteen  hundred  feet 
high,  and  a  stream  pouring  over  it.  Actually, 
the  water  seemed  to  fall  out  of  the  very  sky 
itself.  As  I  gaze  upwards  now,  there  are 
wisps  of  snowy  cloud  just  on  the  verge  of  the 
precipice  above ;  the  white  spray  of  the  dash- 
ing cataract  hangs,  also,  apparently  almost 
motionless  on  the  same  verge.  It  is  diffi- 
cult to  distinguish  wisps  of  spray  from  wisps 
of  clouds.  So  long  a  column  of  water  and 
spray  is  swayed  from  side  to  side  by  the 
wind ;  arid  also,  as  in  all  falls,  the  resistance 
of  the  rocks  at  the  top,  and  of  the  air  in  the 
whole  descent,  produces  a  billowy  motion. 
The  combination  of  these  two  motions,  both 
so  conspicuous  in  this  fall,  is  inexpressibly 
graceful.  When  the  column  swayed  far  to 
the  left,  we  ran  by  on  the  right,  and  got  be- 
hind the  fall,  and  stood  gazing  through  the 
gauzy  veil  upon  the  cliffs  on  the  opposite 
side  of  the  valley.  At  this  season  of  the  year, 
the  Yosemite  Creek  is  much  diminished  in 
volume.  It  strikes  slightly  upon  the  face  of 
the  cliff  about  midway  up.  In  the  spring 
and  autumn,  when  the  river  is  full,  the  fall 
must  be  grand  indeed.  It  is  then  a  clear 
leap  of  sixteen  hundred  feet,  and  the  pool 
which  it  has  hollowed  out  for  itself  in  the 
solid  granite  is  plainly  visible  twenty  to  thirty 
feet  in  advance  of  the  place  on  which  it  now 
falls. 

We  met  here,  at  the  foot  of  the  fall,  a  real 
typical  specimen  of  a  live  Yankee.  He  has, 
he  says,  a  panorama  of  Yosemite,  which  he 
expects  to  exhibit  in  the  Eastern  cities.  It 
is  evident  he  is  "doing"  Yosemite  only  for 
the  purpose  of  getting  materials  of  lectures 
to  accompany  his  exhibitions. 

Coming  down,  in  the  afternoon,  the  fatigue 
was  less,  but  the  danger  much  greater.  We 
were  often  compelled  to  slide  down  the 
face  of  rocks  in  a  sitting  posture,  to  the  great 
detriment  of  the  rear  portion  of  our  trow- 
sers.  Reached  bottom  at  half  past  five 
p.  M.  Here  learned  from  Mr.  Muir  that 
he  would  certainly  go  to  Mono  with  us. 
We  were  much  delighted  to  hear  this.  Mr. 
Muir  is  a  gentleman  of  rare  intelligence,  of 


much  knowledge  of  science,  particularly  of 
botany,  which  he  has  made  a  specialty. 

After  arranging  our  time  of  departure  from 
Yosemite  with  Mr.  Muir,  we  rode  back  to 
camp.  I  enjoyed  greatly  the  ride  to  camp 
in  the  cool  of  the  evening.  The  evening 
view  of  the  valley  was  very  fine,  and  changing 
at  every  step.  Just  before  reaching  our  camp, 
there  is  a  partial,  distant  view  of  the  Illilou- 
ette  Falls — the  only  one  I  know  of  in  the 
valley. 

[Our  party  did  not  visit  the  Illilouette 
Falls,  but  on  a  subsequent  trip  to  Yosemite 
I  did  so.  The  following  is  a  brief  descrip- 
tion, taken  from  my  journal,  which  I  intro- 
duce here  in  order  to  complete  my  account 
of  the  falls  of  this  wondrous  valley : 

August  ^5,  1872. — Started  with  Mr.  Muir 
and  my  nephew  to  visit  the  Illilouette  Falls. 
Hearing  that  there  was  no  trail,  and  that 
the  climb  is  more  difficult  even  than  that  to 
the  Upper  Yosemite,  the  rest  of  the  party 
"backed  out."  We  rode  up  the  Merced,  on 
the  Vernal  Fall  trail,  to  the  junction  of  the 
Illilouette  Fork.  Here  we  secured  our  horses, 
and  proceeded  on  foot  up  the  canon.  The 
rise,  from  this  to  the  foot  of  the  falls,  is 
twelve  hundred  to  fifteen  hundred  feet.  The 
whole  canon  is  literally  filled  with  huge  rock 
fragments — often  hundreds  of  tons  in  weight 
— brought  down  from  the  cliffs  at  the  falls. 
The  scramble  up  the  steep  ascent  over 
these  boulders  was  extremely  difficult  and 
fatiguing.  Oftentimes  the  creek  bed  was  ut- 
terly impracticable,  and  we  had  to  climb 
high  up  the  sides  of  the  gorge  and  down 
again.  But  we  were  gloriously  repaid  for 
our  labor.  There  are  beauties  about  this 
fall  which  are  peculiar,  and  simply  incom- 
parable. It  was  to  me  a  new  experience 
and  a  peculiar  joy.  The  volume  of  water, 
when  I  saw  it,  was  several  times  greater  than 
either  Yosemite  or  Bridal  Veil.  The  stream 
plunges  into  a  narrow  chasm,  bounded  on 
three  sides  by  perpendicular  walls  nearly 
one  thousand  feet  high.  The  height  of  the 
fall  is  six  hundred  feet.  Like  Nevada,  the 
fall  is  not  absolutely  perpendicular,  but 
strikes  about  half  way  down  on  the  face  of 
the  cliff.  But  instead  of  striking  on  pro- 


1885.] 


Rough  Notes  of  a  Yosemite   Cc.mping  Trip. 


497 


jecting  ledges  and  being  thus  beaten  into  a 
great  volume  of  foam,  as  in  the  latter,  it 
glides  over  the  somewhat  even  surface  of 
the  rock,  and  is  woven  into  the  most  exquis- 
ite lace-work,  with  edging  fringe  and  pendant 
tassels,  ever  changing  and  ever  delighting.  It 
is  simply  impossible  even  to  conceive,  much 
less  to  describe,  the  exquisite  delicacy  and 
tantalizing  beauty  of  the  ever  changing  forms. 
The  effect  produced  is  not  tumultuous  excite- 
ment or  ecstasy,  as  by  Nevada,  but  simple, 
pure,  almost  childish  delight.  Now,  as  I 
sit  on  a  great  boulder,  twenty  feet  high,  right 
in  front  of  the  fall,  see!  the  mid-day  sun 
shoots  its  beams  through  the  myriad  water 
drops  that  leap  from  the  top  of  the  cas- 
cade, as  it  strikes  the  edge  of  the  cliff.  As  I 
gaze  upwards,  the  glittering  drops  seem  to 
pause  a  moment,  high  in  air,  and  then  de- 
scend like  a  glorious  star-shower.] 

August  6. — Some  of  the  party  stiff  and 
sore;  I  am  all  right.  The  camp-guard  of 
yesterday  visited  Yosemite  Falls  today,  and 
we  stayed  in  camp.  Visited  Mirror  Lake  this 
morning,  to  see  the  fine  reflection  of  the  sur- 
rounding cliffs  in  its  unruffled  waters,  in  the 
early  morning.  Took  a  swim  in  the  lake; 
spent  the  rest  of  the  morning  washing  clothes, 
writing  letters,  and  picking  and  eating  rasp- 
berries. 

To  a  spectator,  the  clothes-washing  forms 
a  very  interesting  scene.  To  see  us  all  sit- 
ting down  on  the  rocks,  on  the  banks  of  the 
beautiful  Tenaya  River,  scrubbing  and  wring- 
ing and  hanging  out !  It  reminds  one  of  the 
exquisite  washing  scene  of  Princess  Nausicaa 
and  her  damsels,  or  of  Pharaoh's  daughter 
and  her  maids.  Change  the  sex,  and  where 
is  the  inferiority  in  romantic  interest  in  our 
case?  Ah,  the  sex — yes;  this  makes  all  the 
difference  between  the  ideal  and  the  com- 
mon— between  poetry  and  prose.  If  it  were 
only  seven  beautiful  women,  and  I,  like 
Ulysses,  a  spectator  just  waked  from  sleep 
by  their  merry  peals  of  laughter !  But  seven 
rough,  bearded  fellows!  think  of  it!  We 
looked  about  us,  but  found  no  little  Moses 
in  the  bulrushes.  So  we  must  e'en  take  Mr. 
Muir  and  Hawkins  to  lead  us  through  the 
wilderness  of  the  high  Sierras. 
VOL.  VI.— 32. 


In  the  afternoon  we  moved  camp  to  our 
previous  camping  ground  at  Bridal  Veil 
meadow.  Soon  after  leaving  camp,  Soule 
and  myself,  riding  together,  heard  a  hollow 
rumbling,  then  a  crashing  sound.  "Is  it 
thunder  or  earthquake  ?  "  As  we  looked  up 
quickly,  the  white  streak  down  the  cliff  of 
Glacier  Point,  and  the  dust  there,  rising  from 
the  valley,  revealed  the  fact  that  it  was  the 
falling  of  a  huge  rock  mass  from  Glacier 
Point. 

We  rode  down  in  the  cool  of  the  evening, 
and  by  moonlight.  Took  leave  of  our  friends 
in  the  valley;  sad  leave  of  our  friends,  now 
dear  friends,  of  the  valley — the  venerable 
and  grand  Old  South  Dome,  under  whose 
shadowwe  had  camped  so  long;  North  Dome, 
Washington  Column,  Royal  Arches,  Glacier 
Point ;  then  Yosemite  Falls,  Sentinel  Rock, 
Three  Brothers.  By  this  time  night  had 
closed  in,  but  the  moon  was  near  full,  and 
the  shadows  of  Cathedral  Spires  and  Cathe- 
dral Rock  lay  across  our  path,  while  the 
grand  rock  mass  of  El  Capitan  shone  glori- 
ously white  in  the  moonlight.  The  ride  was 
really  enchanting  to  all,  but  affected  us  dif- 
ferently. The  young  men  rode  ahead,  sing- 
ing in  chorus  ;  I  lagged  behind  and  enjoyed 
it  in  silence.  The  choral  music,  mellowed 
by  distance,  seemed  to  harmonize  with  the 
scene,  and  to  enhance  its  holy  stillness. 
About  half  past  eight  P.  M.  we  encamped  on 
the  western  side  of  Bridal  Veil  meadow. 
After  supper  we  were  in  fine  spirits,  contend- 
ed with  each  other  in  gymnastic  exercises, 
etc.;  then  gathered  hay,  made  a  delightful, 
fragrant  bed,  and  slept  dreamlessly. 

August  7,  Sunday. — Got  up  late — 6  A.  M. 
— as  is  common  everywhere  on  this  day  of 
rest.  About  1 1  A.  M.  took  a  quiet  swim  in 
the  river.  During  the  rest  of  the  morning  I 
sat  and  enjoyed  the  fine  view  of  the  opening 
or  gate  of  the  valley,  from  the  lower  side  of 
the  meadow.  There  stands  the  grand  old 
El  Capitan  in  massive  majesty  on  the  left, 
and  Cathedral  Rock  and  the  Veiled  Bride 
on  the  right.  There  is  considerable  breeze 
today;  and  now,  while  I  write,  the  Bride's  veil 
is  wafted  from  side  to  side,  and  sometimes 
lifted  until  I  can  almost  see  the  blushing  face 


498 


Hough  Notes  of  a  Yosemite   Camping  Trip. 


[Nov. 


of  the  Bride  herself — the  beautiful  spirit  of  the 
Falls. 

At  3  P.  M.  went  again  alone — to  the  lower 
side  of  the  meadow,  and  sat  down  before  the 
gate  of  the  valley.  From  this  point  I  look 
directly  through  the  gate  and  up  the  valley. 
There  again,  rising  to  the  very  skies,  stands 
the  huge  mass  of  El  Capitan  on  one  side,  and 
on  the  other  side  the  towering  peak  of  the 
Cathedral,  with  the  Veiled  Bride  retiring  a  lit- 
tle back  from  the  too  ardent  gaze  of  admira- 
tion ;  then  the  cliffs  of  Yosemite,  growing  nar- 
rower and  lower  on  each  side,  beyond.  Con- 
spicuous, far  in  the  distance,  see !  Old  South 
Dome  and  Cloud's  Rest.  The  sky  is  per- 
fectly serene,  except  heavy  masses  of  snow- 
white  cumulus,  sharply  defined  against  the 
deep  blue  of  the  sky,  filling  the  space  beyond 
the  gate.  The  wavy  motion  of  the  Bride's 
veil,  as  I  gaze  steadfastly  upon  it,  drowses  my 
sense ;  I  sit  in  a  kind  of  delicious  dream, 
the  scenery  unconsciously  mingling  with  it. 

After  supper,  went  again  alone  into  the 
meadow,  to  enjoy  the  moonlight  view.  The 
moon  is  long  risen  and  "near  her  highest 
noon,"  but  not  yet  visible  in  this  deep  valley, 
although  I  am  sitting  on  the  extreme  northern 
side.  Cathedral  Rock,  and  the  snowy  veil 
of  the  Bride,  and  the  whole  right  side  of  the 
canon  is  in  deep  shade,  and  it*  serried  mar- 
gin strongly  relieved  against  the  bright, 
moonlit  sky.  On  the  other  side  are  the 
cliffs  of  El  Capitan,  snow-white  in  the  moon- 
light. Above  all  arches  the  deep  black  sky, 
studded  with  stars  gazing  quietly  downward. 
Here,  under  the  black,  arching  sky,  and 
before  the  grand  cliffs  of  Yosemite,  I  lifted 
my  heart  in  humble  worship  to  the  great 
God  of  Nature. 

August  8. — Today  we  leave  Yosemite ;  we 
therefore  get  up  very  early,  intending  to 
make  an  early  start.  I  go  out  again  into  the 
meadow,  to  take  a  final  farewell  view  of  Yo- 
semite. The  sun  is  just  rising  ;  wonderful, 
warm,  transparent  golden  light  (as  in  Bier- 
stadt's  picture)  on  El  Capitan;  the  whole 
other  side  of  the  valley  in  deep,  cool  shade ; 
the  bald  head  of  South  Dome  glistening  in 
the  distance.  The  scene  is  magnificent. 

But   see!   just  across  the  Merced    river 


from  our  camp,  a  bare  trickling  of  water  from 
top  to  bottom  of  the  perpendicular  cliff.  I 
have  not  thought  it  worth  while  to  mention 
it  before,  but  this  is  the  fall  called  "  Virgin's 
Tears."  Poor  Virgin  !  she  seems /#.«•<?<?/  her 
cheeks  are  seamed  and  channeled  and  wrin- 
kled ;  she  wishes  she  was  a  Bride,  too,  and 
had  a  veil;  so  near  El  Capitan,  too,  but  he 
will  not  look  that  way.  I  am  sorry  I  have 
neglected  to  sing  her  praises. 

Our  horses  have  feasted  so  long  on  this 
meadow  that  they  seem  disinclined  to  be 

caught.  P 's  ill-favored  beast,  Old  67, 

gave  us  much  trouble.  He  had  to  be  las- 
sooed  at  last.  We  forded  the  river  imme- 
diately at  our  camp.  Found  it  so  deep  and 
rough  that  several  of  the  horses  stumbled 
and  fell  down.  We  now  took  Coulterville 
trail ;  up,  up,  up,  backwards  and  forwards, 
up,  up,  up  the  almost  perpendicular  side  of 
the  canon  below  the  gate.  The  trail  often 
runs  on  a  narrow  ledge  along  the  almost 
perpendicular  cliff.  A  stumble  might  pre- 
cipitate both  horse  and  rider  one  thousand 
feet,  to  the  bottom  of  the  chasm.  But  the 
horses  know  this  as  well  as  we.  They  are 
very  careful.  About  the  place  where  Mono 
trail  turns  sharp  back  from  Coulterville  trail, 
Mr.  Muir  overtook  us.  Without  him  we 
should  have  experienced  considerable  diffi- 
culty ;  for  the  trail  being  now  little  used,  ex- 
cept by  shepherds,  is  very  rough, and  so  blind 
that  it  is  almost  impossible  to  find  it,  or,  hav- 
ing found  it,  to  keep  it. 

Made  about  fourteen  miles,  and  by  2  p.  M. 
reached  a  meadow  near  the  top  of  Three 
Brothers.  Here  we  camped  for  the  night  in 
a  most  beautiful  grove  of  spruce  (Picea  am- 
abilis  and  grandis)  chose  our  sleeping  places, 
cut  branches  of  spruce,  and  made  the  most 
delightful  elastic  and  aromatic  beds,  and 
spread  our  blankets  in  preparation  for  night. 
After  dinner  lay  down  on  our  blankets,  and 
gazed  up  through  the  magnificent  tall  spruces 
into  the  deep,  blue  sky  and  the  gathering 
masses  of  white  clouds.  Mr.  Muir  gazes 
and  gazes,  and  cannot  get  his  fill.  He  is  a 
most  passionate  lover  of  nature.  Plants,  and 
flowers,  and  forests,  and  sky,  and  clouds,  and 
mountains  seem  actually  to  haunt  his  im- 


1885.] 


Hough  Notes  of  a  Yosemite  Camping  Trip. 


499 


agination.  He  seems  to  revel  in  the  free- 
dom of  this  life.  I  have  talked  much  with 
him  today  about  the  probable  manner  in 
which  Yosemite  was  formed.  He  fully 
agrees  with  me  that  the  peculiar  cleavage  of 
the  rock  is  a  most  important  point,  which 
must  not  be  left  out  of  account.  He  farther 
believes  that  the  valley  has  been  wholly 
formed  by  causes  still  in  operation  in  the 
Sierra — that  the  Merced  glacier  and  the  Mer- 
ced river  and  its  branches,  when  we  take 
into  consideration  the  peculiar  cleavage,  and 
also  the  rapidity  with  which  the  fallen  and 
falling  boulders  from  the  cliffs  are  disin- 
tegrated into  dust,  has  done  the  whole  work. 
The  perpendicularity  is  the  result  of  cleav- 
age ;  the  want  of  talus  is  the  result  of  the 
rapidity  of  disintegration,  and  the  recency 
of  the  disappearance  of  the  glacier.  I  dif- 
fer from  him  only  in  attributing  far  more  to 
pre-glacial  action. 

I  may,  I  think,  appropriately  introduce 
here  my  observations  on  the  evidence  of 
glacial  action  in  Yosemite.  It  is  well  known 
that  a  glacier  once  came  down  the  Tenaya 
Canon.  I  shall  probably  see  abundant  evi- 
dence of  this  high  up  this  canon,  tomorrow 
and  the  next  day.  That  this  glacier  extended 
into  the  Yosemite  has  been  disputed,  but  is 
almost  certain.  Mr.  Muir  also  tells  me  that 
at  the  top  of  Nevada  Falls  there  are  unmis- 
takable evidences  (polishings  and  scorings) 
of  a  glacier.  There  is  no  doubt,  therefore, 
that  anciently  a  glacier  came  down  each  of 
these  canons.  Did  they  meet  and  form  a 
Yosemite  glacier?  From  the  projecting, 
rocky  point  which  separates  the  Tenaya  from 
the  Nevada  canon  there  is  a  pile  of  boulders 
and  debris  running  out  into  the  valley  near 
Lamon's  garden,  like  a  continuation  of  the 
point.  Mr.  Muir  thinks  this  unmistakably 
a  central  moraine,  formed  by  the  union  of 
the  Tenaya  and  Nevada  glaciers.  I  did  not 
examine  it  carefully.  Again,  there  are  two 
lakes  in  the  lower  Tenaya  Canon  :  viz,  Mir- 
ror Lake,  and  a  smaller  lake  lower  down. 
Below  Mirror  Lake,  and  again  below  the 
smaller  lake,  there  is  an  immense  heap  of 
boulders  and  rubbish.  Are  not  these  piles 
terminal  moraines,  and  have  not  the  lakes 


been  formed  by  the  consequent  damming  of 
the  waters  of  Tenaya  ?  These  lakes  are  fill- 
ing up.  It  seems  probable  that  the  meadow, 
also,  on  which  we  camped  has  been  formed 
in  the  same  way,  by  a  moraine  just  below 
the  meadow,  marked  by  a  pile  of  debris  there, 
also.  Whether  the  succession  of  meadows 
in  the  Yosemite,  of  which  the  Bridal  Veil 
meadow  is  the  lowest,  have  been  similarly 
formed,  requires  and  really  deserves  further 
investigation.  I  strongly  incline  to  the  be- 
lief that  they  have  been,  and  that  a  glacier 
once  filled  Yosemite.  I  observed  other  evi- 
dences, but  I  must  visit  this  valley  again  and 
examine  more  carefully. 

After  discussing  these  high  questions  with 
Mr.  Muir  for  some  time,  we  walked  to  the 
edge  of  the  Yosemite  chasm,  and  out  on 
the  projecting  point  of  Three  Brothers,  called 
Eagle  Point.  Here  we  had  our  last,  and  cer- 
tainly one  of  the  most  magnificent  views  of 
the  valley  and  the  high  Sierras.  I  can  only 
name  the  points  which  are  in  view,  and  leave 
the  reader  to  fill  out  the  picture.  As  we  look 
up  the  valley,  to  the  near  left  are  the  Yosem- 
ite Falls,  but  not  a  very  good  view ;  then 
Washington  Column,  North  Dome ;  then 
grand  old  South  Dome.  The  view  of  this 
grand  feature  of  Yosemite  is  here  magnifi- 
cent. It  is  seen  in  half  profile.  Its  round- 
ed head,  its  perpendicular  rock  face,  its  tow- 
ering height,  and  its  massive  proportions  are 
well  seen.  As  the  eye  travels  round  to  the 
right,  next  comes  the  NevadfFall  (Vernal  is 
not  seen) ;  then,  in  succession,  the  peaks  on 
the  opposite  side  of  the  valley,  Glacier  Point, 
Sentinel  Dome,  Sentinel  Rock,  Cathedral 
Spires  and  Cathedral  Rock  ;  then,  crossing 
the  valley  and  behind  us,  is  El  Capitan.  In 
the  distance,  the  peaks  of  the  Sierras,  Mount 
Hoffman,  Cathedral  Peak,  Cloud's  Rest, 
Mount  Starr  King,  Mount  Clark,  and  Os- 
trander's  Rocks  are  seen.  Below,  the  whole 
valley,  like  a  green  carpet,  and  Merced  Riv- 
er, like  a  beautiful  vine,  winding  through. 
We  remained  and  enjoyed  the  view  by  sun- 
light, by  twilight,  and  by  moonlight.  We  then 
built  a  huge  fire  on  the  extreme  summit.  In- 
stantly, answering  fires  were  built  in  almost 
every  part  of  the  valley.  We  shouted  and 


500 


Rough  Notes  of  a  Yosemite   Camping  Trip. 


[Nov. 


received  answer.  We  fired  guns  and  pistols, 
and  heard  reports  in  return.  I  counted  the 
time  between  flash  and  report,  and  found  it 
nine  to  ten  seconds.  This  would  make  the 
distance  about  two  miles  in  an  air  line. 

During  the  night,  some  of  the  horses,  not 
having  been  staked,  wandered  away,  and 
some  of  the  party  were  out  two  hours  recov- 
ering them.  They  found  them  several  miles 
on  their  way  back  to  the  fat  pasture  of  Bri- 
dal Veil  meadow.  On  my  fragrant,  elastic 
bed  of  spruce  boughs,  and  wrapped  head 
and  ears  in  my  .blankets,  I  knew  nothing  of 
all  this  until  morning. 

Coming  out  of  the  Yosemite  today,  Mr. 
Muir  pointed  out  to  me,  and  I  examined  the 
Torreya  (California  nutmeg).  Fruit  solitary, 
at  extreme  end  of  spray,  nearly  the  color, 
shape,  and  size  of  a  green-gage  plum,  and  yet 
a  conifer.  The  morphology  of  the  fruit  would 
be  interesting. 

August  9. — I  am  cook  again  today.  My 
bread  this  morning  was  voted  excellent.  In- 
deed, it  was  as  light  and  spongy  as  any  bread 
I  ever  ate.  About  12  M.  we  saw  a  shep- 
herd's camp,  and  rode  up  in  hopes  of  buying 
a  sheep.  No  one  at  home,  but  there  is 
much  sheep  meat  hanging  about  and  drying. 
As  we  came  nearer,  a  delicious  fragrance  as- 
sailed our  nostrils.  What  could  it  be? 
Here  is  a  pot,  nearly  buried  in  the  hot  ash- 
es, and  closely  covered.  Wonder  what  is  in 
it?  Let  us  see.  On  our  removing  the  cover, 
a  fragrant  stfam  arose,  which  fairly  over- 
came the  scruples  of  several  of  the  party. 
Mutton  stew,  deliciously  seasoned !  Mr. 
Muir,  who  had  been  a  shepherd  himself,  and 
had  attended  sheep  here  last  year,  and  was 
thoroughly  acquainted  with  shepherds'  habits, 
assured  us  that  we  might  eat  without  com- 
punction— that  the  shepherds  would  be 
pleased  rather  than  displeased — that  they  had 
more  mutton  than  they  knew  what  to  do 
with.  Upon  this  assurance,  we  all  fell  to,  for 
we  were  very  hungry,  and  the  stew  quickly 
disappeared.  While  we  were  yet  wiping  our 
mustaches,  the  shepherd  appeared,  and  was 
highly  amused  and  pleased  at  our  extrava- 
gant praises  of  his  stew.  We  went  on  a  lit- 
tle farther,  and  stopped  for  noon  at  a  small, 


open  meadow.  While  I  was  cooking  dinner, 
Hawkins  bought  and  butchered  a  fat  sheep. 
We  expect  to  live  upon  mutton  until  we  cross 
the  Sierra. 

This  afternoon  we  went  on  to  Lake  Tena- 
ya.  The  trail  is  very  blind,  in  most  cases  de- 
tectible  only  by  the  blazing  of  trees,  and  very 
rough.  We  traveled  most  of  the  way  on  a 
high  ridge.  When  within  about  two  miles  of 
our  destination,  from  the  brow  of  the  moun- 
tain ridge  upon  which  we  had  been  traveling, 
Lake  Tenaya  burst  upon  our  delighted  vis- 
ion, its  placid  surface  set  like  a  gem  amongst 
magnificent  mountains,  the  most  conspicuous 
of  which  are  Mount  Hoffman  group,  on  the 
left,  and  Cathedral  Peak,  beyond  the  lake. 
From  this  point  we  descended  to  the  margin 
of  the  lake,  and  encamped  at  5  P.  M.  at  the 
lower  end,  in  a  fine  grove  of  tamaracks,  near 
an  extensive  and  beautiful  meadow. 

After  supper,  I  went  with  Mr.  Muir  and  sat 
on  a  high  rock,  jutting  into  the  lake.  It 
was  full  moon.  I  never  saw  a  more  delight- 
ful scene.  This  little  lake,  one  mile  long, 
and  one  half  mile  wide,  is  actually  embos- 
omed in  the  mountains,  being  surrounded  by 
rocky  eminences  two  thousand  feet  high,  of 
the  most  picturesque  forms,  which  come 
down  to  the  very  water's  edge.  The  deep 
stillness  of  the  night,  the  silvery  light  and 
deep  shadows  of  the  mountains,  the  reflec- 
tion on  the  water,  broken  into  thousands  of 
glittering  points  by  the  ruffled  surface,  the 
gentle  lapping  of  the  wavelets  upon  the  rocky 
shore — all  these  seemed  exquisitely  harmon- 
ized with  each  other;  and  the  grand  harmony 
made  answering  music  in  our  hearts.  Grad- 
ually the  lake  surface  became  quiet  and  mir- 
ror-like, and  the  exquisite  surrounding  scen- 
ery was  seen  double.  For  an  hour  we  re- 
mained sitting  in  silent  enjoyment  of  this  de- 
licious scene,  which  we  reluctantly  left  to  go 
to  bed.  Tenaya  Lake  is  about  eight  thou- 
sand feet  above  sea-level.  The  night  air, 
therefore,  is  very  cool. 

I  noticed  in  many  places  today,  especially 
as  we  approached  Lake  Tenaya,  the  polish- 
ings  and  scorings  of  ancient  glaciers.  In 
many  places  we  found  broad,  flat  masses,  so 
polished  that  our  horses  could  hardly  main- 


1885.] 


Rough  Notes  of  a  Yosemite  Camping  Trip. 


501 


tain  their  footing  in  passing  over  them.  It 
is  wonderful  that  in  granite  so  decomposable 
these  old  glacial  surfaces  should  remain  as 
fresh  as  the  day  they  were  left  by  the  glacier. 
But  if  ever  the  polished  surface  scales  off, 
then  the  disintegration  proceeds  as  usual.  The 
destruction  of  these  surfaces  by  scaling  is, 
in  fact,  continually  going  on.  Whitney  thinks 
the  polished  surface  is  hardened  by  pressure 
of  the  glacier.  I  cannot  think  so.  The 
smoothing,  I  think,  prevents  the  retention  of 
water,  and  thus  prevents  the  rotting.  Like 
the  rusting  of  iron,  which  is  hastened  by 
roughness,  and  still  more  by  rust,  and  re- 
tarded, or  even  prevented,  by  cleaning  and 
polishing,  so  rotting  of  rock  is  hastened  by 
roughness,  and  still  more  by  beginning  to 
rot,  and  retarded  or  prevented  by  grinding 
down  to  the  sound  rock,  and  then  polishing. 

August  10. — Early  start  this  morning  for 

Soda  Springs  and   Mount    Dana.     Ph 

and  his  mare  entertained  us  while  getting 
off,  with  an  amusing  bucking  scene.  The 
interesting  performance  ended  with  the 
grand  climacteric  feat  of  flying  head  foremost 
over  the  head  of  the  horse,  turning  a  somer- 
sault in  the  air,  and  alighting  safely  on  the 
back.  After  this  exhilarating  diversion,  we 
proceeded  on  our  way,  following  the  trail  on 
the  right  hand  of  the  lake.  Onward  we  go, 
in  single  file,  I  leading  the  pack,  over  the 
roughest  and  most  precipitous  trail  (if  trail  it 
can  be  called)  I  ever  saw.  At  one  moment 
we  lean  forward,  holding  to  the  horse's  mane, 
until  our  noses  are  between  the  horse's  ears ; 
at  the  next,  we  stand  in  the  stirrups,  with 
our  backs  leaning  hard  against  the  roll  of 
blankets  behind  the  saddle.  Thus  we  pass, 
dividing  our  attention  between  the  difficul- 
ties of  the  way  and  the  magnificence  of  the 
scenery,  until  12  M.,  when  we  reach  Soda 
Springs,  in  the  splendid  meadows  of  the  up- 
per Tuolumne  river. 

Our  trail  this  morning  has  been  up  the 
Tenaya  Canon,  over  the  divide,  and  into  the 
Tuolumne  Valley.  There  is  abundant  evi- 
dence of  an  immense  former  glacier,  coming 
from  Mount  Dana  and  Mount  Lyell  group, 
filling  the  Tuolumne  Valley,  overrunning  the 
divide,  and  sending  a  branch  down  the  Te- 


naya Canon.  The  rocks  in  and  about  Te- 
naya Caflon  are  everywhere  scored  and  pol- 
ished. We  had  to  dismount  and  lead  over 
some  of  these  polished  surfaces.  The  horses' 
feet  slipped  and  sprawled  in  every  direction, 
but  none  fell.  A  conspicuous  feature  of  the 
scenery  on  Lake  Tenaya  is  a  granite  knob, 
eight  hundred  feet  high,  at  the  upper  end  of 
the  lake,  and  in  the  middle  of  the  canon. 
This  knob  is  bare,  destitute  of  vegetation, 
round  and  polished  to  the  very  top.  It  has 
evidently  been  enveloped  in  the  icy  mass, 
and  its  shape  has  been  determined  by  it.  We 
observed  similar  scorings  and  polishings  on 
the  sides  of  the  canon  to  an  equal  and  even 
much  greater  height.  Splendid  view  of  the 
double  peaks  of  the  Cathedral  from  Tenaya 
Lake  and  from  the  trail.  Looking  back 
from  the  trail  soon  after  leaving  the  lake,  we 
saw  a  conspicuous  and  very  picturesque  peak, 
with  a  vast  amphitheater  with  precipitous 
sides,  to  the  north,  filled  with  a  grand  mass 
of  snow,  evidently  the  fountain  of  an  ancient 
tributary  of  the  Tenaya  Glacier.  We  called 
this  Coliseum  Peak.  So  let  it  be  called  here- 
after, to  the  end  of  time. 

The  Tuolumne  meadow  is  a  beautiful 
grassy  plain  of  great  extent,  thickly  enam- 
eled with  flowers,  and  surrounded  with  the 
most  magnificent  scenery.  Conspicuous 
amongst  the  hundreds  of  peaks  visible  are 
Mount  Dana,  with  its  grand,  symmetrical  out- 
line, and  purplish  red  color ;  Mount  Gibbs, 
of  gray  granite ;  Mount  Lyell  and  its  group 
of  peaks,  upon  which  great  masses  of  snow 
still  lie;  and  the  wonderfully  picturesque 
group  of  sharp,  inaccessible  peaks  (viz,  Uni- 
corn Peak,  Cathedral  Peaks,  etc.),  forming 
the  Cathedral  group. 

Soda  Springs  is  situated  on  the  northern 
margin  of  the  Tuolumne  meadow.  It  con- 
sists of  several  springs  of  ice-cold  water,  bub- 
bling up  from  the  top  of  a  low  reddish 
mound.  Each  spring  itself  issues  from  the 
top  of  a  small  subordinate  mound.  The 
mound  consists  of  carbonate  of  lime,  col- 
ored with  iron  deposited  from  the  water. 
The  water  contains  principally  carbonates  of 
lime  and  iron  dissolved  in  excess  of  carbon- 
ic acid,  which  escapes  in  large  quantities 


502 


jRough  Notes  of  a  Yosemite   Camping   Trip. 


[Nov. 


in  bubbles.  It  possibly  also  contains  car- 
bonate of  soda.  It  is  very  pungent  and  de- 
lightful to  the  taste. 

About  3  P.  M.  began  saddling  up,  intend- 
ing to  go  to  Mount  Dana.  Heavy  clouds 
have  been  gathering  for  some  time  past. 
Low  mutterings  of  thunder  have  also  been 
heard.  But  we  had  already  been  so  accus- 
tomed to  the  same,  without  rain,  in  the  Yo- 
semite, that  we  thought  nothing  of  it.  We 
had  already  saddled  and  some  had  mounted 
when  the  storm  burst  upon  us.  "  Our  pro- 
visions— sugar,  tea,  salt,  flour,  etc. — must  be 
kept  dry  ! "  shouted  Hawkins.  We  hastily 
dismounted,  constructed  a  sort  of  shed  of 
blankets  and  india  rubber  cloths,  and  threw 
our  provisions  under  it.  Now  began  peal 
after  peal  of  thunder  in  an  almost  continu- 
ous roar,  and  floods  of  rain.  We  all  crept 
under  the  temporary  shed,  but  not  before 
we  had  gotten  pretty  well  soaked.  So  much 
delayed,  that  we  were  now  debating,  after  the 
rain,  whether  we  had  not  better  remain  here 
over  night.  Some  were  urgent  for  pushing 
on,  others  equally  so  for  staying.  Just  at 
this  juncture,  when  the  debate  ran  high,  a 
shout,  "  Hurrah  ! "  turned  all  eyes  in  the  same 
direction.  Hawkins  and  Mr.  Muir  had 
scraped  up  the  dry  leaves  underneath  a  huge 
prostrate  tree,  set  fire,  and  piled  on  fuel,  and 
already,  see — a  glorious  blaze  !  This  inci- 
dent decided  the  question  at  once.  With  a 
shout  we  all  ran  for  fuel,  and  piled  on  log 
after  log  until  the  blaze  rose  twenty  feet  high. 
Before,  shivering,  crouching,  and  miserable  ; 
now,  joyous  and  gloriously  happy. 

The  storm  did  not  last  more  than  an  hour. 
After  it  the  sun  came  out  and  flooded  all 
the  landscape  with  liquid  gold.  I  sat  alone 
at  some  distance  from  the  camp,  and  watched 
the  successive  changes  of  the  scene — first 
the  blazing  sunlight,  flooding  meadow  and 
mountain  ;  then  the  golden  light  on  moun- 
tain peaks,  and  then  the  lengthening  shad- 
ows on  the  valley ;  then  a  roseate  bloom  dif- 
fused over  sky  and  air,  over  mountain  and 
meadow — oh,  how  exquisite  !  I  never  saw 
the  like  before.  Last,  the  creeping  shadow 
of  night,  descending  and  enveloping  all. 

The  Tuolumne    meadows  are  celebrated 


for  their  fine  pasturage.  Some  twelve  thou- 
sand to  fifteen  thousand  sheep  are  now  pas- 
tured here.  They  are  divided  into  flocks  of 
about  two  thousand  five  hundred  to  three 
thousand.  I  was  greatly  interested  in  watch- 
ing the  management  of  these  flocks,  each  by 
means  of  a  dog.  The  intelligence  of  the 
dog  is  perhaps  nowhere  more  conspicuous. 
The  sheep  we  bought  yesterday  is  entirely 
gone — eaten  up  in  one  day.  We  bought  an- 
other here,  a  fine,  large,  fat  one.  In  an  hour 
it  was  butchered,  quartered,  and  a  portion  on 
the  fire,  cooking.  After  a  very  hearty  sup- 
per, we  hung  up  our  blankets  about  our 
camp-fire  to  dry,  while  we  ourselves  gathered 
around  it  to  enjoy  its  delicious  warmth. 
By  request  of  the  party,  I  gave  a  familiar  lec- 
ture, or  rather  talk,  on  the  subject  of  glaciers 
and  the  glacial  phenomena  we  had  seen  on 
the  way. 

LecxuRE  ON  GLACIERS  AND  THE  GLACIAL 
PHENOMENA  OF  THE  SIERRAS. 

In  certain  countries,  where  the  mountains 
rise  into  the  region  of  perpetual  snow,  and 
where  other  conditions,  especially  abundant 
moisture,  are  present,  we  find  enormous 
masses  of  ice  occupying  the  valleys,  extend- 
ing far  below  the  snow-cap,  and  slowly  mov- 
ing downward.  Such  moving,  icy  extensions 
of  the  perpetual  snow-cap  are  called  glaciers. 

It  is  easy  to  see  that  both  the  existence 
of  glaciers  and  their  downward  motion  are 
necessary  to  satisfy  the  demands  of  the  great, 
universal  Law  of  Circulation.  For  in  coun- 
tries where  glaciers  exist,  the  amount  of  snow 
which  falls  on  mountain  tops  is  far  greater 
than  the  waste  of  the  same  by  melting  and 
evaporation  in  the  same  region.  The  snow, 
therefore,  would  accumulate  without  limit  if 
it  did  not  move  down  to  lower  regions,  where 
the  excess  is  melted  and  returned  again  to 
the  general  circulation  of  meteoric  waters. 

In  the  Alps,  glaciers  are  now  found  ten  to 
fifteen  miles  long,  one  to  three  miles  wide, 
and  five  hundred  to  six  hundred  feet  thick. 
They  often  reach  four  thousand  feet  below 
the  snow  level,  and  their  rate  of  motion 
varies  from  a  few  inches  to  several  feet  per 


1885.] 


Rough  Notes  of  a  Yosemite   Camping   Trip. 


503 


day.  In  grander  mountains,  such  as  the 
Himalayas  and  Andes,  they  are  found  of 
much  greater  size ;  while  in  Greenland  and 
the  Antarctic  Continent,  the  whole  surface  of 
the  country  is  completely  covered,  two  thou- 
sand to  three  thousand  feet  deep,  with  an  ice 
sheet,  moulding  itself  on  the  inequalities  of 
surface,  and  moving  slowly  seaward,  to  break 
off  there  into  masses  which  -form  icebergs. 
The  icy,  instead  of  snowy,  condition  of  gla- 
ciers, is  the  result  of  pressure,  together  with 
successive  thawings  and  freezings.  Snow  is 
thus  slowly  compacted  into  glacier-ice. 

Although  glaciers  are  in  continual  motion 
downward,  yet  the  lower  end,  or  foot,  never 
reaches  below  a  certain  point ;  and  under 
unchanging  conditions,  this  point  remains 
fixed.  The  reason  is  obvious.  The  glacier 
may  be  regarded  as  being  under  the  influ- 
ence of  two  opposite  forces  ;  the  downward 
motion  tending  ever  to  lengthen,  and  the  melt- 
ing tending  ever  to  shorten  it.  High  up  the 
mountain  the  motion  is  in  excess,  but  as  the 
melting  power  of  the  sun  and  air  increases 
downward,  there  must  be  a  place  where  the 
motion  and  the  melting  balance  each  other. 
At  this  point  will  be  found  the  foot.  It  is 
called  the  lower  limit  of  the  glacier.  Its 
position,  of  course,  varies  in  different  coun- 
tries, and  may  even  reach  the  sea  coast,  in 
which  case  icebergs  are  formed.  Annual 
changes  of  temperature  do  not  affect  the  po- 
sition of  the  foot  of  the  glacier,  but  secular 
changes  cause  it  to  advance  or  retreat.  Dur- 
ing periods  of  increasing  cold  and  moisture, 
the  foot  advances,  pushing  before  it  the  ac- 
cumulating debris.  During  periods  of  in- 
creasing heat  and  dryness,  it  retreats,  leaving 
its  previously  accumulated  debris  lower  down 
the  valley.  But  whether  the/00/  of  the  gla- 
cier be  stationary  or  advancing  or  retreating, 
the  matter  of  the  glacier,  and  therefore  all 
the  debris  lying  on  its  surface,  is  in  continual 
motion  downward.  Since  glaciers  are  lim- 
ited by  melting,  it  is  evident  that  a  river 
springs  from  the  foot  of  every  glacier. 

Moraines. — On  the  surface,  and  about  the 
foot  of  glaciers,  are  always  found  immense 
piles  of  heterogeneous  debris,  consisting  of 
rock  fragments  of  all  sizes,  mixed  with  earth. 


These  are  called  moraines.  On  the  surface, 
the  most  usual  form  and  place  is  a  long  heap, 
often  twenty  to  fifty  feet  high,  along  each 
side,  next  the  bounding  cliffs.  These  are 
called  lateral  moraines.  They  are  ruins  of 
the  crumbling  cliffs  on  each  side,  drawn  out 
into  continuous  line  by  the  motion  of  the 
glacier.  If  glaciers  are  without  tributaries, 
these  lateral  moraines  are  all  the  debris  on 
their  surface ;  but  if  glaciers  have  tributaries, 
then  the  two  interior  lateral  moraines  of  the 
tributaries  are  carried  down  the  middle  of 
the  glacier  as  a  medial  moraine.  There  is  a 
medial  moraine  for  every  tributary.  In  com- 
plicated glaciers,  therefore,  the  whole  surface 
may  be  nearly  covered  with  debris.  All  these 
materials,  whether  lateral  or  medial,  are  borne 
slowly  onward  by  the  motion  of  the  glacier, 
and  finally  deposited  at  its  foot  in  the  form 
of  a  huge,  irregularly  crescentic  pile  of  debris 
known  as  the  terminal  moraine.  If  a  glacier 
runs  from  a  rocky  gorge  out  on  a  level  plain, 
then  the  lateral  moraines  may  be  dropped 
on  either  side,  forming  parallel  debris  piles, 
confining  the  glacier. 

Laws  of  Glacial  Motion. — Glaciers  do  not 
slide  down  their  beds  like  solid  bodies,  but 
run  down  in  the  manner  of  a  body  half  solid, 
half  liquid ;  i.  e.,  in  the  manner  of  a  stream  of 
stiffly  viscous  substance.  Thus,  while  a  gla- 
cier slides  over  its  bed,  yet  the  upper  layers 
move  faster,  and  therefore  slide  over  the 
lower  layers.  Again,  while  the  whole  mass 
moves  down,  rubbing  on  the  bounding 
sides,  yet  the  middle  portions  move  faster, 
and  therefore  slide  on  the  marginal  portions. 
Lastly,  while  a  glacier  moves  over  smaller 
inequalities  of  bed  and  bank  like  a  solid,  yet 
it  conforms  to  and  moulds  itself  upon  the 
larger  inequalities  like  a  liquid.  Also,  its 
motion  down  steep  slopes  is  greater  than 
over  level  reaches.  Thus,  glaciers,  like  rivers, 
have  their  narrows  and  their  lakes,  their 
rapids  and  their  stiller  portions,  their  deeps 
and  their  shallows.  In  a  word,  a  glacier  is 
a  stream,  its  motion  is  viscoid,  and  for  the 
practical  purposes  of  the  geologist,  it  may 
be  regarded  as  a  very  stiffly  viscous  body. 

Glaciers  as  a  Geological  Agent. — Glaciers, 
like  rivers,  wear  away  the  surfaces  over  which 


504 


Rough  Notes  of  a  Yosemite  Camping  Trip. 


[Nov. 


they  pass;  transport  materials,  and  deposit 
them  in  their  course  or  at  their  termination. 
But  in  all  these  respects  the  effects  of  glacial 
action  are  very  characteristic,  and  cannot  be 
mistaken  for  those  of  any  other  agent. 

Erosion. — The  cutting  or  wearing  power 
of  glaciers  is  very  great ;  not  only  on  account 
of  their  great  weight,  but  also  because  they 
carry,  fixed  firmly  in  their  lower  surfaces, 
and  therefore  between  themselves  and  their 
beds,  rock  fragments  of  all  sizes,  which  act 
as  their  graving  tools.  These  fragments  are 
partly  torn  off  from  their  rocky  beds  in  their 
course,  but  principally  consist  of  top-debris, 
which  finds  its  way  to  the  bottom  through 
fissures,  or  else  is  engulfed  in  the  viscous 
mass  on  the  sides.  Armed  with  these  grav- 
ing tools,  a  glacier  behaves  toward  smaller  in- 
equalities like  a  solid  body,  planing  them 
down  to  a  smooth  surface,  and  marking  the 
smooth  surface  thus  made  with  straight  par- 
allel scratches.  But  to  large  inequalities  it 
behaves  like  a  viscous  liquid,  conforming  to 
their  surfaces,  while  it  smooths  and  scratches 
them.  It  moulds  itself  upon  large  promi- 
nences, and  scoops  out  large  hollows,  at  the 
same  time  smoothing,  rounding,  and  scoring 
them.  These  smooth,  rounded,  scored  sur- 
faces, and  these  scooped-out  rock-basins,  are 
very  characteristic  of  glacial  action.  We 
have  passed  over  many  such  smooth  surfaces 
this  morning.  The  scooped-out  rock-basins, 
when  left  by  the  retreating  glacier,  become 
beautiful  lakes.  Lake  Tenaya  is  probably 
such  a  lake. 

Transportation. — The  carrying  power  of 
river  currents  has  a  definite  relation  to  ve- 
locity. To  carry  rock-fragments  of  many 
tons'  weight  requires  an  almost  incredible've- 
locity.  Glaciers,  on  the  contrary,  carry  on 
their  surfaces  with  equal  ease  fragments  of 
all  sizes,  even  up  to  hundreds  of  tons  weight. 
Again,  boulders  carried  by  water  currents 
are  always  bruised  and  rounded,  while  gla- 
ciers carry  them  safely  and  lay  them  down 
in  their  original  angular  condition.  Again, 
river  currents  always  leave  boulders  in  se- 
cure position,  while  glaciers  may  set  them 
down  gently  by  the  melting  of  the  ice,  in  in- 
secure positions,  as  balanced  stones.  There- 


fore, large,  angular  boulders,  different  from 
the  country  rock,  and  especially  if  in  inse- 
cure positions,  are  very  characteristic  of  gla- 
cial action. 

Deposit :  Terminal  Moraine.  — As  already 
seen,  all  materials  accumulated  on  the  face 
of  a  glacier,  or  pushed  along  on  the  bed  be- 
neath, find  their  final  place  at  the  foot,  and, 
therefore  form  the  terminal  moraine.  If  a 
glacier  recedes,  it  leaves  its  terminal  moraine, 
and  makes  a  new  one  at  the  new  position  of 
its  foot.  Terminal  moraines,  therefore,  are 
very  characteristic  signs  of  the  former  posi- 
tion of  a  glacier's  foot.  They  are  recognized 
by  their  irregular,  crescentic  form,  the  mixed 
nature  of  their  materials,  and  the  entire  want 
of  stratification  or  sorting.  Behind  the  ter- 
minal moraines  of  retired  glaciers  accumu- 
late the  waters  of  the  river  that  flows  from 
its  foot,  and  thus,  again,  form  lakes.  Gla- 
cial lakes — *.  e.,  lakes  formed  by  the  action 
of  former  glaciers — are,  therefore,  of  two 
kinds,  viz :  i,  The  filling  of  scooped-out 
rock-basins;  2,  The  accumulation  of  water 
behind  old  terminal  moraines.  The  first  are 
found,  usually,  high  up ;  the  second,  lower 
down  the  old  glacial  valleys. 

Glacial  Epoch  in  California. — It  is  by 
means  of  these  signs  that  geologists  have 
proved  that  at  a  period  very  ancient  in  hu- 
man, but  very  recent  in  geological  chronol- 
ogy, glaciers  were  greatly  extended  in  regions 
where  they  still  exist,  and  existed  in  great 
numbers  and  size  in  regions  where  they  no 
longer  exist.  This  period  is  called  the  Gla- 
cial Epoch.  Now,  during  this  Glacial  Epoch, 
the  whole  of  the  high  Sierra  region  was  cov- 
ered with  an  ice-mantle,  from  which  ran 
great  glacial  streams  far  down  the  slopes  on 
either  side.  We  have  already  seen  evidences 
of  some  of  these  ancient  glaciers  on  this,  the 
western  slope.  After  crossing  Mono  Pass, 
we  shall  doubtless  see  evidences  of  those 
which  occupied  the  eastern  slope.  In  our 
ride,  yesterday  and  today,  we  crossed  the 
track  of  some  of  these  ancient  glaciers. 
From  where  we  now  sit,  we  can  follow  with 
the  eye  their  pathways.  A  great  glacier  (the 
Tuolumne  Glacier)  once  filled  this  beautiful 
meadow,  and  its  icy  flood  covered  the  spot 


1885.] 


Rough  Notes  of  a  Yosemite  Camping  Trip. 


505 


where  we  now  sit.  It  was  fed  by  several 
tributaries.  One  from  Mount  Lyell,  another 
from  Mono  Pass,  and  still  another  from 
Mount  Dana,  which  uniting  just  above  Soda 
Springs,  the  swollen  stream  enveloped  yon- 
der granite  knobs,  five  hundred  feet  high, 
standing  directly  in  its  path,  smoothing  and 
rounding  them  on  every  side,  and  leaving 
them  in  form  like  a  turtle's  back ;  then  com- 
ing further  down  overflowed  its  banks  at  the 
lowest  point  of  yonder  ridge — one  thousand 
feet  high — which  we  crossed  this  morning  ; 
and  after  sending  an  overflow  stream  down 
Tenaya  Canon,  the  main  stream  passed  on 
down  the  Tuolumne  Canon,  into  and  beyond 
Hetch-Hetchy  Valley.  From  its  head  foun- 
tain, in  Mount  Lyell,  this  glacier  may  be 
traced  forty  miles. 

The  overflow  branch  which  passed  down 
the  Tenaya  Canon,  after  gathering  tributaries 
from  the  region  of  Cathedral  Peaks,  and 
enveloping,  smoothing,  and  rounding  the 
grand  granite  knobs  which  we  saw  this  morn- 
ing just  above  Lake  Tenaya,  scooped  out 
that  lake  basin,  and  swept  on  its  way  to  the 
Yosemite.  There  itunitedwith  other  streams, 
from  Little  Yosemite  and  Nevada  Canons, 
and  from  Illilouette,  to  form  the  Great  Yo- 
semite Glacier,  which  probably  filled  that 
valley  to  the  brim,  and  passed  on  down  the 
canon  of  the  Merced.  This  glacier,  in  its 
subsequent  retreat,  left  many  imperfect  ter- 
minal moraines,  which  are  still  detectible  as 
rough  debris  piles  just  below  the  meadows. 
Behind  these  moraines  accumulated  water, 
forming  lakes,  which  have  gradually  filled  up 
and  formed  meadows.  Some,  as  Mirror 
Lake,  have  not  yet  filled  up.  The  meadows 
of  Yosemite,  and  the  lakes  and  meadows  of 
Tenaya  Fork,  upon  which  our  horses  grazed 
while  we  were  at  "  University  Camp,"  were 
formed  in  this  way.  You  must  have  ob- 
served that  these  lakes  and  meadows  are  sep- 
arated by  higher  ground,  composed  of  coarse 
debris.  All  the  lakes  and  meadows  of  this 
high  Sierra  region  were  formed  in  this  way. 
The  region  of  good  grazing  is  also  the  region 
of  former  glaciers. 

Erosion  in  High  Sierra  Region. — The  ero- 
sion to  which  this  whole  high  Sierra  region 


has  been  subjected,  in  geological  times,  is 
something  almost  incredible.  It  is  a  com- 
mon popular  notion  that  mountain  peaks 
are  upheaved.  No  one  can  look  about  him 
observantly  in  this  high  Sierra  region  and 
retain  such  a  notion.  Every  peak  and  val- 
ley now  within  our  view — all  that  constitutes 
the  grand  scenery  upon  which  we  now  look — 
is  the  result  wholly  of  erosion — of  mountain 
sculpture.  Mountain  chains  are,  indeed, 
formed  by  igneous  agency ;  but  they  are 
afterwards  sculptured  into  forms  of  beauty  by 
rain.  But  even  this  gives  as  yet  no  ade- 
quate idea  of  the  immensity  of  this  erosion. 
Not  only  are  all  the  grand  peaks  now  within 
view,  Cathedral  Peaks,  Unicorn  Peak,  Mount 
Lyell,  Mount  Gibbs,  Mount  Dana,  the  result 
of  simple  inequality  of  erosion,  but  it  is  al- 
most certain  that  the  slates  which  form  the 
foothills,  and  over  whose  upturned  edges  we 
passed  from  Snelling  to  Clark's,  and  whose 
edges  we  again  see,  forming  the  highest 
crests  on  the  very  margin  of  the  eastern 
slope,  originally  covered  the  granite  of  this 
whole  region  many  thousand  feet  deep. 
Erosion  has  removed  it  entirely,  and  bitten 
deep  into  the  underlying  granite.  Now,  you 
are  not  to  imagine  that  the  whole,  but  cer- 
tainly a  large  portion  of  this  erosion  and  the 
final  touches  of  this  sculpturing,  have  been 
accomplished  by  the  glacial  action  which  I 
have  endeavored  to  explain. 

About  9  P.  M.,  our  clothing  still  damp,  we 
rolled  ourselves  in  our  damp  blankets,  lay 
upon  the  still  wet  ground,  and  went  to  sleep. 
I  slept  well,  and  suffered  no  inconvenience. 

To  anyone  wishing  really  to  enjoy  camp-life 
among  the  high  Sierras,  I  know  no  place 
more  delightful  lhan  Soda  Springs.  Being 
about  nine  thousand  feet  above  the  sea,  the 
air  is  deliciously  cool  and  bracing,  and  the 
water,  whether  of  the  spring  or  of  the  river,  is 
almost  ice-cold  and  the  former  is  a  gentle  ; 
tonic.  The  scenery  is  nowhere  more  glori- 
ous. Add  to  this,  inexhaustible  pasturage 
for  horses,  and  plenty  of  mutton,  and  trout 
abundant  in  the  river,  and  what  more  can 
pleasure-seekers  want  ? 

Joseph  Le  Conte. 


506  The   Willow  Tree.  [Nov. 


THE  WILLOW  TREE. 

W'ILLOW  TREE,  O  Willow  Tree, 
Why  cast  down  so  utterly? 
Earth's  heart  freed  from  frosty  rest 
Beats  beneath  her  grassy  breast, 
And  the  warm  blood  of  her  veins 
To  thy  topmost  limb  attains ; 
Sky  is  blue  with  June — the  sun 
Thrills  each  other  leafy  one. 
Sunlight  chiding  shunneth  thee, 
Willow  Tree,  O  Willow  Tree  ! 

Willow  Tree,  O  Willow  Tree, 
Thine  is  silent  threnody. 
Speechless  motion  of  thy  leaves 
On  the  grass  a  darkness  weaves. 
Men  are  dreamers  of  a  dream, 
Life  is  myth,  and  fate  supreme, 
Earth  a  mound-scarred  tomb  to  thee, 
Willow  Tree,  O  Willow  Tree  ! 

Willow  Tree,  O  Willow  Tree, 
I  inhale  thy  sympathy. 
I  did  lay  a  loved  form  low 
'Neath  the  frozen  turf  and  snow. 
Lids  like  fringed  petals  drew 
Close  for  aye  o'er  hearts  of  blue. 
Smiles  that  lit  her  latest  breath 
Lingered  on  in  waxen  death. 
I  became  like  unto  thee, 
Willow  Tree,  O  Willow  Tree! 

Willow  Tree,  O  Willow  Tree, 
Peace  to  futile  elegy ! 
Winter's  day  of  anguish  done, 
Sky  is  blue  with  June — the  sun 
Brings  new  blossoms  where  the  blast 
Rent  the  dead  leaves  of  the  past. 
June  doth  stir  my  sluggish  blood, 
Life  again  with  hopes  shall  bud ; 
All  my  grief  I  bury  deep 
In  thy  drooping,  sunless  sleep. 

Alas,  I  shall  come  oft  to  thee, 
Willow  Tree,  O  Willow  Tree! 

Wilbur  Larremore. 


1885.] 


The,    Wyoming  Anti- Chinese  Riot. 


507 


THE   WYOMING   ANTI-CHINESE   RIOT. 


IT  is  not  the  purpose  of  this  article  to  ex- 
cuse the  recent  assaults  upon  Chinamen  in 
Wyoming,  and  those  threatened  in  Washing- 
ton Territory.  It  is  repugnant  to  the  sense 
of  justice  of  Americans,  as  it  is  to  their 
humanitarian  ideas,  to  make  the  individual 
suffer  for  the  inconvenience  or  disasters  pro- 
duced by  the  masses.  The  number  of  per- 
sons who  have  taken  pleasure  in  the  annoy- 
ance of  individual  Chinamen  in  California, 
or  have  contributed  to  it,  is  comparatively 
very  small,  while  the  number  of  those  who 
seriously  deprecate  the  influx  of  this  race, 
and  seek  to  resist  it,  is  overwhelming.  It 
does  not  follow,  as  some  of  our  Eastern  crit- 
ics seem  to  believe,  that  because  the  Pacific 
Coast  people  are  nearly  a  unit  against  Chi- 
nese immigration,  and  demand  of  the  national 
government  adequate  measures  to  prevent  it, 
they  are  ready  with  the  bowie  knife  and 
torch  to  massacre  and  expel  the  Chinamen 
now  in  their  midst.  On  the  contrary,  there 
would  probably  be  as  large  a  vote  cast  against 
such  illegal  violence  upon  the  Chinese,  if 
occasion  offered,  as  there  has  heretofore 
been,  and  would  again  be,  cast  for  their  perma- 
nent exclusion.  There  is  no  necessary  con- 
nection between  acts  of  cowardly  aggression 
upon  Chinamen,  and  earnest  opposition  to 
the  influx  of  this  race  to  our  shores.  In 
fact,  the  clear-sighted  opponents  of  Chinese 
immigration  see  that  every  criminal  act  of 
oppression  of  this  people  tends  to  excite  sym- 
pathy for  them  in  Eastern  circles,  and  fur-, 
nishes  arguments  deemed  to  be  conclusive 
by  a  class  of  minds,  why  legislative  measures 
to  keep  them  out  should  be  defeated. 

An  Eastern  senator,  eminent  for  ability  and 
personally  very  estimable,  recently  took  oc- 
casion to  speak  bitterly  of  the  late  assault 
upon  Chinese  in  Wyoming,  and  to  class  the 
opposition  to  the  incoming  of  this  people 
therewith.  From  the  imperfect  report  of  the 
speech  of  the  gentleman  in  question  that 
has  reached  the  writer,  this  seems  to  have 


been  its  tenor ;  and  this  inference  is  sup- 
ported by  formerly  expressed  views  of  the 
orator  on  the  floor  of  the  United  States  Sen- 
ate. It  would  probably  be  impossible  to 
convince  Mr.  Hoar  that  the  vast  majority  of 
the  people  of  the  Pacific  Coast,  who  contest 
Chinese  immigration  inch  by  inch  by  lawful 
means,  detest  as  bitterly  as  any  of  his  audi- 
tors could  any  personal  assaults  upon  them. 
Yet  this  is  true ;  and  our  Eastern  legislators 
can  never  comprehend  this  question  until 
they  are  able  to  draw  a  distinction  between 
the  desire  of  this  people  to  peacefully  and 
lawfully  extirpate  a  great  evil,  as  they  see  it, 
and  the  reckless  and  unthinking  impulse  of 
a  minority,  that  is  impatient  under  Chinese 
absorption  of  its  means  of  livelihood. 

It  is  true  that  such  peaceful  and  lawful  op- 
position to  Chinese  immigration  is  consid- 
ered to  be  in  itself  an  offense  by  our  radical 
opponents ;  differing  only  in  degree,  not  in 
kind,  from  the  crimes  of  violence  to  which 
we  refer.  It  is  unreasonable  and  unjust  hos- 
tility to  the  bettering  of  the  condition  of  a 
part  of  the  human  family  !  It  is  in  defiance 
of  God's  law,  who  has  "made  of  one  blood 
all  the  nations  of  the  earth  ! "  It  is  contrary 
to  the  traditions  of  the  fathers  of  the  repub- 
lic, who  made  this  land  the  home  of  the  op- 
pressed of  all  nations  !  We  are,  therefore, 
inhuman,  irreligious,  and  unpatriotic,  because 
we  would  exclude  the  Chinese ;  and  what 
more  are  those  who  put  the  torch  to  the  hut 
of  the  Chinaman,  and  shoot  him  as  he  flees 
over  the  hills  ?  These  prepossessions  against 
us  seem  to  those  holding  them  to  be  ground- 
ed so  deeply  upon  principle,  that  any  argu-" 
ment  drawn  from  the  peculiarities  of  the 
Chinese,  their  modes  of  life  and  acting,  their 
propagation  of  disease  and  bad  morals,  their 
absorption  of  the  means  of  living,  and  exclu- 
sion of  white  labor  from  employment,  their 
unassimilability  to  the  American,  their  contin- 
uance as  strangers  in  the  land  after  years  of 
residence,  their  entire  want  of  characteris- 


508 


The    Wyoming  Anti- Chinese  Riot. 


[Nov. 


tics  (except  industry)  desirable  in  citizenship, 
and  the  overwhelming  numbers  in  which 
they  may  be  poured  upon  us ;  all  these  and 
other  kindred  considerations  are  deemed  as 
touching  only  expediency,  and  are  unworthy 
of  consideration  when  absolute  right  is  in 
question.  Were  it  not  too  serious,  it  would 
be  amusing,  to  observe  how  all  such  practi- 
cal objections  to  Chinese  influx  are  waived 
aside  by  the  opponents  of  restrictive  meas- 
ures. The  writer  once  procured  photographs 
of  lepers  who  were  about  being  sent  back 
to  China,  certainly  hideous  and  repulsive  to 
the  last  degree,  and  exhibited  these  pictures 
to  senators  as  an  evidence  of  one  of  the 
dangers  to  which  the  United  States  is  ex- 
posed, by  allowing  the  unrestrained  coming 
of  Mongolians.  The  only  observation  he 
obtained  from  the  worthy  gentlemen  referred 
to  was  that  it  was  wrong  to  hold  up  to  ridi- 
cule these  unfortunate  beings.  If  ridicule 
had  been  the  object,  the  observation  would 
have  been  just.  As  illustrating  the  intro- 
duction of  a  new  and  terribly  loathsome  dis- 
ease— new  to  the  United  States,  but  as  sure- 
ly accompanying  the  Chinese  as  do  the  smell 
of  opium  and  sandal-wood — the  evidence 
presented  was  worthy  of  deeper  study. 

As  the  mixture  of  the  elements  of  the  old 
Asiatic  civilization  with  those  of  our  newer 
civilization  distributes  to  the  latter  the  seeds 
of  this  mysterious  disease,  so  it  involves  con- 
sequences to  the  political  and  social  health 
of  our  people.  The  insensibility  of  our  op- 
ponents to  both  is  akin.  Yet  the  fact  that 
the  presence  of  Chinese  in  the  workshops, 
in  the  mines,  in  all  agricultural  pursuits, 
leads  to  more  or  less  frequent  riots,  in  which 
they  are  killed  or  their  houses  burned,  is  a 
reason  why  they  should  not  be  allowed  to 
come  in  numbers.  While  the  law  should 
protect  them  when  here,  and  put  down  as 
enemies  of  society  those  who  molest  them, 
public  policy  dictates  that  public  peace  should 
not  be  made  to  rest  solely  on  the  strength 
and  omnipresence  of  the  law.  In  semi-des- 
potic countries,  where  a  large  military  force 
is  always  at  hand,  and  the  ordinary  agents 
of  the  law  are  numerous,  and  organized  for 
the  work,  it  is  possible  to  rely  upon  force  to 


compel  obedience  and  submission  to  what 
the  ruler  may  dictate.  But  this  republic  is 
not  organized  upon  that  plan,  and  is  unable 
to  cope  with  difficulties  that  arise  from  sud- 
den gusts  of  popular  passion.  It  must  re- 
move causes  of  discontent,  when  possible, 
rather  than  rely  upon  suppressing  it. 

It  is  a  singular  fact  that  the  Chinese,  go 
where  they  will,  soon  become  objects  of  in- 
tense dislike  to  native  races.  While  it  is 
difficult  to  detect  all  the  subtle  causes  of  this 
dislike,  some  of  them  lie  on  the  surface. 
These  have  been  urged  over  and  over  again, 
in  all  forms  of  explanation  and  with  all  ear- 
nestness of  spirit,  by  the  people  of  this  coast, 
with  but  partial  effect  upon  the  dull  ears  of 
Eastern  legislators  and  executive  officers. 
But  one  feature  that  follows  Chinese  immi- 
gration is  now  developing  itself  in  the  United 
States,  repressed  by  law  and  public  opinion 
in  great  measure;  but  nevertheless  ominous 
of  future  mischief,  as  the  Chinese  greatly  in- 
crease in  numbers,  and  make  the  conditions 
of  life  harder  for  the  white  laborer.  Where 
the  Chinese  go,  the  latter  can  get  the  neces- 
saries of  life  for  their  families  only  in  compe- 
tition with  them,  and  the  Chinese  are  not 
burdened  with  such  encumbrances.  Family 
life  is  practically  unknown  to  the  Chinese  in 
America.  Only  one  wilfully  blind  can  fail 
to  see  that  the  Caucasian  race  will  not  allow 
itself  to  be  expelled  from  this  country,  or  to- 
tally impoverished,  without  a  bloody  struggle 
to  prevent  it.  If  the  law  does  not  measure 
the  difficulty  and  obviate  it,  the  laboring 
masses  will.  This  is  not  a  threat ;  it  is  a 
prophecy.  Such  opposition  is  not  a  new 
feature  elsewhere;  though  the  conditions 
under  which  it  has  been  active  have  been 
unfavorable  to  success.  The  Chinese  are 
expert  colonizers.  They  have  crowded  their 
way  into  all  the  islands  and  countries  neigh- 
boring to  them  by  their  numbers  and  per- 
sistency ;  but  this  only  after  the  avant-garde 
had  been  many  times  massacred  by  the  in- 
furiated natives,  desirous  of  keeping  alien 
hordes  out  of  their  country.  Massacres  have 
never  deterred  the  Chinese.  They  seem 
rather  to  have  stimulated  their  immigration. 
New  ranks  of  Chinamen  have  always  stepped 


1885. 


The    Wyoming  Anti-Chinese  Riot. 


509 


readily  into  the  place  of  those  falling,  and 
so  the  invasions  have  gone  on  until  resistance 
was  futile.  Thus  it  has  been  in  localities  in 
the  vicinity  of  China.  In  this  remote  re- 
gion there  is  better  chance  that  violent  ob- 
struction might  succeed.  Yet  the  demorali- 
zation consequent  to  our  own  people  would 
be  a  fearful  price  to  pay  for  a  victory  so 
gained,  and  it  is  to  be  deprecated  on  every 
ground  of  humanity  and  every  principle  of 
self-interest.  The  alternative  is  exclusion  by 
law,  and  the  measurable  success  which  has  at- 
tended the  imperfect  restrictive  law  now  in 
force  gives  promise  of  complete  success  when 
a  better  law  is  enacted. 

Those  who  condemn  the  conduct  of  the 
miners  in  Wyoming,  and  yet  declare  for  the 
unlimited  influx  of  Mongolians,  are  illogical, 
in  view  of  the  necessities  of  the  situation. 
It  is  impossible  that  there  can  be  a  peaceful 
joint  occupation  of  the  United  States  by 
Americans  and  Chinese.  It  is  best  to  look 
this  fact  in  the  face.  The  history  of  the  lat- 
ter race  elsewhere  tends  to  prove  it.  The 
Chinese  are,  where  strong  in  numbers,  aggres- 
sive and  domineering.  The  sporadic  cases 
of  violence  against  the  Chinese  in  this  coun- 
try already  occurring,  tend  to  prove  the 
incompatibility  of  the  two  races.  Useless 
as  'emeutes  have  proved  to  be,  to  prevent  the 
influx  of  these  people,  the  dislike  which  they 
excite  is  invincible,  and  leads  to  regrettable 
violence.  All  the  denunciations  of  eloquent 
pulpits,  all  the  disfavor  of  law-abiding  peo- 
ple, will  not  prevent  these  scenes.  The  mat- 
ter touches  the  moral  health  of  the  people, 
and  these  oft-occurring  crimes  are  one  of  the 
worst  incidents  of  an  immigration  which  is 
not  desirable  from  any  point  of  view. 

The  theories  of  such  men  as  Henry  Ward 
Beecher  imply  that  a  mixed  population  of 
Asiatics  and  Europeans  would  be  better  for 
the  United  States  than  one  of  pure  European 
origin.  We  must  believe  such  to  be  their 
view,  for  they  persistently  demand  that  the 
present  bars  be  let  down,  so  that  the  coming  of 
Chinese  may  be  facilitated  by  existing  steam 
lines,  and  by  every  ocean  tramp  that  covets 
the  profit  made  in  a  semi  slave-trade.  These 
public  teachers  must  be  condemned  as  un- 


patriotic, or  else  it  must  be  conceded  that 
they  think  this  to  the  interest  of  this  country. 
Certainly,  they  would  not  sacrifice  their  own 
country  for  the  advantage  of  China  or  Chi- 
nese!    Yet  no  fact   is   better   known   than 
that  mixed  races  are  the  most  corrupt  and 
worthless  on  earth,  especially  where  one  of 
the  compounds  is  Asiatic.     A  learned  Ger- 
man has  said  of  mixed  races  :  "  To  define 
their  characteristics  correctly  would  be  im- 
possible, for  their  minds  partake  of  the  mix- 
ture of  their  blood.    As  a  rule,  it  may  be  fairly 
said  that  they  unite  in  themselves  all   the 
faults,  without  any  of  the  virtues,  of  their 
progenitors.    As  men,  they  are  generally  in- 
ferior to  the  pure  races,  and  as  members  of 
society  they  are  the  worst  class  of  citizens." 
Here  in  California  we  have  no  part  in  the 
opinion  that  American  society  is  improved 
by  a  Chinese  element.     We  know  what  this 
implies  by  long  observation  and  experience. 
The  Chinese  are  a  caste  by  themselves,  as 
distinct  from  the  remainder  of  the  commu- 
nity as  Brahmins  are  from  Pariahs.     There 
is  little  danger  of  mixture  of  blood,  for  they 
remain,  after  years  of  residence,  Chinese,  ex- 
clusive in  all  their  ways  and  thoughts,  and 
their  children  born  here  continue  like  their 
fathers.    The  admixture  is  of  another  nature. 
It   is  a  state  within  a   state.     Their   great 
number  in  this  city  makes  them  a  colony 
by  themselves,  occupying  the  heart  of  the 
city,  street   after   street,  block   after  block, 
given   over   exclusively   to   the   sights   and 
sounds  and  smells  of  Peking.    Such  a  colony 
would  occupy  New  York  city  proportionally 
from  the  Battery  to  Twelfth  Street,  and  a 
dozen   blocks   solidly  each  side.     Such  an 
one  would  occupy  all  the  streets  for  a  quar- 
ter of  a  mile  around  Beacon  Hill  in  Boston. 
The  streets  so  occupied  by  the  Chinese  col- 
ony in  San  Francisco  were  once  filled  with 
handsome  shops,  residences,  hotels,  churches, 
etc.     Now,    only  the   Mongolian   is   found 
there,    or,    with   some   exceptions,  debased 
whites  who  ply  shady  vocations  in  their  vi- 
cinity.    The  newspaper  or  periodical  finds 
few  customers   among   the   thousands  who 
crowd  those  teeming  streets.     It  is,  in  all  its 
aspects  and  all  its  regimen,  a  little  China. 


5LO 


The   Wyoming  Anti-Chinese  Riot. 


[Nov. 


It  is  only  nominally  governed  by  the  city 
authorities.  The  real  power,  even  to  life  and 
death,  is  with  the  Chinese  guilds.  The  gen- 
tlemen to  whom  reference  has  been  made 
bear  very  philosophically  the  existence  of 
this  plague  spot  on  distant  San  Francisco. 
Whether  the  immutable  principles  they  pro- 
claim would  be  qualified  by  considerations 
of  expediency  if  the  danger  of  such  colonies, 
of  the  due  proportion,  were  threatening  New 
York  city  or  Boston,  can  only  be  matter  of 
conjecture. 

Yet  these  are  only  the  outward  aspects  of 
the  case.  The  Chinese  are  here  for  indus- 
trial purposes,  except  those  who  prey  upon 
the  vices  of  others.  Hence  they  crowd  into 
every  avenue  of  employment,  and  underbid 
the  Americans  for  labor  in  all  directions. 
This  is  the  real  irritation  of  the  situation. 
Their  presence  could  be  better  endured,  did 
it  not  tend  directly  to  expel  other  workers, 
who  cannot  compete  in  sordid  living  with 
the  Mongolian,  and  hence  must  go  elsewhere 
to  find  employment,  no  longer  by  him  to 
be  had  at  home.  So  the  miner  or  artisan 
finds  his  way  to  distant  territories.  Soon 
the  Chinese  have  followed  him  there,  and 
there  also  increased  in  numbers,  again  under- 
bidding him  in  labor,  perhaps  compelling 
a  new  migration.  It  is  not  entirely  strange 
if  patience  gives  way,  and  violent  means  are 
resorted  to  in  an  outlying  settlement,  which 
a  fear  of  the  law  or  public  sentiment  would 
deter  in  populous  centers.  These  consider- 
ations may  not  be  urged  as  an  excuse  for 
crimes;  they  are  valuable  as  showing  tenden- 
cies. 

It  might  seem  unnecessary  to  demonstrate 
that  it  is  better  for  this  country  if  the  em- 
ployers and  employed  continue  of  the  same 
race.  A  radical  class  line  drawn  between 
these,  sharply  defined  by  the  most  odious  of 
distinctions — race  dominance  and  inferiority, 
where  there  can  be  no  community  of  inter- 
est OP  sympathy — would  be  a  blighting  curse. 
In  those  parts  of  this  country  where  the 
Chinese  are  most  numerous,  the  tendency 
has  been  to  draw  this  line,  by  the  exclusive 
employment  of  Chinese  in  all  departments 
of  manual  labor.  The  effect  has  been  to 


arrest  white  immigration,  breed  discontent 
among  idle  mechanics  and  laborers,  and  cre- 
ate bitter  enmity  against  capitalists.  To  this 
cause  may  be  traced  the  spirit  that  dictated 
the  New  Constitution  of  this  State,  many  of 
the  provisions  of  which  were  avowedly  in- 
serted "to  cinch  capital."  This  spirit  of 
discontent  and  of  hostility  to  capital  is  to  be 
deprecated.  Its  growth  and  causes  are  rec- 
ommended to  the  attention  of  those  who 
think  the  gain  from  trade  with  China  is  more 
to  be  coveted,  than  injury  to  our  social  life 
from  the  incoming  of  vast  hordes  of  Asiatics 
is  to  be  feared. 

Let  us  have  a  homogeneous  population, 
and  we  shall  have  peace.  The  slight  differ- 
'ences  between  the  native  population  of  this 
country  and  the  immigrants  from  any  part  of 
Europe  will  never  lead  to  serious  disturb- 
ances ;  while  it  may  be  safely  predicted  that 
all  such  disappear  in  a  generation.  But  the 
differences  between  the  Asiatic  and  American 
are  radical  and  enduring.  These  views  are 
not  open  to  the  criticism  that  we  would  ex- 
clude a  class  from  the  country  because  there 
is  a  prejudice  against  it.  There  exist  preju- 
dices in  narrow  minds  against  Jews,  against 
Irishmen,  against  Hungarians,  and  others, 
and  it  is  alleged  triumphantly  that  our  theo- 
ries call  for  the  exclusion  of  these.  If  the 
cases  were  parallel,  the  deduction  would  be 
sound.  But  there  are,  on  the  contrary,  only 
accidental  and  slight  resemblances  between 
the  immigration  of  other  foreigners  and  the 
Chinese.  The  former  come  voluntarily,  to 
make  a  home  with  us ;  they  bring  families 
with  them ;  they  soon  sink  into  the  body 
politic,  and  their  children  are  not  distinguish- 
able from  other  native  born ;  they  do  not 
come,  or  threaten  to  come,  in  countless  hosts, 
like  the  swarms  of  Attila;  as  a  rule,  they 
bring  no  strange  diseases,  and  have  no  un- 
natural vices.  Where  they  inordinately  crowd 
the  avenues  of  labor,  it  is  usually  because 
the  cupidity  of  capitalists  has  imported  them 
as  contract  laborers,  as  most  of  the  Chinese 
are  imported,  and  thus  defiled  the  pure  and 
placid  stream  of  immigration. 

Further,  the  contention  of  Californians  is 
not  that  Chinamen  now  here  under  the  ex- 


1885.] 


The   Wyoming  Anti- Chinese  Riot. 


511 


isting  and  past  treaties  should  be  deported. 
For  such,  sure  of  the  cessation  of  the  immi- 
gration, they  would  have  the  utmost  patience. 
Their  appeal  is  to  stay  the  flood  in  prospect. 
They  admit  whatever  may  be  claimed  for 
any  occupant  of  our  soil,  in  the  way  of  equal 
protection  of  the  laws.  Right  comes  by  oc- 
cupancy. But  the  law  of  self-preservation  is 
invoked  to  prevent  the  submergence  of  this 
State  and  coast  by  those  who  have  as  yet  no 
right  here,  and  whom  we  as  certainly  may 
prevent  from  acquiring  such  right,  as  we 
may  prevent  the  European  States  from  emp- 
tying their  prisons  and  lunatic  asylums  upon 
us.  We  would  deal  with  the  Chinaman  in 
China,  not  with  the  Chinaman  in  the  United 
States. 

The  Wyoming  riot  was  only  a  form  of  the 
constantly  recurring  labor  troubles,  of  which 
every  country  has  had  experience,  and  the 
United  States  has  had  its  full  share.  As  we 
write,  there  is  news  of  the  street-car  riots  in 
St.  Louis,  and  of  the  strike  of  laborers  on  the 
Shore  Line  Railroad  in  New  York.  The 
Pittsburgh  riots  a  few  years  ago  show  how 
easily  excited  are  the  fears  and  jealousies  of 
the  workers,  and  how  destructive  their  pas- 
sions when  aroused.  It  is  not  worth  while 
to  hold  up  hands  in  horror  over  Wyoming, 
and  overlook  the  deeds  done  near  at  home. 
It  is  not  worth  while  to  content  one's  self  with 
declaiming  against  the  acts  of  rioters,  and 
ignore  the  causes  of  their  discontent.  Ex- 
perience should  teach  that  it  is  better  to  erad- 
icate the  latter  where  possible,  and  not  to 
insist  upon  aggravating  them.  The  result  is 
the  same  to  the  laborer,  whether  his  employ- 
er reduces  his  wages  from  dull  times,  or  be- 
cause a  convenient  coolie  can  be  thrust  into 
his  place.  The  result  is  the  same  to  him, 
whether  one  or  the  other  cause  throws  him 
out  of  employment,  or  reduces  him  to  star- 
vation rates.  Both  lead  up  to  labor  troubles, 
and  these  are  aggravated  if  there  is  suspi- 
cion of  injustice.  No  wise  legislator  can  af- 
ford to  ignore  the  danger  arising  from  such 
troubles,  which  are  more  fatal  to  business 
prosperity  than  all  other  causes  combined. 

In  view  of  the  fact  that  this  question  of 
Chinese  immigration  is  a  part  of  the  labor 


question  of  the  day ;  that  it  is  steadily  making 
its  way  eastward ;  that  like  causes  can  but 
produce  like  effects  in  the  East  as  on  this 
coast ;  that  the  material  interests  of  our  arti- 
sans and  their  families  are  involved,  and  their 
discontent  and  resistance  must  follow  inva- 
sion of  their  right  to  earn  a  living ; — it  is  'bet- 
ter to  discard  the  role  of  doctrinaire,  and 
seriously  determine  what  is  best  in  the  prem- 
ises for  our  own  people,  and  legislate  to  se- 
cure it. 

We  present  these  considerations,  because 
California  must  necessarily  demand  further 
and  more  efficient  legislation  to  arrest  Chinese 
immigration.  The  present  law,  under  the 
refinements  of  courts,  and  by  virtue  of  uncon- 
scionable perjury,  and  perhaps  the  bribery  of 
subordinate  officials,  for  which  the  existinglaw 
gives  too  much  opportunity,  is  lamentably  in- 
effectual. While  it  has  somewhat  diminished 
the  numbers  coming,  many  have  illegally 
forced  their  way  through  its  meshes.  A 
mountain  dam,  holding  back  a  great  body  of 
water,  which  bursts  through  every  crevice  and 
cranny  of  the  logs  and  sheathing,  and  leaks  at 
the  bottom  and  sides,  is  a  fit  figure  of  the  con- 
dition of  the  law  under  the  pervading,  persist-,, 
ent  pressure  of  the  coolies  to  get  through  it, 
and  thus  gain  admission  to  this  coveted  land. 
It  would  be  well  to  revert  at  once  to  the 
original  ten-passenger  bill,  and  cease  playing 
with  so  serious  a  question.  To  that  bill 
should  be  added  a  section  repealing  treaty 
provisions  inconsistent  therewith.  It  would 
next  be  China's  turn  to  speak.  The  testi- 
mony of  our  representatives  at  Peking  is  to 
the  effect  that  China  is  indifferent  upon  the 
subject.  Were  it  otherwise,  self-preservation 
is  the  first  law  of  nature,  and  we  should  en- 
force it. 

No  constitutional  lawyer  doubts  the  power 
of  Congress  to  repeal  a  treaty  by  law.  The 
Supreme  Court  of  the  United  States  has  re- 
peatedly passed  upon  the  question,  sustain- 
ing the  power.  China  could  not  consistently 
object  to  its  exercise  in  this  instance,  even 
if  disposed  to  do  so,  as  it  would  probably 
not  be  ;  for  it  has  loftily  disdained  to  aid  the 
United  States  to  execute  this  treaty,  or  pro- 
vide any  means  for  the  identification  of  those 


512 


"I'm   Tom's  Sister." 


[Nov. 


of  its  people  having  a  right  to  come  here 
under  the  treaty,  and  so  left  the  door  open 
for  numberless  frauds  upon  the  United 
States,  and  made  the  restrictive  features  of 
the  treaty  practically  a  nullity. 

If  the  general  plan  of  the  present  law  is 
to  be  kept,  there  are  defects  of  detail  which 
might  be  corrected,  so  as  to  lessen  the 
chances  for  fraud.  An  obvious  one  is  to 
have  stubs  in  the  certificate  book,  each  stub 
to  bear  the  number  of  the  certificate,  and 
contain  the  name  and  description  of  the  per- 
son to  whom  it  is  issued.  The  certificate 
itself  should  not  contain  the  description,  or 
name,  or  state  the  sex  of  such  person.  This 
would  make  the  transfer  of  certificates  im- 


possible, because  the  fraud  would  be  in- 
stantly detected  on  testing  the  holder  by  the 
description  on  the  stub. 

We  trust  our  Eastern  friends  will  not  be 
impatient  at  what  appear  to  be  increasing 
demands  from  this  coast  upon  this  subject. 
We  stand  just  where  we  stood  when  Mr. 
Hayes  vetoed  the  first  restrictive  bill — de- 
manding effectual  remedy  for  a  boundless 
evil.  Until  that  demand  is  met  by  legisla- 
tion adequate  to  the  object,  it  will  be  con- 
tinued. Fortunately  there  is  a  growing  ap- 
preciation of  this  great  question  among  the 
people  of  the  other  States.  Their  voice  will 
be  heard  by  aspiring  politicians,  when  ours 
is  lost  in  the  distance. 

A.  A.  Sargent. 


I'M  TOM'S  SISTER." 


THE  mail  stage  was  somewhat  behind  time 
that  night,  and,  in  consequence,  when  the 
four  steaming  horses  came  dashing  up  the 
street  at  their  showiest  gait,  a  larger  crowd 
than  usual  had  assembled  to  welcome  their 
arrival,  and  exchange  pleasantries  with  the 
driver.  He  was  generally  nothing  loath  for 
such  encounters,  being  equally  expert  with 
his  lash  or  tongue.  But  on  this  occasion, 
instead  of  parrying  any  of  the  good-natured 
quips  with  which  the  air  was  filled,  he  called 
out  in  a  cautioning  way,  "  Boys  !"  and  mo- 
tioned back  towards  the  stage.  This  si- 
lenced them  instantly;  they  had  believed  the 
stage  was  empty,  and  had  not  seen  the  pale, 
frightened  face  of  a  young  girl,  who  was  peer- 
ing out  through  the  darkness  at  the  noisy 
crowd. 

She  was  quickly  reassured,  however,  by 
the  appearance  of  the  agent,  who  politely  in- 
quired if  she  had  acquaintances  in  town,  or 
would  like  to  go  to  a  hotel.  She  replied  in 
a  timid,  perplexed  way : 

"  I  think  I  should  like  to  see  the  post-mas- 
ter first,  please.  Will  you  direct  me  to  him?" 

Her  request  was  complied  with,  and  as  I 
saw  her  approaching,  I  started  towards  her, 
but  failed  to  recognize  the  beautiful  face  of 


my  visitor.  There  was  no  hesitation  on  her 
part,  however,  for,  as  she  extended  her  hand 
towards  me  as  to  an  old  friend,  she  intro- 
duced herself  by  saying:  "  I'm  Tom's  sister." 

I  then  knew  that  I  had  never  met  her  be- 
fore, but  the  terrible  significance  of  those 
words  coming  from  her  lips  completely  un- 
nerved and  stunned  me.  I  could  make  no 
reply ;  but  she  read  the  story  of  her  loneli- 
ness in  my  face,  and  laying  her  hand  upon 
my  arm,  cried  out  with  the  most  piteous,  be- 
seeching look,  as  though  I  were  the  arbiter 
of  her  destiny :  "  Oh,  please  don't  tell  me 
that  I  am  too  late  ! " 

"  Miss  Armitage,"  I  replied,  as  soon  as  I 
could  command  my  voice,  "you  must  allow 
me  to  act  for  you  in  his  place  now.  I  can- 
not explain  to  you  here,  for  you  see  we  are 
attracting  much  attention.  I  must  first  se- 
lect a  suitable  refuge  for  you,  for  I  will  not 
listen  to  your  going  to  a  hotel.  If  you  will 
go  with  me  to  the  kind-hearted  widow  with 
whom  I  make  my  home,  you  will  be  sure  of 
a  warm,  motherly  welcome  from  her;  and 
then,  after  you  have  had  the  rest  and  refresh- 
ment you  so  much  need,  you  shall  hear  all." 

Struck  dumb  by  the  dreadful  blow  that 
had  so  suddenly  fallen  upon  her,  the  poor 


1885.] 


"I'm  Tom's  Sister.' 


513 


girl  silently  took  my  arm,  and  passively  con- 
sented to  my  guidance. 

I  had  made  no  mistake  as  to  the  nature 
of  her  welcome ;  one  look  at  her  sweet,  tear- 
ful face  was  sufficient  to  cause  the  heart  of 
my  hostess  to  warm  towards  her,  and  a  few 
whispered  words  of  explanation  and  caution 
completed  the  conquest;  and  then,  with  the 
plea  of  immediate  urgent  business  at  the  of- 
fice, and  promising  to  return  in  a  short  time, 
I  hurried  away,  my  brain  in  a  whirl  and  a 
deathly  feeling  at  my  heart. 

I  did  not  turn  towards  my  office,  however, 
but  sought  for  solitude,  and  there,  alone,  be- 
neath the  stars,  I  tried  to  form  some  plan  of 
action. 

But  here  let  me  explain  who  this  brother 
was,  and  what  he  was,  or  rather,  what  he  had 
been. 

Some  months  before,  a  stranger  called  at 
the  office,  and  handed  me  an  order,  signed 
"Thomas  Armitage,"  for  the  delivery  of  his 
mail  to  the  bearer  until  further  notice  ;  and 
when,  some  time  afterward,  I  accidentally 
discovered  the  stranger  was  a  gambler  in  one 
of  the  lowest  dens  in  the  place,  I  attached 
no  importance  to  the  discovery,  knowing 
nothing  about  Armitage.  My  suspicions 
were  naturally  aroused,  however,  about  two 
months  before  this  young  girl's  appearance 
in  my  office,  by  the  reception  of  a  letter  di- 
rected to  the  postmaster,  in  the  same  neat 
hand  I  had  noticed  on  the  Armitage  letters. 
It  was  from  "  Lucy  Armitage,"  written  at  her 
home  in  Virginia,  asking  for  information  of 
her  brother.  He  was  all  she  had  left  on 
earth  to  love,  she  wrote ;  had  been  in  Cali- 
fornia about  two  years,  and  though  he  had 
changed  his  residence  quite  often,  had  been 
regular  in  his  correspondence  until  recently; 
but  this  silence  had  alarmed  her,  for  Tom 
had  always  been  such  a  kind,  considerate 
brother,  that  she  felt  sure  that,  if  he  were 
alive  and  well,  he  would  have  written,  etc. 
I  was  constantly  receiving  similar  letters,  to 
which  I  often  had  to  send  sad  answers. 

On  hunting  the  gambler  up,  I  found  he 

was  known  to  his  associates  only  by  the  name 

of  "Shorty."     I  asked  him  for  information 

about  Armitage,  and  gave  him  my  reasons 

VOL  VI.— 33. 


for  so  doing.  He  told  me  that  Tom  was  an 
old  chum  of  his,  was  engaged  in  mining  in 
the  mountains,  and  as  he  had  chances,  oc- 
casionally, to  send  his  letters  to  him,  he  liked 
to  oblige  him.  "  I  suppose,"  he  added,  "  he 
has  been  careless  about  writing  lately,  but  I'll 
stir  him  up  about  it.  He's  been  very  sick, 
too,  and  it  will  do  no  harm  to  mention  it  to 
her  now,  as  he  is  getting  better.  I  think, 
also,  it  will  be  safe  for  you  to  say  that  she'll 
most  likely  hear  from  him  before  long." 

I  was  obliged  to  be  content  with  this  rather 
unsatisfactory  information  for  Miss  Armitage, 
but  placed  it  in  the  best  light  I  could,  refer- 
ring to  my  informant  as  an  old  friend  of  her 
brother. 

About  the  time  she  was  reading  my  letter,  a 
terrible  tragedy  occurred  in  our  town.  Shorty 
had  been  caught  in  the  act  of  robbing  a  safe 
belonging  to  some  fellow  gamblers,  and  in 
attempting  to  escape  had  killed  his  man,  and 
been  in  turn  shot  down.  I  was  on  the  scene 
before  the  arrival  of  the  coroner,  and  during 
the  confusion  secured  unnoticed  two  letters 
I  saw  in  the  breast  pocket  of  the  dead  man's 
coat.  I  did  this  without  any  scruples,  for  I 
had  given  them  to  him  the  day  before  for 
his  friend.  I  knew  whose  hand  had  pen- 
ned them,  and  felt  it  my  duty  to  prevent 
her  name  from  being  associated  with  his 
death. 

To  say  that  I  was  surprised  and  indignant 
when  I  found  that  her  letters  had  been 
opened,  but  feebly  expresses  it ;  but  the  next 
moment  a  few  penciled  lines  upon  the  en- 
velope had  revealed  the  fearful  truth  to  me. 
"This,  then,"  thought  I,  "was  Thomas 
Armitage  ;  this  was  the  man  on  whom  all  the 
love  of  that  poor  girl's  heart  is  centered ;  this 
the  brother  in  whose  uprightness  and  integ- 
rity she  believed  as  truly  as  she  did  in  the 
existence  of  her  God.  He  was  intending, 
no  doubt,  after  securing  this  gold,  to  return 
at  once  to  her,  for  now  I  hold  the  key  to 
what  was  in  his  thoughts  when  he  sent  her 
that  last  message.  Thank  God,  he  had  the 
grace  to  hide  the  family  name  !  I  am,  I  feel 
sure,  the  sole  custodian  of  this  secret,  and 
as  I  hope  for  peace  hereafter,  it  shall  not 
escape  me  while  she  lives."  And  it  was  with 


514 


"I'm   Tom's  Sister." 


[Nov. 


a   feeling   of  relief  I    watched   her   letters 
crumbling  into  ashes. 

Can  you  wonder,  now,  that  with  Tom's 
sister  sitting  at  yon  window,  waiting  anxious- 
ly for  the  rarticulars  of  his  death,  I  found  it 
difficult  to  put  my  plans  into  shape?  No 
intimation  of  the  truth  must  reach  her  ;  on 
that  point  I  was  resolved — for  what  would 
follow?  A  life  of  ceaseless  misery ;  her  every 
breath  a  breath  of  torture  ;  her  every  glance 
at  her  kind  a  glance  of  shame  ;  and  in  a  little 
while  another  mound,  all  through  no  fault  of 
hers.  No,  no,  this  must  not  be.  That  he 
is  dead,  she  already  knows,  although  the 
words  have  not  been  spoken.  Her  thoughts 
must  be  turned  away  from  here,  for  a  dozen 
words  of  description  that  any  one  around 
could  give  would  cause  her  to  recognize  that 
man.  Tom,  her  Tom,  must  die  elsewhere, 
and  his  grave  must  be  where  human  foot 
never  trod.  The  deception  can  harm  no 
living  soul ;  and  I  seemed  to  hear  voices 
around  me,  saying,  "  Save  her,  man,  save 
her,  and  do  your  work  well !  Hedge  the 
truth  in  so  densely  that  it  will  never  reach 
her.  Obliterate  all  trails,  close  all  avenues 
for  future  inquiry ;  and  if  you  can  so  tell  the 
story  as  to  cause  some  ray  of  light  to  fall 
upon  her  path,  surely  your  own  will  never 
be  the  darker  for  it." 

I  believed  at  last  I  saw  my  way,  and  pass- 
ing through  the  now  deserted  streets  to  my 
office,  I  selected  a  partly- filled  memorandum 
book,  and  framed  my  story  as  deftly  as  I 
could. 

Once  more  that  night  I  found  myself  in 
her  presence,  and  speaking  of  my  long  ab- 
sence as  having  been  unavoidable,  I  said  to 
her,  partly  to  test  my  voice,  "  Miss  Armitage, 
we  postmasters  have  so  many  sad  cases  to 
deal  with,  that  .we  find  our  best  plan  is  to 
make  notes  of  all  unusual  occurrences  for 
future  reference  " — then,  opening  the  book, 
I  read  as  follows  : 

"The  case  of  Thomas  Armitage,  from 
whose  sister  I  recently  received  such  a  beau- 
tiful and  touching  letter  of  inquiry,  is  a  very 
sad  one.  I  had  never  met  him,  to  my  knowl- 
edge, and  the  following  particulars  I  obtained 
from  his  partner,  a  Mr.  Christian.  They 


had  been  engaged  in  prospecting  in  the 
mountains  for  a  long  time  previous,  with  but 
poor  success ;  they  were  pocket  miners,  and, 
as  often  occurs  amongst  this  class,  after 
months,  or  even  years,  of  unsuccessful  search, 
a  few  days'  work  had  recompensed  them  for 
all  their  labor.  Mr.  Armitage  had  been 
quite  sick  for  some  time,  but  the  finding  of  a 
rich  pocket  by  his  partner,  combined,  no 
doubt,  with  the  prospect  of  an  immediate  re- 
turn to  his  old  home,  hastened  his  recovery. 
He  had  quite  likely  put  off  writing  to  his  sis- 
ter, because  he  had  no  news  of  success  to 
send  her,  and  was  constantly  thinking  he 
might  be  a  passenger  on  the  next  steamer, 
and  would  then  soon  be  with  her.  At  all 
events,  as  soon  as  he  found  himself  in  pos- 
session of  a  sum  far  in  excess  of  what  he 
had  dared  hope  for,  he  made  preparations 
for  an  immediate  return,  Mr.  Christian  ac- 
companying him  as  far  as  San  Francisco. 
On  the  day  before  the  steamer  sailed,  they 
engaged  a  boat  for  a  short  sail  around  the 
Bay.  When  near  Alcatraz,  they  lost  control 
of  it,  and  it  was  instantly  swamped.  Mr. 
Armitage  sank  at  once,  dragged  down,  no 
doubt,  by  the  weight  of  the  belt  he  wore,  in 
which  he  had  placed  his  well-earned  gold. 
Mr.  Christian  reached  the  shore  in  an  ex- 
hausted condition ;  and  although  the  accident 
was  witnessed  by  some  fishermen  on  their 
way  outside,  it  was  impossible  for  them  to 
render  the  least  assistance.  His  body  was 
no  doubt  swept  out  to  sea ;  and  thus  ended 
the  career  of  a  life  full  of  great  promise.  It 
will  be  a  great  trial  to  me  to  have  to  send 
these  tidings  to  that  poor  waiting  sister,  but 
it  must  be  done.  It  will  most  assuredly  tend 
to  alleviate  her  grief,  to  know  how  truly  her 
brother  loved  her — that  she  was  constantly 
in  his  thoughts,  and  that,  when  the  cruel 
waters  closed  over  him,  her  name  was  upon 
his  lips ;  for  the  cry  of  '  Lucy,  darling,' 
mingled  with  the  murmur  of  the  waves, 
reached  the  ears  of  some  strollers  on  the 
shore." 

The  poor  girl  had  been  lying,  sobbing  bit- 
terly, in  the  arms  of  her  newly-found  friend, 
during  the  reading  of  the  above ;  and,  with- 
out giving  her  time  to  question,  I  turned 


1885.] 


"I'm  Tom's  Sister." 


515 


over  a  few  leaves  in  my  diary,  and,  saying 
there  were  a  few  lines  more  that  might  be 
of  interest  to  her,  I  continued  my  reading: 
"  Mr.  Christian  called  on  me  today,  to  bid  me 
good-by ;  he  belongs  to  that  class  of  men 
who  are  not  satisfied  except  when  "on  the 
wing.  On  my  asking  him  as  to  the  disposi- 
tion of  his  mail,  he  replied  that  as  he  had 
not  a  relative  living,  no  letters  ever  followed 
him  in  his  world-wide  ramblings." 

As  the  long,  weary  days  for  poor  Lucy 
rolled  by,  I  had  not  dared  to  trust  myself 
alone  with  her,  fearing  some  unconsidered 
word  might  escape  me  that  would  arouse  her 
suspicions.  She  was  anxious  to  return  home 
at  once,  but  I  had  persuaded  her  to  remain 
with  us  a  few  weeks,  that  she  might  have  the 
pleasant  companionship  of  some  of  our  neigh- 
bors, who  then  proposed  making  an  Eastern 
visit.  It  was  only  on  the  evening  before  her 
departure  that  I  gave  her  the  opportunity. 
I  felt  sure  she  desired  to  talk  over  with 
me  alone  the  recent  events  in  her  brother's 
life. 

It  was  a  memorable  Sabbath  evening  to 
me,  for  I  was  almost  overcome  with  nervous 
anxiety  as  to  the  result  of  our  interview,  and 
I  knew  I  had  read  her  thoughts  aright  when 
I  saw  the  look  of  pleased  surprise  with 
which  she  accepted  my  invitation  to  take  a 
short  stroll  with  me.  We  reached  the  sum- 
mit of  a  little  hill  near  the  town,  just  in  time 
to  see  one  of  the  most  gorgeous  of  our  many 
beautiful  sunsets ;  and  she  became  so  enthu- 
siastic in  her  admiration  of  the  scene,  that  I 
once  more  caught  a  glimpse  of  the  face  of 
"Tom's  sister,"  as  on  that  first  eventful  night. 
There  were  some  stray  cattle  grazing  along 
towards  us,  so  I  opened  a  little  gate  that  led 
into  our  "  City  of  the  Dead,"  and  motioning 
to  her,  we  silently  entered  therein;  thought- 
less in  me,  you  may  well  say,  but  men  have 
so  little  tact ! 

I  would  not  recall  the  long  conversation 
we  had,  as  we  sat  there  until  the  lone  even- 
ing star  had  been  joined  by  all  her  innumer- 


able companions,  nor  could  I.  It  is  suffi- 
cient to  say  it  was  all  about  Tom,  and  that  it 
required  the  most  constant  watchfulness  and 
care  to  keep  my  secret  safe.  When  I  no- 
ticed a  light  blast  of  the  cool  night  air  rustling 
her  garments*  I  suggested,  as  she  was  thinly 
clad,  that  we  should  move  a  short  distance  to 
the  protection  of  a  neighboring  hedge.  We 
had  been  seated  thus  some  time,  before 
she  noticed  a  little  mound  near  by.  She 
seemed  startled  when  she  first  recognized  its 
nature,  but  it  was  only  for  a  moment ;  and 
as  she  again  turned  towards  it,  and  glanced 
at  the  stake  at  its  head,  I  said  to  her,  as 
though  she  had  questioned  me  as  to  its  ob- 
ject, "  There  is  only  a  number  on  it." 

"  Only  a  number,"  she  repeated,  slowly  ; 
"that  seems  very  sad." 

"  Perhaps  it  is  just  as  well,"  I  replied,  "  for 
if  each  of  these  mounds  near  us  had  a  costly 
stone  above  it,  the  only  inscription  upon 
them,  I  fear,  would  be  'Unknown.'  " 

"  And  yet,"  said  she,  after  a  short  pause, 
laying  her  hand  gently  upon  the  grave,  "he 
no  doubt  had  dear  friends — possibly  a  sister, 
who  would  give  the  world  to  be  where  I  am 
now." 

At  last  my  time  had  come !  And  my 
heart  ceased  its  throbbing,  as  I  silently  handed 
her  a  little  bunch  of  flowers  I  had  gathered  one 
by  one  as  we  came  up  the  hill.  She  under- 
stood my  thoughts — or  believed  she  did — 
and  taking  them,  held  the  little  wild  beau- 
ties for  a  moment  to  her  lips,  then  laid  them, 
very  lovingly  and  tenderly,  upon  the  grave; 
and  then,  her  sense  of  loneliness  renewed, 
she  cried  :  "  Oh,  if  I  could  but  do  as  much 
for  Tom  ! "  and  bowing  her  head  over  them, 
she  wept  piteously  and  long. 

And  yet  I  could  not  tell  !  But  surely  his 
spirit  will  rest  easier  now ;  for  has  not  a  lov- 
ing sister  made  a  long  and  weary  pilgrimage 
to  cheer  and  comfort  him,  and  sitting  by  his 
grave,  with  him  only  in  her  thoughts,  laid 
her  heart's  offering  thereon,  and  sanctified 
it  with  her  tears  ? 

William  S.  Hutchinson. 


516 


The  Legend  of  the  Two  Roses. 


[Nov. 


THE  LEGEND  OF  THE  TWO  ROSES. 


[Translated  from  the  German  of  Ernest  von  Wildenbruch.} 


BEFORE  the  gates  of  a  great  city,  where 
dwelt  many  men,  both  the  rich  and  the  poor, 
there  lived  a  gardener,  the  owner  of  a  large, 
magnificent  rose  garden.  There  grew  roses 
of  every  kind  and  hue,  for  the  gardener  was 
master  of  his  art;  he  reared  the  roses  with 
great  skill,  and  nursed  and  tended  them  with 
all  care,  not  for  love  of  the  flowers  themselves, 
but  for  the  sake  of  the  profits  he  reaped  by 
selling  them  to  the  people  of  the  city. 

His  industry  bore  rich  fruits,  for  men 
came  in  large  numbers  to  buy  his  roses.  They 
planted  them  in  their  gardens,  and  adorned 
their  houses  with  them — but  of  course  only 
the  wealthy  could  do  this,  for  the  gardener 
demanded  a  high  price  for  his  flowers,  which 
put  them  beyond  the  reach  of  the  poor. 

One  day,  when  the  sun  had  again  led  forth 
summer,  his  beloved  child,  by  the  hand,  that 
he  might  frolic  upon  the  earth  and  fill  all 
things  with  gladness,  there  blossomed  out, 
in  the  middle  of  the  garden,  two  roses,  fairer 
than  all  others  that  had  ever  bloomed  in  that 
garden.  They  each  grew  on  a  separate  bush, 
but  the  bushes  stood  in  one  and  the  same 
flower  bed,  so  close  together,  that  when  the 
roses  bent  their  heads  a  little,  they  almost 
touched  each  other. 

Therefore  it  came  about  that  these  two 
roses  grew  to  be  intimate  friends ;  they  called 
each  other  "thou  ";  and,  although  they  were 
not  quite  the  same  in  looks,  the  one  having 
soft,  yellowish  petals,  with  a  reddish  calyx, 
and  the  other  being  all  snow-white,  even  into 
her  very  heart,  and  although  they  were  of 
different  lineage,  yet  they  called  themselves 
sisters,  and  confided  all  their  secrets,  one  to 
the  other.  When  they  did  this,  so  sweet  an 
odor  came  from  their  lips  that  the  whole  gar- 
den round  about  floated  in  a  sea  of  perfume, 
and  their  caressings  were  so  beautiful  to  look 
upon,  that  the  tiny  beetles,  which  run  busily 
over  the  earth,  stood  still  together  and  said  : 


"  See  !  the  roses  are  telling  a  secret  again. 
I  wonder  what  it  can  be  ! " 

The  subject  about  which  the  roses  chatted 
was  their  future ;  they  were  still  very  young, 
and  had  no  past  to  talk  of,  therefore  the  more 
fondly  and  the  more  often  did  they  speak  of 
their  future,  for  it  was  composed  of  naught 
but  exquisite  dreams.  That  they  were  the 
fairest  flowers  in  all  that  garden  they  knew 
well ;  they  learned  it  every  day  in  the  shin- 
ing eye  of  the  gardener  as  he  looked  upon 
them  ;  they  heard  it  from  the  lips  of  the 
passing  stranger ;  they  felt  it  every  morning 
when  the  morning-wind  came  blustering  into 
the  garden,  swept  away  the  night,  and  tapped 
the  roses  upon  their  little  heads  until  they 
nodded  and  bowed.  This  was  ever  like  an 
act  of  homage  that  the  garden  offered  to 
these  two. 

But  at  length  it  became  clear  that  these 
two  roses,  although  deep  down  in  their  hearts 
as  good  and  kindly  as  the  majority  of  roses, 
were  growing  a  little  proud,  and  entertained 
great  expectations  in  regard  to  their  future. 
Only  a  king  could  it  be,  or  a  prince,  or,  at 
least,  some  immensely  wealthy  man,  who 
would  some  day  buy  them  and  carry  them 
home ;  in  this  they  were  agreed ;  and  their 
only  trouble  was  that  then  they  might  be 
separated  and  carried  away,  one  in  one  di- 
rection, and  the  other  in  another.  This  was 
their  sorrow,  for  they  had  become  warmly 
attached  to  each  other ;  and  whenever  the 
thought  came  to  them  the  roses  wept,  each  a 
single  big  tear,  which,  if  it  were  morning,  lay 
in  their  hearts  like  a  glistening  drop ;  and 
that  was  again  beautiful  to  look  upon.  Yes, 
it  was  so  fair  a  sight  that  the  morning  wind, 
who  had  traveled  far  and  wide  over  the  land, 
and  was  therefore  a  connoisseur  of  flower 
beauty,  stood  still  before  them,  filled  with 
wonder,  and  made  them  his  obeisance,  say- 
ing: 


1885.] 


The  Legend  of  the  Two  Roses. 


517 


"  Genuine  beauty  wears  all  things  grace- 
fully, even  pain  itself." 

Then  the  rose  sisters  nodded  to  him  in  a 
friendly  fashion,  and  replied : 

"Ah,  what  a  charming  young  man  you 
are,  Mr.  Morning  Wind,  that  you  can  be  so 
clever  thus  early  in  the  morning." 

The  morning  wind  felt  greatly  flattered ; 
he  gathered  up  the  skirts  of  his  coat,  and 
flew  on  his  way  further. 

As  the  days  passed  by,  many,  many  a  vis- 
itor and  purchaser  came  to  the  garden,  but 
none  for  the  two  roses.  They,  as  all  knew 
in  silence,  were  destined  to  some  extraordi- 
nary fortune.  Now,  it  happened  on  one 
lovely  summer  afternoon,  as  evening  ap- 
proached, that  an  elegant  open  carriage 
rolled  up,  and  stopped  before  the  garden 
gate.  The  two  roses  could  look  right  down 
the  broad  path  through  the  trellis,  and  when 
they  saw  the  carriage,  their  hearts  quivered 
as  if  with  forebodings  that  this  brought  their 
fate.  They  laid  their  cheeks  against  each 
other,  and  whispered  their  thoughts  softly, 
quite  softly.  On  the  box  of  the  coach  sat 
the  coachman,  and  next  him  the  footman; 
both  wore  coats  and  hats  trimmed  with  broad 
golden  galloons,  and  because  the  roses  were 
still  so  ignorant  of  the  world,  they  thought 
these  two  on  the  box  above  were  the  chief 
personages.  But  a  little  lady-bird  came  sail- 
ing hither  through  the  air — she  had  moved 
much  in  the  houses  of  the  noble,  and  once, 
even,  had  sat  on  the  finger  of  a  real  princess 
— and  when  she  heard  the  remarks  of  the 
roses,  she  said : 

"  No,  indeed ;  those  on  the  box,  let  me 
tell  you,  are  only  servants ;  those  who  sit 
within  the  carriage,  at  them  you  must  look." 

Then,  truly,  the  roses  opened  their  eyes 
wide  ;  but  the  people  in  the  carriage  did  not 
suit  their  fancy  exactly,  for  the  one  was  a 
lady  who  was  no  longer  young  and  not  at 
all  pretty  ;  the  other  was  a  gentleman  who, 
to  be  sure,  had  a  splendid  black  beard,  but 
no  handsome  face  to  set  it  off  becomingly. 
While  the  roses  were  making  remarks  about 
them,  the  lady-bird  spoke  again : 

"  But  let  me  tell  you,  you  know  nothing 
at  all  of  the  world,  you  two ;  for,  do  you  not 


know  that  that  man  yonder  is  the  wealthiest 
banker  in  the  whole  city,  and  that  the  lady  is 
his  wife  ?  What  need,  then,  have  the  rich  to 
be  beautiful  ?  They  leave  that  to  the  poor> 
who  have  nothing  else." 

Then  the  roses  were  ashamed  of  their  ig- 
norance, and  they  blushed  a  faint  crimson 
in  their  embarrassment,  which  was  indeed 
very  becoming. 

Meanwhile,  the  lady  and  gentleman  had 
alighted  from  their  carriage,  and  behind  them 
came  scrambling  down  a  little  dog  with  al- 
most silver-white  hair,  and  so  plump  that  it. 
could  only  waddle  along  very  slowly ;  it 
snarled  up  its  face,  and,  from  time  to  time,, 
it  barked  shortly,  which  sounded  as  if  it  cried,. 
"Go  'way  !  'way  !  'way  !  " 

The  gardener  stood  at  the  gate ;  he  had 
lifted  his  hat  from  his  head,  and  now  made 
a  low,  low  bow.  The  gentleman  nodded  to 
him  slightly,  but  the  lady  swept  past  him 
with  head  in  the  air.  And  when  the  lady- 
bird saw  this,  she  called  out  to  the  roses  : 

"  There  is  a  chance  for  you  to  learn  some- 
thing. See,  rich  people  must  act  as  this 
lady  does ;  she  understands  what  it  is  to  be 
rich  ! " 

But  again  the  roses  felt  ashamed  of  their 
wretched  taste,  for  this  behavior  had  not 
pleased  them  in  the  least. 

By  this  time  the  grand  lady  and  gentle- 
man were  coming  down  the  broad  garden- 
path,  right  towards  the  spot  where  the  two 
roses  stood,  and  at  every  step  the  lady  took, 
her  silken  dress  rustled  and  crackled,  so  that 
it  sounded  as  if  it  cried  out  to  Nature  round 
about :  "  St,  st,  I  am  from  Paris  ;  I  am  from 
Paris  ! " 

Close  behind  them  the  gardener  came,  al- 
ways with  head  bared.  He  pointed  now  to 
the  right  and  now  to  the  left,  now  at  this 
rose-bush  and  now  at  that,  and  from  time  to 
time  the  lady  stopped,  and  raised  her  glass- 
es, which  hung  by  a  golden  cord  about  her 
neck,  to  her  eyes.  Whenever  the  gardener 
spoke  long  and  eloquently  in  praise  of  his 
roses,  until  he  grew  quite  red  in  the  face, 
she  only  pressed  her  lips  together  a  little, 
and  said  : 

"  Humph,  all  that  amounts  to  nothing  !  " 


518 


The  Legend  of  the  THJO  Moses. 


[Nov. 


The  gardener  looked  downcast ;  the  little 
dog  barked,  as  if  it  cried  :  "  Pshaw,  pshaw, 
pshaw  ! "  and  the  lady's  husband  nodded  his 
head  to  the  gardener,  and  said  :  "  Only  the 
very  best  suits  my  wife." 

In  this  way  they  at  length  reached  the  two 
roses,  who  were  awaiting  them  with  wide- 
open  eyes,  and  here,  for  the  first  time,  the 
lady  stopped  of  her  own  accord;  she  raised 
her  glasses  to  her  eyes  to  examine  the  two 
roses. 

But  they,  when  they  saw  the  scrutinizing 
glasses  directed  upon  them,  hung  their  heads 
in  shy  confusion ;  a  quiver  of  embarrassment 
flew  over  their  bodies  and  made  their  bos- 
oms heave ;  and  as  they  stood  their  with 
heads  modestly  drooped,  they  were  more 
beautiful  than  ever  before — so  lovely  that 
even  the  lady  could  not  resist  the  power  of 
their  beauty.  Therefore,  to  express  her  de- 
light, she  said: 

"That  might  do  for  me,  perhaps." 

Then  her  husband,  at  whom  she  glanced 
as  she  spoke,  seeing  that  he  also  might  now 
venture  a  word,  added  quickly: 

"  Two  superb  species,  indeed.  What  is 
their  price  ?  " 

Thereupon  the  gardener  named  a  sum  at 
which  the  lady  exclaimed,  "  Whew  !"  and 
clapped  both  her  hands  to  her  ears,  while 
her  husband  said :  "  A  very  high  price,  in- 
deed." 

"  Besides,  I  mean  only  the  yellow  one," 
continued  the  lady ;  "  the  white  one  would 
be  of  no  use  to  me  ;  but  the  yellow  one  might 
do  for  my  tea  roses,  perhaps." 

"  Indeed,"  said  her  husband,  "  the  thought 
occurred  to  me,  too,  that  it  might  be  suitable 
for  thy  collection  of  tea  roses  " ;  then  turn- 
ing to  the  gardener,  he  said :  "  My  wife,  let 
me  tell  you,  has  a  collection  of  tea  roses 
such  as  you  can  find  nowhere  in  all  the  city." 

After  a  little  business  discussion,  it  was 
agreed  that  on  the  next  day  the  gardener 
should  take  the  yellow  rose  to  their  home. 
Then  the  lady,  her  husband,  and  the  little 
white  dog  reseated  themselves  in  their  ele- 
gant carriage  and  drove  away.  And  now, 
when  the  roses  were  left  alone  again,  they 
grew  very  sad,  for  they  knew  that  the  hour 


had  come  when  they  must  part — perhaps  for 
a  lifetime — and  they  laid  their  cheeks  togeth- 
er and  wept,  each  into  the  heart  of  the  oth- 
er, while  the  white  rose  whispered  softly  to 
her  sister:  "  O,  thou  happy  one !  O,  thou  for- 
tunate one  !  shall  I,  too,  meet  such  a  splen- 
did fate,  I  wonder  ?  " 

Then  from  deep,  deep  down  in  her  gentle 
breast,  uprose  a  bitter  little  drop  of  jealousy ; 
for  the  lot  of  her  sister  seemed  to  her  very 
enchanting,  and  she  was  obliged  to  confess 
that  she  had  seemed  less  beautiful  in  the 
eyes  of  the  visitors  than  her  friend. 

Thus  stood  the  two  roses,  so  lost  in  each 
other  as  to  take  no  note  that  other  strangers 
had  come  thither,  and  had  cast  their  eyes 
upon  them.  Only  when  they  heard  two  chil- 
dren's voices  cry :  "  Oh,  father,  father,  the 
white  rose,  it  is  so  beautiful ! "  did  they  look 
up  ;  and  now  they  saw  a  man  standing  there, 
holding  by  the  one  hand  a  little  boy,  by  the 
other  a  little  girl.  These  were  the  children 
who  had  just  now  cried  out,  and  all  three 
stood  in  rapt  wonder  before  the  white  rose. 

But  she  felt  no  joy  at  this  admiration, 
for  this  man  seemed  quite  different  from 
the  wealthy  gentleman  just  gone ;  he  wore  a 
threadbare  coat  and  a  round,  felt  hat ;  the 
children,  too,  were  shabbily  dressed.  It  did 
not  please  her  in  the  least  to  be  admired  by 
the  poor  after  she  had  been  scorned  by  the 
rich,  and  she  turned  away  her  dainty  head, 
almost  disdainfully,  as  if  to  say,  "  Go  your 
way.  I  am  not  meant  for  you,  I  am  sure." 

The  gardener,  who  just  now  returned  from 
the  garden  gate,  seemed  to  be  of  the  same 
opinion,  and  stared  in  amazement  when  he 
saw  these  three  standing  in  front  of  his  two 
finest  roses. 

Now,  however,  the  white  rose  could  scarce- 
ly believe  her  ears,  when  she  heard  the  man 
ask  the  gardener  what  might  be  the  price  of 
the  rose.  He  did  so  quite  timidly,  to  be 
sure,  but  then  he  did  so,  and  even  that 
seemed  to  the  rose  like  an  unheard-of  piece 
of  boldness.  She  exulted,  therefore,  in  her 
innermost  soul,  to  hear  the  enormous  sum 
the  gardener  demanded,  and  to  see  the  de- 
spondent nod  of  the  poor  man  thereto.  But 
the  two  children  pressed  close  to  their  father, 


1885.] 


The  Legend  of  the   Two  Roses. 


519 


and  the  little  boy  pleaded  earnestly,  "  Oh, 
dear  father,  I  pray  thee,  please  buy  this 
wondrous  fair  rose ! "  and  the  little  maiden 
cried,  "  Only  think,  I  pray  thee,  dear  father, 
how  happy  mother  at  home  will  be,  if  you 
take  her  this  beautiful  rose." 

Then,  for  the  first  time,  a  feeling  of  quite 
an  evil  nature  stirred  in  the  heart  of  the  white 
rose,  for  she  was  moved  with  bitter  hatred 
.towards  the  two  children,  and  would  gladly 
have  pricked  them  with  her  thorns. 

The  poor  shoemaker,  however — for  such 
the  man  was — gazed  silently  at  his  children, 
and  marked  with  his  stick  on  the^and,  as  if 
calculating  something  ;  then,  turning  to  the 
gardener,  he  said,  in  excuse  for  his  boldness, 
"  My  wife  has  been  very  sick,  and  is  just  be- 
ginning to  grow  a  little  better ;  and  so,  be- 
cause I  would  like  to  give  her  a  real  pleas- 
ure, and  because  she  is  so  very  fond  of  roses, 
especially  of  white  ones — I  thought — " 

"But  I  can  deduct  nothing  from  the  price," 
interrupted  the  gardener,  and  the  white  rose 
breathed  in  silence,  "That  is  right,  that  is 
right." 

Then  the  two  children  gazed  up  silently 
and  anxiously  into  their  father's  face,  while 
he  thought  and  pondered,  drew  forth  his 
purse  from  his  pocket,  and  counted  and 
counted,  and  the  white  rose  trembled  from 
her  root  to  her  head  in  dumb,  bitter  dread. 

But  suddenly  she  felt  as  if  a  storm  of  hail 
had  struck  her  down,  and  as  if  she  must  sink 
in  mortal  faintness,  for  she  heard  the  shoe- 
maker's words,  "Well,  then,  it  is  indeed  a 
large  sum,  but  so  be  it,  I  will  take  the  plant." 

She  wound  her  arms  about  the  neck  of  her 
sister,  and  wept  and  struggled,  but  her  pas- 
sion and  despair  only  made  her  the  more 
beautiful ;  the  children  clapped  their  hands 
in  glee,  and  it  was  all  to  no  purpose.  The 
gardener  received  his  money,  then  dug  up 
the  plant  from  the  ground  ;  the  white  rose, 
shuddering  and  quivering,  must  needs  let  the 
poor  shoemaker  take  her  in  his  hand  and  car- 
ry her  thence,  out  of  the  garden,  away,  nev- 
ermore to  see  her  lovely,  fortunate  sister — 
oh,  so  much  more  fortunate  than  she. 

Her  sister,  on  the  next  day,  as  had  been 
arranged,  was  carried  by  the  gardener  to 


the  establishment  of  the  wealthy  couple. 
She  looked  as  proud  and  as  happy  as  a  prin- 
cess who  is  summoned  to  the  marriage-bed 
of  a  young  king. 

She  had,  indeed,  every  reason  to  be  satis- 
fied, for  the  new  home  to  which  she  was 
brought  was  a  magnificent  one.  The  house 
of  these  rich  people  was  situated  in  the  sub- 
urbs of  the  city  where  only  the  aristocracy 
dwelt,  and  on  the  street  where  it  stood  dwelt 
again  only  the  wealthiest  of  the  wealthy.  The 
street  was  of  such  distinction  that  if  a  car- 
riage drove  through  it  the  horses  trod  softly, 
lest  they  should  disturb  the  quiet  of  the  res- 
idents ;  and  in  the  houses  lay  such  a  wealth 
of  treasures  that  the  air  was  as  if  filled  with 
gold-dust ;  and  the  sparrows,  whenever  they 
flew  through  the  street,  came  out  with  their 
little  tails  gilded. 

In  front  of  the  house,  next  the  street,  was 
a  little  garden,  with  yellowish-brown  gravel 
walks,  into  which  one  could  look  from  the 
outside  through  an  artistic  net  of  iron  lattice ; 
behind  the  house  lay  the  true  garden,  and  it 
was  large  and  spacious.  A  brick  wall  en- 
closed it,  so  that  no  one  could  look  in. 

This,  then,  was  the  new  home  of  the  yel- 
low rose,  and  the  moment  she  entered  the 
garden  she  perceived  that  she  had  come 
into  distinguished  company. 

In  the  middle  of  the  garden  was  a  large, 
round  grass-plot ;  the  grass  was  as  trimly 
kept  as  the  head  of  the  man  who  visits  his 
hair-dresser  every  day.  Round  about  the 
grass-plot  were  beds,  and  in  the  beds  flowers 
of  every  imaginable  variety,  filling  all  the 
place  with  the  sparkle  and  glow  of  their  hues 
and  scents. 

But  in  the  middle  of  the  grass-plot,  there 
was  yet  another  bed — a  circular  one.  This 
was  the  most  illustrious  spot  in  the  whole 
garden ;  there  stood  a  little  forest  of  rose- 
bushes, containing  none  but  pure  yellow,  yel- 
lowish, greenish-yellow,  and  reddish  yellow 
roses;  this  was  the  collection  of  tea  roses  of 
which  the  gentleman  had  spoken  the  day  be- 
fore. Toward  this  spot,  the  gardener,  who 
carried  the  yellow  rose,  turned  his  foot-steps. 

Then,  for  the  first  time,  there  stirred  in 
the  heart  of  the  yellow  rose  a  wicked  feeling  ; 


520 


The  Legend  of  the  Two  Roses. 


[Nov. 


for  when  she  saw  how  all  the  flowers  in  the 
garden  round  about  put  their  heads  together 
and  gazed  after  her,  and  pushed  against  one 
another,  and  drew  one  another's  attention  to 
the  new  inhabitant  of  the  grass  plot,  then  a 
measureless  vanity  arose  within  her,  and 
while  she  cast  proud  glances  about  her,  she 
thought  to  herself:  "  What  are  you  all  com- 
pared to  me  ?  "  But  her  vanity  disappeared, 
and  she  even  became  quite  embarrassed 
when  she  had  arrived  in  the  middle  of  the 
grass  plot,  and  had  received  her  spot  of  stand- 
ing room;  for  she  saw  how  all  the  tea  roses 
gazed,  full  of  curiosity,  upon  the  new-comer. 
She  felt  as  though  their  glances  searched  her 
through,  even  into  the  very  depths  of  her 
heart.  At  the  same  time  she  heard  such  a 
hum  and  murmur  of  eager,  whispering  voices 
as  almost  to  deafen  her.  That  it  was  she 
who  had  caused  all  this  buzzing  and  whis- 
pering was  natural,  and  from  the  general 
hum  of  voices,  a  word,  here  and  there,  fell 
on  her  ear. 

"  Still  a  new  one — have  you  found  that 
there  was  too  much  room  here?" 

"  On  the  contrary,  these  are  getting  to  be 
very  close  quarters." 

"  I  would  really  like  to  know  what  our 
gracious  lady  is  thinking  about." 

"  Evidently,  we  were  no  longer  handsome 
enough  for  her — ha  !  ha  !" 

"  Pray,  have  you  seen  the  new  rose  yet  ?  " 

"Yes,  yes;  passable,  passable." 

The  yellow  rose,  who  had  kept  her  eyes 
cast  down,  now  made  a  deep  bow,  and  then 
lifted  up  her  head  all  aglow. 

Then  she  noticed  among  those  nearest  her 
some  elderly  rose  matrons,  who  nodded  to 
her  in  a  friendly,  patronizing  fashion,  much 
as  the  chief  maids  of  honor  nod  to  a  poor 
little  novice,  who  for  the  first  time  sets  her 
timid  feet  upon  the  polished  floor  of  the 
court. 

But  beautiful  were  the  rose  matrons — that 
she  must  acknowledge — and  beautiful  were 
all  the  roses  with  whom  she  stood  ;  and  this 
one  thing  suddenly  became  clear  to  her — that 
she  was  no  longer,  as  hitherto,  the  peerless 
one ;  but  that  she  was  only  one  among  many 
of  her  like. 


What  lent  to  the  roses  a  peculiar  air  of  dis- 
tinction were  small,  neatly-worked  labels,  one 
of  which  each  rose  wore  about  its  neck ;  on 
these  labels  were  written  the  name  of  each 
rose,  its  species,  and  its  native  place.  And 
what  remarkable  things  were  these  she  read  : 
there  were  roses  that  came  from  China,  some 
from  Japan,  others  again  from  East  India,  and 
one  even  from  the  Isle  of  Bourbon.  Yes, 
the  company  in  which  she  found  herself  had . 
indeed  been  gathered  together  from  afar. 

Now  the  gardener  approached  with  the 
little  label  intended  for  the  yellow  rose,  and 
as  he  hung  it  about  her  neck  the  buzzing  and 
whispering  was  hushed ;  every  rose  strained 
her  neck  in  breathless  suspense  to  see  ex- 
actly who  and  what  this  new-comer  might  be. 

But  scarcely  had  the  gardener  stepped 
back,  when  the  noise  broke  forth  anew,  this 
time  much  louder  than  before,  and  really  in 
quite  a  scornful  and  disagreeable  tone.  For 
that  she,  as  it  stood  on  the  label,  was  of 
good  aristocratic  rose  blood,  was  true — that 
went  without  the  saying  ;  for  how  otherwise 
would  she  have  been  brought  thither  at 
all  ? — but  the  birth-place !  the  birth-place  ! 
" Born  here  in  this  town!" — so  it  read  on 
the  tag.  One  can  imagine  what  airs  of  su- 
periority the  roses  from  China  and  Japan, 
from  East  India  and  from  the  Isle  of  Bourbon 
assumed  !  Like  wildfire  it  spread  from  one 
to  the  other  :  "  Only  think,  she  is  from  here, 
simply  from  here  ! " 

And  one  of  the  stately  rose  dames  bent 
down  to  her  quite  compassionately,  and  said  : 
"  But,  poor  child,  you  must,  then,  have  lived 
a  very  joyless  youth ;  for,  of  course,  you 
could  have  had  no  companionship  at  all  ? " 

"  Oh,  yes,  indeed,"  answered  the  yellow 
rose  quickly;  "I  had  one  friend,  a  white 
rose,  with  whom  I  grew  up  and  became  tall." 

At  this  the  rose  darne  drew  her  lips  to- 
gether, and  said  in  a  horrified  tone :  "  But, 
dear  child — a  white  rose  ?  "  and  it  sounded 
as  if  she  would  like  to  add :  "  Do  not  speak 
so  loudly ;  they  will  laugh  at  you." 

And  a  second  rose  matron  acted  as  if  she 
had  not  heard  aright,  and  said  aloud  :  "  With 
a  white  rose  you  have  associated  ?  Really  ? 
with  a  white  rose  ?  " 


1885.] 


The  Legend  of  the  Two  Roses. 


521 


Already  the  poor  yellow  rose  began  to  feel 
quite  forlorn,  for  she  heard  it  tittered  around, 
"A  white  rose  was  her  friend  ";  and  she  could 
not  understand  what  was  so  disgraceful  in 
that.  However,  the  first  rose  matron  turned 
to  her  again,  and  said  : 

"  Dear  child,  I  can  scarcely  allow  myself 
to  think  that.  A  white  rose — she  is,  indeed, 
no  companion  for  you — she  is  something 
quite  ordinary." 

Then  a  feeling  of  deep  mortification  came 
over  the  yellow  rose  that  she  was  still  so  en- 
tirely unsophisticated  in  the  ways  of  the  high- 
born, and  that  she  had  so  little  appreciated 
her  own  worth  ;  and  she  said  quite  shyly  : 
"  Well,  if  I  said  we  were  friends,  perhaps  I 
said  a  little  too  much." 

"  That  is  just  what  I  thought  myself,"  re- 
plied the  rose  matron  ;  "  probably  this  per- 
son pressed  her  acquaintance  upon  you,  and 
you  were  too  kind-hearted  to  turn  her  away." 

And  as  the  yellow  rose  saw  all  eyes  di- 
rected towards  her  question ingly,  her  cour- 
age failed,  and  she  said  in  a  faint  voice  : 
"  Well,  yes,  that  was  the  way  of  it." 

But  scarcely  were  the  words  spoken  when 
she  felt  a  heaviness  upon  her  heart,  the  weight 
of  the  wicked  thing  she  had  just  now  done ; 
she  thought  of  her  poor  white  sister  to  whom 
fate  had  been  so  cruel,  so  unkind ;  and  then 
she  silently  bowed  her  head,  and  neither  saw 
nor  heard  anything  more  of  all  that  took 
place  around  her.  In  secret,  she  wept  to 
herself  in  her  trembling  bosom. 

Meanwhile,  the  white  rose  had  continued 
on  her  way  to  the  city  in  the  arms  of  the 
poor  shoemaker.  Her  passionate  grief 
had  gradually  subsided  into  dumb,  dreary 
despair.  Resistance  was  useless,  she  had 
learned,  therefore  she  gave  herself  up  to  her 
wretched  fate  ;  listlessly  she  submitted  to  it 
all,  and  her  fair  head  drooped,  languid  and 
sad  unto  death. 

The  way  was  endlessly  long;  the  shoe- 
maker had  no  money  to  ride,  so  he  was 
obliged  to  go  on  foot.  He  walked  ahead,  and 
the  two  children  tripped  on  behind,  hand  in 
hand.  As  they  went  ever  deeper  and  deeper 
into  the  heart  of  the  city,  where  the  streets 
grew  ever  hotter  and  damper,  and  when  they 


saw  how  the  poor  rose  drooped  her  head, 
then  the  little  boy  said  to  his  sister:  "Oh, 
only  see  the  poor  rose,  she  looks  so  tired ; 
it  must  be  too  warm  for  her,"  and  the  little 
sister  answered  :  "  She  must  be  thirsty,  and 
as  soon  as  we  get  home  we  must  give  her  a 
drink  of  water." 

Then  the  children  laid  their  tiny  hands 
underneath  the  head  of  the  rose,  so  that  the 
blood  might  not  rush  to  her  head  when  she 
hung  it  down  so  low.  They  took  turns  with 
each  other — now  the  little  brother  support- 
ing her,  and  now  his  little  sister,  and  all  the 
time  they  kept  saying  :  "  Oh,  thou  poor, 
sweet,  precious  rose — only  wait  until  *we  are 
home." 

The  white  rose  consented  to  this,  as  in- 
deed, she  did  now  to  everything,  but  she 
closed  her  eyes,  and  would  not  look  at  the 
children ;  it  was  towards  them  she  felt  the 
angriest,  for  they  had  been  guilty  of  all  her 
misfortune. 

At  last,  at  last,  when  it  had  already  grown 
quite  dark,  they  came  to  the  home  of  the 
poor  shoemaker.  Then  the  white  rose 
opened  her  eyes  and  looked  up.  The  street 
was  quite  fine,  and  the  house  they  entered 
seemed  quite  a  stately  one — but — but — when 
they  had  stepped  into  the  entrance  hall,  and 
had  locked  the  house-door  behind  them,  then, 
at  the  left  hand  side  of  the  hall,  the  children 
opened  a  glass  door,  and  from  the  glass  door 
steps  led  down  below — suddenly,  it  was  clear 
to  the  white  rose  that  she  would  have  to  live 
in  a  basement.  Such  was  the  case,  in  very 
truth,  for  the  poor  shoemaker  was  door-keep- 
er in  this  fine  house. 

A  basement !  This,  then,  was  the  fulfil- 
ment of  her  dreams  for  the  future.  Once 
more  despair  struggled  in  the  heart  of  the 
white  rose ;  she  had  now  only  one  thought, 
one  wish,  that  soon,  very  soon,  she  might  die. 

But  the  children  had  already  clambered 
down  the  stairs,  and  their  voices  could  be 
heard  within,  calling :  "  Mother,  mother,  only 
see  what  we  have  brought  thee." 

On  a  plain  sofa  that  stood  within  the  room 
a  pale,  feeble  woman  lay.  She  raised  herself 
up,  and  while  the  children  clung  to  her,  and 
threw  their  little  arms  around  her,  the  poor 


522 


The  Legend  of  the  Two  Roses. 


[Nov. 


shoemaker  stepped  before  his  pale-faced 
wife,  held  up  the  white  rose  in  both  hands, 
and  showed  it  to  her  without  a  word. 

Two  tears  stood  in  the  big,  wide-open  eyes 
of  the  pale  woman ;  she  silently  folded  her 
hands,  and  looked,  now  at  the  rose,  and  now 
at  her  husband,  so  that  one  could  not  have 
told  whether  she  did  so  from  rapture  at  sight 
of  the  splendid  rose,  or  because  she  was 
thanking  God  in  silence  that  he  had  given 
her  so  kind  a  husband. 

Then  she  spoke  quite  anxiously :  "  Ah, 
what  a  magnificent  rose ;  but  it  is  far  too 
beautiful  for  us,  this  queenly  rose  ;  so  take 
care,  children,  that  she  receives  nothing  but 
kindness  here  among  us." 

It  was  not  necessary  to  say  this  twice  to 
the  children;  they  ran  outside,  and  came 
back  soon  with  a  great  big  flower-pot,  filled 
to  the  brim  with  beautiful,  soft,  dark  garden 
earth.  In  this  the  white  rose  was  planted  ; 
then  they  placed  the  flower-pot  on  the  table, 
and  brought  water  in  a  little  sprinkler,  and 
poured  it  on  the  earth  in  the  pot. 

There  stood  the  snowy  rose  on  the  table, 
in  the  middle  of  the  humble  room  of  these 
poor  people,  and  as  her  head  drooped  on  its 
stem,  she  looked  like  the  pale  child  of  a  king, 
who  has  been  stolen  from  the  palace  and  car- 
ried far  away  into  lowly  exile. 

Now  it  was  time  for  the  children  to  have 
their  evening  meal — only  a  piece  of  bread 
with  a  very  little  butter  on  it,  that  was  all; 
but  they  seemed  contented  with  it.  They 
seated  themselves  on  a  chest  right  opposite 
the  table  on  which  the  rose  stood ;  they  let 
both  legs  hang  down,  and  ate  their  scanty 
bread  and  butter,  while  all  the  time  they 
gazed  over  at  the  white  rose,  and  nodded  to 
her.  After  this  they  were  sent  to  bed.  Soon 
the  older  ones  lay  down  to  rest,  the  light  was 
blown  out,  and  then  it  was  deep,  still  night. 

Everything  slept,  only  the  white  rose  could 
not  sleep  ;  heavy,  bitter  thoughts  kept  her 
awake.  But  suddenly  it  was  light,  and  look  ! 
it  was  the  moon  that  had  come  and  glanced 
in  at  the  window.  He  sent  a  broad,  silver- 
white  ray  down  into  the  room  to  his  dear, 
snow-white  rose,  with  whom  he  so  many  a 
time  had  sported  with  sweet  caresses.  The 


rose  was  gladdened  by  the  sight,  for  she  knew 
now  she  had  not  been  quite  forgotten,  and 
she  bathed  herself  in  the  soft,  white  light. 

But  now,  whether  it  might  be  the  magic 
light  of  the  moon,  which  conjures  up  won- 
drous thoughts  and  dreams  for  those  who 
drink  its  rays  too  thirstily — enough,  the  rose 
fell,  as  it  were,  into  a  dream;  a  strange,  won- 
derful dream.  It  seemed  to  her  two  angels 
stepped  into  the  room — two  little,  charming, 
lovely  angels,  who  glided  over  the  boarded 
floor  upon  their  naked  feet,  with  long,  flaxen 
hair,  and  wee  white  limbs  clothed  only  in  a 
little  white  robe.  They  pushed  two  chairs 
up  to  the  table,  and  climbed  up  on  the  chairs, 
and  put  their  faces  down  close  to  the  face  of 
the  rose,  kissing  her  quite  gently,  gently,  ^on 
the  leaves,  and  in  the  sweet  fragrant  heart. 
The  rose  quivered  and  trembled,  and  drank, 
in  deep,  quiet  joy,  the  breath  of  the  youthful 
lips,  and  knew  not  what  to  make  of  this  heav- 
enly wonder. 

Then  the  tiny  angels  sprang  down  from 
their  chairs  again,  pushed  them  one  side, 
and  with  a  happy  little  giggle,  disappeared 
— whither  ?  There,  where  the  two  children 
had  gone  when  they  were  sent  to  bed ; 
and  then  the  rose  started.  Could  it  have 
been  possible — these  two,  who  had  seemed 
so  lovely  to  her,  whom  she  had  taken  for  an- 
gels— that  these  had  really  been  only  the  two 
children  ?  This  thought,  indeed,  destroyed 
all  her  delight  in  the  supposed  dream,  for 
she  wished  now  to  feel  again  all  the  old  re- 
sentment towards  the  children.  In  spite  of 
this,  however,  she  could  not  escape  from  the 
memory  of  how  sweet  it  had  been  to  kiss  the 
beautiful  lips. 

When  daylight  came,  and  the  shoemaker's 
family  entered  the  room,  the  rose  glanced  up 
and  looked  at  the  two  children  ;  this,  indeed, 
was  the  first  time  she  had  done  so  ;  for  un- 
til now  she  had  ever  kept  her  eyes  closed  be- 
fore them.  Now  she  saw  that  they  were  in- 
deed two  winsome,  pretty  little  ones,  with 
sunny  hair  and  big  eyes,  and  dear,  kind  faces, 
and  there  was  no  doubt  that  they  it  had  been 
who  had  slipped  from  their  beds  at  night  to 
kiss  and  to  pet  her  in  secret. 

As  soon  as  breakfast  was  eaten,  the  father 


1885.J 


The  Legend  of  the   Two  Roses. 


523 


said  to  his  children  :  '*  Today  is  a  glorious 
day,  and  we  will  put  our  rose  in  the  garden." 

Thereupon  the  children  took  the  flower- 
pot in  which  the  rose  stood,  and  carried  it 
up  the  steps,  out  of  the  house  door,  into  the 
little  front  garden,  which  was  separated  from 
the  street  by  an  iron  railing ;  there  they 
set  her  down  in  the  midst  of  the  warm, 
radiant,  morning  sunshine.  Now  could  the 
rose  look  out  on  the  street,  and  she  saw  the 
carriages  that  drove  by,  and  the  people  who 
passed  up  and  down  the  street.  All  this  was 
to  her  a  novel  and  pleasant  sight ;  and,  al- 
though she  would  not  acknowledge  it  to  her- 
self, she  felt  quite  comfortable. 

Directly  behind  her,  even  with  the  ground, 
was  the  window  of  the  shoemaker's  abode ; 
it  was  wide  open,  and  within  sat  the  shoe- 
maker on  an  elevated  chair,  while  he  worked 
and  cobbled  on  his  boots  and  shoes. 

The  rose  looked  at  him  and  glanced  into 
the  room  beyond.  There,  already,  the  morn- 
ing sun  was  looking  in  with  kindly  ray  ;  the 
room  did  not  seem  so  gloomy  as  on  the  even- 
ing before,  but  quite  neat,  and  bright,  and 
cheery. 

Then  the  children  came  out  of  the  house 
again,  with  book  and  slate,  on  their  way  to 
school ;  and  as  they  passed  by  the  railing, 
they  pressed  their  faces  against  it,  and  nod- 
ded to  the  rose,  crying,  "  Good-by  ! "  And, 
though  the  rose  would  not  acknowledge  it 
to  herself,  it  was  a  very  pretty  sight. 

While  still  meditating  upon  this,  she  heard 
a  shrill  voice  behind  her,  which  piped  : 

"  Good  morning,  Mistress  Rose." 

She  turned,  and  saw  a  little  canary  bird 
'that  hung  in  its  cage  in  the  open  window. 
He  had  two  knowing  little  black  eyes,  and  a. 
tiny  white  bill  with  which  he  chirped  again, 
"  Good  morning,  Mistress  Rose.  I  did  not 
have  the  opportunity  of  greeting  you  yester- 
day. Permit  me  to  introduce  myself  to  you; 
my  name  is  Peeping." 

The  canary's  polite  manner  pleased  the 
white  rose ;  she  gave  him  a  friendly  nod  and 
entered  into  a  conversation  with  him,  asking 
him  how  old  he  was,  and  how  long  he  had 
been  living  with  the  shoemaker.  Then  Mr. 
Peeping  sighed,  and  told  her  that  he,  alas, 


was  no  longer  a  young  fellow,  for  he  was  now 
a  year  and  two  days  old  ;  day  before  yester- 
day they  had  celebrated  his  birthday;  but  he 
had  been  living  at  the  shoemaker's  for  the 
last  three  months,  and  hoped  he  might  stay 
with  him  his  whole  life  long.  And  when  the 
rose  asked  him  again  whether  he  liked  it  so 
much  at  the  shoemaker's,  he  rolled  his  little 
eyes  in  his  head,  and  said  they  were  as  good 
as  angels,  especially  the  children ;  then  he 
was  so  moved  by  his  feelings  that  he  must 
quickly  take  a  swallow  of  water,  else  the 
tears  would  come. 

The  sun  ascended  higher,  and  it  began  to 
grow  warm  for  the  rose  ;  but  just  then  the 
children  returned  from  school.  They  lifted 
up  the  flower-pot  again,  and  carried  the  rose 
into  the  room  behind,  where  it  was  now  shady 
and  cool.  Thus  they  did  today,  thus  they  did 
the  next  day  and  the  following  days,  ever 
the  same,  and  everything  else  kind  and  good 
they  could  possibly  think  of  for  the  rose. 

And  through  their  care  and  nursing,  some- 
thing was  felt  to  stir  in  the  heart  of  the  rose 
— a  sweet,  mysterious  life  awakened  in  her 
blood,  and  her  body  began  to  bud.  When, 
however,  the  bud  was  ready  to  press  through, 
and  the  whole  of  the  shoemaker's  family 
were  looking  in  silent  expectation  for  the 
moment  when  this  would  happen,  there  arose 
again  in  her  heart  the  wicked,  angry  feeling 
of  resentment.  She  would  not  grant  them 
this  pleasure,  and  so  took  no  nourishment, 
and  with  all  the  strength  of  her  will  opposed 
herself  to  the  pressures  of  nature ;  and  be- 
hold !  the  young  shoot  was  starved,  the  bud 
burst  not  forth,  and  the  hope  of  the  poor 
people  was  unfulfilled. 

Then  they  grew  very  sad;  and  at  that 
moment  the  master  of  the  house,  a  very 
wealthy  man,  came  by.  He  saw  what  had 
happened  to  the  rose,  and  said :  "  That  is 
what  I  should  have  expected  ;  how,  pray, 
could  the  beautiful  rose  thrive  down  here 
with  you  ?  I  wish  to  speak  a  word  with  you : 
I  will  buy  it  of  you,  and  plant  it  in  my  gar- 
den." 

He  offered  a  sum  for  the  rose  even  greater 
than  the  one  the  shoemaker  had  paid  for  it. 
But  the  poor  man  replied: 


The  Legend  of  the  Tivo  Roses. 


[Nov. 


"Ah,  gracious  sir,  it  is  indeed  true,  all  that 
you  say;  but  see,  we  have  become  so  much 
attached  to  the  rose,  and  when  we  look  at 
it,  it  is  as  if  we  possessed  a  whole  garden; 
therefore,  if  you  will  not  take  it  amiss,  I  would 
like  to  keep  the  flower  a  few  days  longer,  to 
see  whether  it  will  not,  perhaps,  even  yet  bear 
a  blossom;  and  if  nothing  comes  of  it  again, 
then  in  God's  name,  I  will  sell  it  to  you." 

The  master  of  the  house  departed,  and 
one  could  see  that  he  was  vexed.  But  in 
the  soul  of  the  white  rose,  who  had  overheard 
all  this,  flickered  a  ray  of  happiness :  now, 
indeed,  the  hope  was  present  with  her,  that 
she  might  go  away,  out  of  the  hated  base- 
ment. She  had  only  to  will  it  in  order  to 
find  a  fair,  brilliant  destiny  in  the  garden  of 
the  rich  man.  This  she  determined  to  do. 

When  it  grew  night,  however,  and  every- 
thing was  hushed  in  sleep,  again  there  was  a 
sound  of  tiptoeing  in  the  room,  soft,  quite 
soft;  and  again,  as  before,  it  was  the  children, 
barefooted,  and  clad  in  their  nightdresses, 
just  as  they  had  sprung  out  of  bed,  looking 
like  two  little  angels.  But  this  time  there 
was  no  happy  giggle,  and  when  the  moon 
shone  upon  their  faces,  they  looked  white 
and  sorrowful. 

And  tonight,  as  on  that  other  night,  they 
moved  two  chairs  near  and  climbed  up  on 
them ;  and  tonight,  as  on  the  other  night,  they 
kissed  the  rose;  but  while  they  did  so,  they 
wept,  and  their  tears  trickled  down  into  the 
heart  of  the  rose.  "  Now  we  have  nothing 
more,"  they  whispered ;  "  now  we  have  no 
rose  and  no  garden  any  more;  now  we  have 
nothing  more."  And  with  that  they  went 
away,  back  to  their  beds. 

When  they  had  gone,  the  rose  closed  her 
eyes  and  tried  to  sleep ;  but  she  found  no 
rest,  for  on  her  heart  something  glowed  and 
burned.  It  was  the  children's  tears  thafhad 
fallen  there. 

The  next  morning,  while  it  was  yet  very 
early,  and  no  one  had  arisen,  hark !  a  knock- 
ing at  the  window,  and  the  morning  wind 
came  flying  in. 

The  rose  had  not  seen  him  before  since 
she  left  the  garden,  therefore  she  was  rejoiced 
at  his  visit.  The  morning  wind  blustered 


up  and  down  the  room,  and  blew  the  dust 
from  the  furniture  and  knick-knacks.  One 
could  easily  see  that  he  was  excited. 

"  I  have  just  now  come  from  your  sister," 
he  said,  "  from  the  yellow  rose." 

Then  the  white  rose  was  anxious  to  hear 
how  it  fared  with  her;  but  the  morning  wind, 
who  was  once  such  a  merry-hearted  fellow, 
became  quite  serious. 

"  Ah,"  said  he,  "  that  is  a  sad  story;  she  is 
in  trouble.  The  tea-roses  among  which  she 
stands  so  forlorn  that  I  can  scarcely  distin- 
guish her  from  any  other,  are  malicious  and 
hateful  to  her,  and  soon  all  this  radiant 
beauty  will  come  to  an  end." 

"What  do  you  mean?"  asked  the  white 
rose. 

"Well,  then,"  said  the  morning  wind,  "do 
you  know  what  caprices  are  ?  " 

"  No,"  answered  the  rose. 

"  Listen,  then,"  continued  the  morning 
wind  ;  "  they  are  small  black  beetles,  which, 
however,  are  very  rare  and  costly,  and  there- 
fore are  kept  only  by  the  wealthy." 

"  Pray,  what  use  do  they  make  of  them  ?  " 
questioned  the  rose. 

"  They  play  with  them  to  while  away  their 
superfluous  time,"  answered  the  morning 
wind.  "They  let  them  fly  about  the  room, 
then  they  catch  them  and  put  them  on  their 
heads." 

"  How  strange  ! "  said  the  rose. 

"  Yes,  but  then  it  is  the  fashion.  Now, 
the  banker's  wife,  in  order  to  show  that  she 
is  the  richest  in  every  respect,  keeps,  as  you 
may  suppose,  a  great  number  of  these  bee- 
tles ;  every  day  she  uses  at  least  one,  gener- 
ally two  or  three.  These  she  places  on  her 
head,  and  lets  them  stay  there  until  they 
pinch  and  nip  her  well,  for  these  beetles,  you 
must  know,  have  sharp  little  nippers ;  then 
she  begins  to  scream  and  to  cry  until  her  hus- 
band comes.  He  must  take  them  from  her 
head  and  throw  them  out  of  the  window. 
With  this  amusement,  they  chase  away  the 
hours  every  day.  Now,  you  must  know  still 
further,  that  when  people  have  these  beetles 
sitting  on  their  heads,  very  strange  thoughts 
and  fancies  come  to  them  always.  So  it 
suddenly  came  into  the  mind  of  the  banker's 


1885.] 


The  Legend  of  the  Two  Roses. 


525 


wife,  that  the  tea  roses  were  growing  tire- 
some to  her,  and  that  she  would  plant  cam- 
ellias in  their  stead.  This  is  soon  to  hap- 
pen ;  when  the  autumn  comes  the  tea  roses 
will  be  torn  from  the  ground." 

"And  what  will  become  of  them?"  inter- 
rupted the  white  rose,  quite  anxiously. 

"  They  will  be  thrown  away,"  answered 
the  morning  wind,  "  and  our  poor  yellow 
rose,  your  sister,  with  them.  Now  do  you 
understand  why  I  am  so  sorrowful  ?  " 

"Yes,  yes,"  he  continued,  when  he  saw 
the  white  rose  standing  there  quite  dumb. 
"You  have  met  with  a  happier  fate;  you 
are  being  nursed  and  cherished,  and  here 
there  are  no  little  black  beetles  which  you 
need  fear."  With  that  he  heaved  a  sigh, 
gathered  up  the  skirts  of  his  coat,  and  flew 
away  through  the  window. 

Still  the  white  rose  was  quite  speechless, 
and  when  the  morning  wind  had  already 
flown  far  away,  she  yet  imagined  she  heard 
his  words,  "  You  have  met  a  happier  fate." 
Suddenly  in  her  heart,  a  whispering  and  a 
rustling  began,  and  when  she  looked  within 
to  see  what  was  going  on,  she  saw  it  was 
shame  that  had  entered  there,  and  was  mak- 
ing himself  at  home. 

Yes,  the  rose  felt  ashamed  of  herself,  and 
if  she  looked  down  into  her  heart,  shame 
glanced  up  at  her  and  said,  "Thou  ungrate- 
ful one  " ;  and  when  the  shoemaker's  family 
entered,  and  she  saw  the  mournful  faces  of 
the  children,  again,  in  their  eyes,  she  read  the 
reproachful  words,  "  Thou  ungrateful  one." 

Then  a  shock  seemed  to  pass  through  her 
whole  being  ;  it  was  as  if  she  had  been  sleep- 
ing until  now,  and  had  been  suddenly  awak- 
ened. When  the  children  carried  her  into 
the  front  garden  today,  she  drank  from  the 
pure,  cool  water  they  gave  her,  and  ate  of 
the  rich,  soft,  dark  garden  earth,  so  that  Mr. 
Peeping  called  out  to  her,  "  God  bless  your 
meal,  Mistress  Rose,  God  bless  your  meal." 

Then  the  rose  felt  as  if  her  whole  inner 
self  had  been  transformed  into  liquid  fire ; 
her  blood  and  sap  flowed  upward  and  down- 
ward like  welling  springs,  and  scarcely  had 
two  days  passed  before  her  body  began  to 
bud  anew,  and  one  shootlet  shyly  peeped  out. 


And  when  the  children,  who  had  tended  her 
incessantly,  came  running  in  breathless  haste 
and  called  their  parents  out  to  see  the  lovely 
thing  that  had  happened,  then  the  rose 
smiled  to  herself  in  silent  joy,  and  look  !  a 
second  bud  burst  forth,  and  after  the  second, 
as  if  she  did  not  wish  any  longer  to  be  chary 
in  granting  favors,  a  third.  And  now,  one 
morning,  when  the  poor  shoemaker  with  his 
pale  wife  and  his  two  pretty  children  stepped 
over  the  threshold  into  the  room,  they  stood 
still,  as  if  spell-bound  by  a  wonderful  pic- 
ture ;  for  on  the  table  they  saw  the  fair  head 
of  their  dear  white  rose  bent  low,  in  motherly 
love,  over  two  little  infant  snow-white  roses, 
which  had  blossomed  on  the  plant  over 
night. 

The  rose  bent  and  bowed  herself,  and 
from  her  whispering  lips  came  a  sweet  fra- 
grance which  transformed  the  dwelling  of  the 
lowly  people  into  a  little  paradise ;  and  if 
they  had  understood  the  language  of  flowers, 
they  would  have  heard  the  rose  murmur : 
"  In  return  for  your  love,  in  gratitude  for 
your  kindness." 

Through  the  whole  house  rang  the  joyful 
shouts  of  the  children.  All  who  dwelt  in 
the  house  came  hither  to  see  the  beautiful 
flower-wonder,  and  when  the  rose  family  were 
carried  today  into  the  front  garden,  the  pass- 
ers-by stopped  on  the  street,  and  the  white 
rose  celebrated  a  great  triumph  in  honor  of 
her  beauty. 

All  were  rejoiced  excepting  the  master  of 
the  house;  he  was  vexed.  The  thought 
gnawed  and  ate  its  way  continually  into  his 
heart,  that  the  poor  shoemaker  had  dared  to 
deny  him  his  wish,  and  to  refuse  to  sell  him 
the  rose.  And  since,  as  you  know,  resent- 
ment is  such  a  noxious  weed  that,  if  it  is 
not  quickly  rooted  up  from  the  soil  of  the 
heart,  it  grows  and  spreads ;  so,  from  day  to 
day  he  became  more  hostile  and  bitter  to- 
wards the  poor  man.  And  one  day,  when 
autumn  stood  before  the  door,  there  sat  the 
poor  shoemaker's  family  with  careworn  faces 
and  weeping  eyes.  The  master  of  the  house 
had  discharged  the  father,  and  they  were 
obliged  to  leave  their  home. 

Then  through  the  soul  of  the  rose  went  a 


526 


The  Legend  of  the   Two  Roses. 


[Nov. 


deep,  cutting  reproach ;  for  who  bore  the 
guilt  of  these  poor  people's  misfortune — who 
other  than  she  ? 

Again  came  the  night,  and  again,  with  the 
night,  came  a  vision ;  but  this  time  no  pleas- 
ant, delightful  dream  as  before,  but  a  gloomy 
and  fearful  one ;  not  the  two  children,  but  a 
gasping,  frightful  old  man,  who  entered  from 
without  with  shuffling  footsteps,  and  sneaked 
into  the  room  where  the  children  lay  in  their 
little  beds.  Never  had  the  rose  seen  any- 
thing so  ghastly  as  his  figure  ;  never  had  she 
heard  anything  so  horrible  as  the  hoarse  mut- 
terings  that  came  from  his  hideous,  toothless 
mouth ;  and  when  now  she  saw  him  step  into 
the  bed-room,  she  grew  numb  with  a  paralyz- 
ing fear. 

A  strange  and  ghostly  yellow  light  was 
spread  round  about  the  figure,  and  by  the 
glimmer  of  the  light  the  rose  saw  how  the 
frightful  object  bent  over  the  children,  and 
stretched  out  his  lean  hand  toward  their 
heads,  and  how  from  the  sweet  little  faces 
the  flush  disappeared,  and  how  they  were 
distorted  in  bitter  distress.  Then  a  nameless 
woe  took  possession  of  the  rose ;  she  lifted 
her  head  to  heaven,  and  her  lips  murmured  : 
"  Save  them,  save  my  poor  little  innocent 
darlings!" — and  from  her  trembling  lips  went 
a  perfume,  like  a  cloud,  through  the  room, 
even  into  the  bed-chamber.  Then  the  hid- 
eous old  man  raised  himself,  and,  stepping 
out,  cried  to  the  rose:  "  Exhale  not  so  sweet 
an  odor.  Thou  hast  no  longer  any  right  to 
remain  or  to  be  here.  I  now  am  master 
here — I,  Starvation,  Starvation,  Starvation!" 

But  once  more  the  rose  offered  her  sup- 
plications, still  more  fervently,  to  heaven,  and 
cried :  "  O,  let  me  repay  them,  these  poor 
people,  for  all  the  love  they  have  given  me ; 
let  me  repay  them  through  what  is  dearest 
and  most  precious  to  them — through  their 
children !  " 

Ever  more  powerful,  ever  more  intoxicat- 
ing, became  her  rich  perfume ;  ever  more  en- 
raged were  the  glances  which  the  monster 
shot  at  her ;  but  it  was  of  no  use,  he  could 
not  master  her  fragrance,  he  could  not  go 
back  into  the  chamber  because  the  sweet 
breath  of  the  rose  moved  like  a  veil  between 


him  and  the  door.  Suddenly  he  turned ; 
dazed  and  reeling,  he  vanished  from  the 
room. 

A  few  days  later  the  poor  shoemaker,  who, 
day  after  day,  had  been  seeking  employment, 
came  home,  and  his  clouded  face  was  bright- 
er— he  had  found  a  situation.  In  the  wealthi- 
est suburbs,  so  he  told  it,  there  stood  a  new 
house.  It  belonged  to  a  banker,  who  was 
reported  to  be  the  wealthiest  man  in  the 
whole  city. 

Then  the  white  rose  listened  intently — 
there  was  a  familiar  sound  about  it,  and  yet, 
exactly  why,  she  did  not  know ;  but  in  her 
heart  awoke  a  sweet  suspicion  that  the  offer- 
ing of  her  perfume  had  reached  its  right 
place  up  above,  and  that  there,  overhead,  her 
prayer  had  been  heard. 

It  was  an  elegant  house  into  which  the  shoe- 
maker's family  now  moved,  and  its  owner 
was  very,  very  rich.  "Only  think,"  said  the 
father,  one  day,  to  his  family,  as  he  entered 
the  room,  "  how  rich  our  master  is.  The 
gracious  lady  of  the  house  has  ordered  all 
her  beautiful  rose  bushes,  which  have  cost 
so  many  thousand  marks,  to  be  uprooted,  in 
order  to  plant  camellias  in  their  stead  next 
spring.  The  gardener  has  given  me  one  of 
the  lovely  roses,  because,  he  said,  it  had 
grown  sick,  and  could  not  be  sold  again." 
With  these  words,  the  shoemaker  held  out  a 
paper  in  which  a  gorgeous  yellow  rose  was 
wrapped.  Then  the  white  rose  felt  as  if 
struck  by  a  flash  of  lightning,  for  this  was  the 
one  with  whom  she  had  grown  up  and  be- 
come tall,  in  gay,  brilliant  dreams  of  the  fu- 
ture— her  yellow  rose,  her  sister. 

The  yellow  rose  had  also  recognized  her 
snowy  sister,  but  she  could  only  smile  faintly 
and  sadly  at  her,  for,  through  the  cruel  treat- 
ment that  had  fallen  to  her  share,  she  had 
grown  weary  and  sick  unto  death.  And  when 
the  children,  had  provided  her  likewise  with 
a  flower-pot,  and  had  placed  her  near  the 
white  rose,  and  when  she^aw  her  sister  stand- 
ing near  her  in  the  sweet  fullness  of  love  and 
happiness,  then  she  twined  both  tired  arms 
about  her  sister  again.  Once  more  the  faces 
of  the  two  sisters  rested  cheek  upon  cheek, 
and  the  yellow  rose  spoke  : 


1885.] 


The   Cruise  of  the  "Panda." 


527 


"Once  thou  didst  call  me  fortunate,  and 
didst  envy  my  fate — that  was  in  the  begin- 
ning of  our  days.  Today  I  call  thee  fortun- 
ate, and  envy  thy  lot,  and  this  I  do  at  the 
end  of  my  days ;  therefore,  my  word  of  to- 
day has  more  weight  than  thine  of  that  day  ; 
and  because  I  now  must  leave  this  earth, 
which  made  promise  to  me  of  so  much,  and 
granted  so  little,  take  thou  for  thyself  alone 
all  the  happiness  that  was  meant  for  us  both, 
and  bear  it  long  and  joyfully,  for  I  see  thou 
art  deserving  of  it." 

When  she  had  thus  spoken,  the  yellow  rose 
bowed  her  beautiful  head,  and  the  children, 
when  they  entered  the  room  next  morning, 
said  sadly  :  "  Oh,  woe  !  the  yellow  rose  is 
dead." 

But  then  the  little  sister  seized  her  brother 
by  the  hand,  and  said,  gently  and  secretly  : 
"  Ah,  only  see  how  our  rose  grieves  over  it ; 
she  has  been  weeping," — and  so  it  was  in- 
deed, and  the  tears  glistened  on  her  heart. 

Then,  however,  a  strange  thing  happened: 
for  suddenly  the  eyes  of  the  boy  grew  big  and 
shining,  as  they  had  never  been  before,  and 
he  gazed,  mute  and  motionless,  at  the  white 
rose,  as  if  he  saw  her  today  for  the  first  rime. 
Then,  without  saying  a  word,  he  took  his 
slate,  and  keeping  his  eyes  on  the  rose,  began 
to  draw.  The  little  sister  looked  at  him,  but 


she,  too,  said  not  a  word,  and  they  both  sat 
and  sat,  and  forgot  their  breakfast  and  all 
else,  and  not  until  it  was  time  to  go  to  school 
did  they  stir.  Then  he  put  his  slate  in  his 
school-bag,  so  that  no  one  should  see  what 
he  had  made  there,  and  it  was  as  if  he  car- 
ried with  him  a  deep,  sacred  secret. 

Two  days  later,  however,  the  poor  shoe- 
maker sat  by  his  pale,  delicate  wife,  and  said 
softly  :  "  Marie,  Antony's  teacher  spoke  with 
me  today.  He  told  me  we  ought  to  encour- 
age our  young  son,  for  he  has  lately  seen 
something  of  his— a  rose,  which  he  had 
drawn — and  he  believed  that  our  Antony 
could  become  a  great  and  celebrated  painter. 
What  sayest  thou  to  that  ? "  But  the  wife 
said  nothing,  only  her  eyes  grew  big  and  wide 
open. 

The  shoemaker  had  spoken  very  softly, 
lest  some  one  should  hear  him,  as  if  it 
were  a  deep,  sacred  secret.  Yet  one,  in- 
deed, had  heard  him.  It  was  the  white 
rose ;  but  she  said"hot  a  word,  only  a  sweet 
suspicion  came  into  her  heart — that  the  of- 
fering of  her  perfume  had  reached  its  right 
place  up  above,  and  that  there,  overhead, 
her  prayer  had  been  heard. 

But  what  became  of  the  little  Antony,  you 
would  like  to  know  ?  That,  perhaps,  I  will 
tell  you  some  other  time. 

Fannie  Williams  McLean. 


THE  CRUISE  OF  THE  "PANDA." 


THE  "  Panda  "  was  not  a  mythical  craft.  It 
is  not  necessary  to  dwell  upon  the  graceful 
proportions  of  her  hull  or  the  taper  of  her 
spars.  We  do  not  propose  to  invent  a  tale 
of  blood-curdling  character :  we  shall  deal 
with  sober  facts,  and  not  romance.  Ours  is 
an  authentic  story  of  events  that  took  place 
some  fifty  years  ago.  The  "  Panda "  com- 
mitted an  act  of  piracy,  and  the  incidents  of 
her  cruise  and  her  subsequent  capture  were 
at  the  time  the  sensation  of  the  day. 

The  trial  of  the  twelve  Spanish  pirates 
took  place  in  my  young  boyhood;  it  made  a 
deep  impression  upon  me  at  the  time,  and 


now  lives  amongst  my  earliest  recollections. 
My  father  was  summoned  as  a  witness  at 
the  trial.  Why  he  was  summoned  was  not 
apparent  to  him,  nor  could  he  ascertain  why 
he  -should  be  connected  with  the  case,  al- 
though making  diligent  inquiry.  By  dint  of 
a  little  special  pleading,  I  was  permitted  to 
attend  court  with  him,  and  young  as  I  was, 
can  well  remember  the  excitement  of  that 
day,  and  in  my  mind's  eye  see  again  the 
twelve  criminals  brought  to  the  Halls  of 
Justice  in  the  "  Black  Maria,"  and  marched 
into  the  judicial  presence,  attached  to  each 
side  of  a  long  chain  for  security.  Crowds 


528 


The   Cruise  of  the  '•'•Panda." 


[Nov. 


gathered  about  the  court  house  at  the  hour 
for  opening,  and  the  poor  devils  passed  in 
through  a  passage-way  of  curious  citizens. 
Probably  ere  this  all  those  connected  with 
that  trial  have  passed  away,  or,  if  any  yet 
survive,  they  have  reached  a  green  old  age. 
But  to  proceed  with  the  narrative : 

In  the  month  of  August,  1832,  one  of 
those  traditional  long,  low,  black  schooners 
lay  quietly  at  anchor  in  the  harbor  of  Havana. 
Her  figure-head  was  suggestive,  being  that  of 
a  Panda  (a  species  of  wildcat)  in  the  act  of 
springing  upon  its  prey.  Her  appearance  in 
general  was  sufficient  to  proclaim  her  a 
slaver,  and  a  motley-looking  crew  gave  the 
impression  that  piracy  as  well  as  slave-steal- 
ing might  be  added  to  her  regular  calling, 
should  the  opportunity  ever  be  offered. 

It  was  a  common  thing  for  slavers  to  be 
fitted  out  from  Havana  ;  their  presence  and 
their  calling  were  well  known,  but  the  author- 
ities chose  to  wink  at  the  traffic,  and  it  was 
only  necessary  for  the  sfavers  to  "  assume  a 
virtue  if  they  had  it  not,"  and  no  obstacles 
would  be  placed  in  their  way.  Well-known 
slave-stealers  frequented  the  public  places, 
and  enjoyed  all  the  privileges  of  the  best  cit- 
izens. Often  some  swarthy  Spaniard,  dressed 
in  the  height  of  Cuban  fashion  and  bedecked 
with  jewelry,  would  be  pointed  out  in  the 
market-place  as  a  celebrated  slave  captain 
and  owner.  Nor  was  this  freedom  of  the 
city  the  privilege  of  the  slave-trader  only, 
for  during  the  piratical  times,  the  pirate  en- 
joyed the  same  immunity  from  arrest  and 
punishment.  Some  ten  years  previous  to 
events  here  related,  my  father  was  in  com- 
mand of  the  armed  brig  "  General  Macomb," 
trading  between  the  ports  of  Boston  and 
Matanzas,  in  Cuba — armed  for  fear  of  en- 
countering the  Spanish  pirates  before  enter- 
ing Matanzas,  for  their  attacks  were  made  in 
plain  sight  of  the  Cuban  shores.  On  one  oc- 
casion the  brig  had  to  fight  her  way  into  port, 
beating  off  the  same  scoundrels  that  shortly 
after  attacked  and  scuttled  the  brig  "  Atten- 
tive," and  murdered  Capt.  Grozier,  by  forcing 
him  to  "  walk  the  plank."  These  same  gentle- 
manly cut-throats  might  afterwards  mingle 
freely  with  the  citizens  without  fear.  In  fact, 


Cuba  was  the  head-quarters  of  freebooters 
of  all  descriptions.  It  was  no  surprising 
thing,  therefore,  that  the  "Panda "had  com- 
pleted her  outfit  without  molestation ;  and 
at  an  early  hour  on  an  August  morning,  ere 
the  land  breeze  had  died  away,  she  spread 
her  broad  white  wings  in  flight,  bound  to 
Cape  Mount,  Coast  of  Africa,  with  a  cargo  of 
rum,  cloth,  powder  and  muskets. 

The  course  steered  by  the  "  Panda  "  im- 
mediately after  leaving  Havana  is  not  known. 
She  may  have  called  in  at  some  outlying 
port ;  she  may  have  proceeded  directly  on 
her  voyage;  or,  as  the  supposition  was,  she 
may  have  pased  up  the  Gulf  of  Florida  to 
the  north  of  the  Bahama  Banks,  to  take  ad- 
vantage of  the  Gulf  Stream,  and  perhaps 
fall  in  with  some  outward-bound  merchant- 
man from  the  United  States.  Her  real  course, 
however,  is  unknown,  as  her  log-book  was 
never  produced  to  tell  the  tale. 

Three  days  after  the  departure  of  the 
"  Panda  "  from  Havana,  the  brig  "  Mexican," 
Captain  Butman,  sailed  from  the  port  of 
Salem,  Massachusetts,  with  a  valuable  cargo 
of  merchandise  and  $20,000  in  specie,  bound 
for  Rio  Janeiro,  on  one  of  her  regular  trad- 
ing voyages.  The  "  Mexican  "  was  no  clip- 
per, but  a  fair  sailing  vessel,  and  made  her 
way  toward  the  equator,  as  her  log  book 
shows,  encountering  light  winds  and  calms, 
intending  to  cross  the  line  at  about  longitude 
24°  West,  the  usual  crossing. 

At  a  point  in  mid-ocean,  situated  in  lati- 
tude 33°  North,  and  longitude  34°. 20  West, 
these  two  vessels  were  destined  to  meet. 
The  "Mexican,"  delayed  by  light,  baffling 
winds,  was  twenty-two  days  in  reaching  this 
point,  while  the  "  Panda  "  occupied  twenty- 
five  days.  At  sundown  on  this  twenty-second 
day  from  port,  Captain  Butman  was  not  a 
little  disturbed  at  discerning  a  treacherous- 
looking  craft  crossing  his  bow  under  easy 
sail,  apparently  in  no  hurry  to  speed  on  her 
way.  As  soon  as  she  was  discovered,  every 
effort  was  made  by  the  "  Mexican  "  to  escape. 
The  course  of  the  vessel  was  changed,  and 
as  night  closed  in,  every  glimmer  of  light 
was  extinguished,  and  the  vessel  steered  by 
the  stars.  Sails  were  wet  down  to  hold  the 


1885.] 


The   Cruise  of  the  "Panda." 


529 


wind  the  better,  and  orders  given  that  no 
word  should  be  spoken  aloud.  The  schooner, 
however,  kept  within  easy  distance,  altering 
her  course  to  suit  the  occasion,  but  made  no 
effort  to  approach  uncomfortably  near.  A 
close  watch  was  kept  upon  the  suspicious  ves- 
sel during  the  night,  and  as  the  morning 
dawned,  the  watch  reported  the  schooner  as 
sailing  around  them  at  no  great  distance  dur- 
ing the  whole  night.  Daylight  discovered 
the  "  Panda "  on  the  starboard  quarter  of 
the  "  Mexican,"  and  about  one  mile  distant, 
and  the  two  vessels  kept  company,  the 
"  Panda  "  declining  all  the  courtesies  extend- 
ed to  her  in  the  way  of  signals,  and  making 
no  response  to  the  display  of  the  national 
flag,  hoisted  on  board  the  brig. 

During  the  early  forenoon,  this  black,  buz- 
zard-like craft  sailed  around  in  circles,  its 
broad  wings  spread,  tacking  and  wearing  like 
a  bird  of  prey  watching  its  victim.  The 
actions  of  the  vessel  were  anything  but  reas- 
suring to  Captain  Butman,  who  was  using 
every  effort  to  escape.  Every  eye  on  board 
watched  the  maneuvering  with  solicitude,  and 
the  anxiety  of  the  Captain  gave  way  to  fear, 
as  he  saw,  later  on,  the  course  of  the  "  Pan- 
da" was  changed  toward  the  brig.  Being 
to  windward,  she  bore  down  with  distended 
canvas,  and  rapidly  approached.  Luffing 
up  cleverly  on  her  quarter,  she  fixed  a  gun 
and  hailed  the  "  Mexican "  in  the  Spanish 
language.  Upon  receiving  a  "  No  entiende  " 
response,  a  second  hail  in  broken  English 
ordered  the  vessel  to  heave  to.  Captain 
Butman  looked  anxiously  at  the  piratical 
neighbor;  her  decks  seemed  crowded  with  vil- 
lainous looking  men  in  red  caps,  and  the  ves- 
sel armed  with  a  Long  Tom  and  two  small 
guns.  His  own  was  entirely  unarmed,  his 
crew  numbered  but  seven  men,  without  weap- 
ons, while  the  speed  of  the  panther-like 
craft  that  dogged  his  footsteps  enabled  her 
to  choose  any  position  desired,  and,  if  need 
be,  batter  his  vessel  to  pieces  at  leisure. 
Again  the  "Mexican"  was  hailed  in  broken 
English,  and  the  captain  ordered  to  come  on 
board  the  "Panda"  with  his  own  boat. 
"  Might  makes  right,"  and,  heaving  his  ves- 
sel to,  Captain  Butman  obeyed  the  injunc- 
VOL  VI.— 34. 


tion,  and,  taking  two  men  with  him,  proceed- 
ed to  the  "  Panda." 

When  he  came  alongside,  five  men  fully 
armed  leaped  into  the  boat,  and  ordered  it 
back  to  the  brig,  which  lay  at  a  short  dis- 
tance away,  with  sails  aback,  waiting  the  re- 
turn of  the  master.  Reaching  the  vessel 
with  a  swagger,  and  a  defiant  glance  at  the 
crew  assembled  in  the  waist,  the  pirates  pro- 
ceeded to  business.  The  few  men  compos- 
ing the  crew  of  the  "  Mexican  "  soon  saw 
that  opposition  was  useless,  and  decided  to 
let  things  take  their  course,  and  peradven- 
ture  save  at  least  their  lives  by  quiet  sub- 
mission. 

The  crew  were  ordered  to  the  forecastle, 
and  the  officers  to  the  cabin,  and  there 
searched.  In  the  search  for  treasure,  knives 
were  freely  handled,  and  pistols  thrust  into 
the  faces  of  captain  and  mates,  to  terrify 
them  if  possible,  and  to  intimate  a  readiness 
to  enforce  the  demand  of  "  your  money  or 
your  life."  Pretending  ignorance  of  the 
language,  and  offering  tobacco,  as  if  in  the 
supposition  that  it  was  what  was  desired, 
they  finally  excited  the  ire  of  their  swarthy 
visitors,  who  then  began  a  course  of  brutal 
treatment,  pricking  their  victims  with  the 
points  of  their  knives,  and  at  the  same  time 
prosecuting  the  search  with  more  vigor. 

Twenty  thousand  dollars  in  silver,  for  the 
purchase  of  return  cargo,  secured  in  boxes, 
had  been  placed  in  the  "run  "  of  the  vessel, 
beneath  the  cabin  floor,  the  hiding  place 
known  only  to  Captain  Butman.  Searching 
everywhere,  above  and  below,  the  pirates  at 
last  broke  into  the  "  run,"  disclosing  a  box  of 
treasure.  A  hatchet  was  seized,  and  the 
iron-bound  boxes  were  torn  apart,  revealing 
a  deposit  of  Spanish  milled  dollars,  which 
soon  caused  a  commotion  amongst  the  free- 
booters. They  danced  in  great  glee  upon 
the  cabin  floor,  and,  rushing  to  the  deck, 
the  boatswain  in  command  of  the  cut-throats, 
standing  on  the  rail  of  the  quarter-deck, 
hailed  the  "  Panda,"  and  holding  aloft  his 
hands,  spilled  a  handful  of  bright  dollars 
into  the  sea,  exclaiming,  "  Mucho  dinero 
aqM."  Cheers  from  the  "  Panda  "  were  the 
response,  and  a  boat  was  immediately  sent 


530 


The  Cruise  of  the  "Panda." 


[Nov. 


for  the  treasure,  and  made  short  work  in 
transferring  it  to  the  schooner.  Then,  after 
robbing  the  officers  of  their  money  and  watch- 
es, and  the  sailors  of  their  spare  clothing, 
the  pirates  prepared  to  depart. 

The  second  mate  of  the  "  Mexican,"  al- 
though thoroughly  demoralized,  and  expect- 
ing every  moment  to  be  thrown  overboard, 
was  nevertheless  shrewd  enough  to  scruti- 
nize closely  the  faces  of  the  desperadoes,  in 
order  to  be  able  to  recognize  them  again, 
should  their  lives  be  spared,  and  fate  ever 
place  them  in  the  hands  of  justice.  He  re- 
marked particularly  a  blemish  in  the  right 
eye  of  one  who  seemed  the  boatswain,  from 
his  command  of  the  men. 

Before  leaving  their  victims,  the  pirates 
fastened  the  crew  securely  in  the  hold  of  the 
vessel,  and  the  officers  in  the  cabin,  by  ef- 
fectually fastening  the.  doors  and  windows. 
The  compasses  and  nautical  instruments 
were  broken  up,  and  the  running  rigging  cut 
up.  They  then  set  fire  to  the  galley,  in 
which  they  placed  a  tub  of  combustibles,  and 
lowering  down  the  mainsail,  spread  it  over 
all,  and  departed,  leaving  the  vessel  and 
crew  to  their  fate.  Fortunately,  while  se- 
curing the  cabin  doors  and  windows,  they 
had  overlooked  a  small  hatch  in  the  "  laza- 
rette,"  which  communicated  directly  with  the 
cabin  below.  Through  this,  the  second 
mate  climbed  tb  the  deck,  in  time  to  see  the 
"  Panda,"  under  a  cloud  of  canvas,  hasten- 
ing away  like  a  guilty  thing,  afraid  to  look 
upon  the  final  scenes  of  the  tragedy.  Re- 
leasing the  crew,  they  succeeded  by  great  ef- 
fort in  getting  the  fire  under  control,  and  by 
use  of  oakum  created  a  dense,  black  smoke, 
in  order  to  screen  them  from  observation, 
and  not  alarm  the  freebooters,  should  they 
discover  the  fire  subdued,  and  be  inclined 
to  return.  Patiently  they  waited  till  the  hull 
of  the  Panda  descended  below  the  horizon 
and  disappeared  from  view. 

The  brig  was  then  put  in  all  possible  or- 
der and  condition,  and  started  on  her  home- 
ward course,  without  compass  or  other  in- 
struments, steering  by  the  sun  by  day  and 
the  stars  by  night.  Fortunately,  a  posing 
vessel  supplied  them  with  a  compass,  and 


the  "  Mexican  "  safely  returned  to  Salem,  ar- 
riving there  October  2d,  after  an  absence  of 
little  more  than  one  month,  and  about  eigh- 
teen days  after  the  robbery. 

The  news  of  this  extraordinary  event  was 
soon  spread  far  and  wide.  The  United  States 
government  took  immediate  measures  to  dis- 
seminate the  information  of  what  had  taken 
place  throughout  foreign  countries,  and  after 
a  great  length  of  time  the  story  reached  the 
coast  of  Africa.  Those  were  not  the  days  of 
cables  and  telegraph;  even  steamships  were 
unknown,  and  news  traveled  by  sailing  pack- 
ets or  a  chance  conveyance.  In  modern 
times  the  news  of  the  piracy  would  reach 
Africa  before  the  actors  in  the  affair  could 
escape,  and  perhaps  even  before  they  could 
reach  the  coast;  but  it  was  two  years  after 
the  occurrence  before  the  culprits  were 
placed  on  trial.  It  so  happened  that  His  Brit- 
tanic  Majesty's  Brig  of  War  Curlew  (for  this 
was  before  Her  Majesty  Victoria's  reign), 
Captain  Trotter,  while  cruising  off  the'coast 
of  Africa,  received  the  information  of  the 
piracy.  Circumstances  led  Captain  Trotter 
to  believe  that  the  schooner  "Panda,"  a 
slaver,  which  he  was  blockading,  and  which 
was  then  lying  in  the  river  Nazareth,  was  the 
vessel  in  question,  and  he  immediately  took 
measures  to  capture  her  at  all  hazards. 

It  appears  both  brig  and  schooner  had 
been  watching  each  other  for  days,  the  one 
engaged  in  the  suppression  of  the  slave-trade, 
and  the  other  awaiting  her  opportunity  to 
escape  to  sea  with  her  human  freight.  The 
boats  of  the  man-of-war  were  assembled 
alongside  and  filled  with  armed  men  before 
the  dawn  of  day,  with  the  intention  of  board- 
ing and  capturing  the  "  Panda  "  before  day- 
light should  reveal  their  operations.  But 
the  stealthy  approach  was  discovered,  and 
after  laying  a  train  to  the  magazine,  the  pirat- 
ical crew  escaped  to  the  jungle. 

The  "  Panda "  was  captured  ;  no  papers 
were  found  on  board,  and  the  vessel  shortly 
blew  up,  killing  and  wounding  several  of  the 
crew  of  the  "Curlew."  The  exasperated 
"  Britishers  "  hunted  the  pirates  in  the  jun- 
gle, and  by  means  of  bribes  and  offers  of 
reward,  succeeded,  with  the  aid  of  the  shore 


1885.] 


The  Cruise  of  the  "Panda" 


531 


authorities,  in  securing  a  part  of  the  crew. 
Others  were  afterwards  taken  along  the  coast, 
and  from  the  whole  number  captured,  twelve, 
including  captain  and  mate,  were  selected  as 
having  been  attached  to  the  "  Panda"  at  the 
time  of  the  piracy,  and  answering  well  to  the 
description  forwarded.  These  twelve  were 
taken  with  the  rest  to  England,  and  after  a 
lapse  of  nearly >two  years  from  the  meeting 
of  the  "Panda"  and  "Mexican,"  in  latitude 
33°  north,  the  British  gun-brig  "  Savage " 
arrived  at  Salem,  bringing  as  actors  in  the 
drama  twelve  prisoners,  under  charge  of 
Lieutenant  Looney,  who  surrendered  them 
to  officers  of  the  United  States  government, 
saying  that  His  Majesty's  government  waived 
the  right  to  bring  the  prisoners  to  trial,  in 
favor  of  the  United  States,  against  whose 
citizens  the  principal  offense  had  been  com- 
mitted. 

The  news  of  this  arrival  spread  through 
the  country,  and  the  landing  of  the  prison- 
ers was  witnessed  by  the  whole  town  of  Sa- 
lem, and  their  preliminary  examination  before 
Honorable  Judge  Davis,  in  the  Town  Hall, 
drew  together  a  large  audience  of  the  towns- 
men of  the  "  Mexican's  "  officers  and  crew, 
who  had  read  of  "  Captain  Kidd  as  he  sailed," 
but  could  now  have  the  opportunity  of  look- 
ing upon  living  pirates,  shorn,  however,  of 
the  romantic  surroundings  of  novels.  The 
result  of  the  examination  was  to  transfer  the 
prisoners  to  Boston  for  trial. 

This  celebrated  trial  took  place  in  Octo- 
ber, 1834,  and  lasted  about  two  weeks,  be- 
fore Judge  Joseph  Story  (the  eminent  jurist), 
and  Judge  John  Davis,  as  associate  ;  Andrew 
Dunlap,  District  Attorney,  and  George  S. 
Hillard,  and  David  L.  Child,  counsel  for  the 
prisoners.  The  twelve  Spanish  pirates  an- 
swered to  the  following  names :  Pedro  Gi- 
bert,  captain,  married,  age  38  ;  Bernardo  de 
Soto,  mate,  married,  «age  28;  Francisco  Ru- 
iz, carpenter,  unmarried,  age  32  ;  Antonio 
Ferrer,  colored  cook,  unmarried,  age  27  ; 
Nicola  Costa,  cabin  boy,  age  17  ;  Juan  Mon- 
tenegro, seaman,  age  23 ;  Manuel  Boyga,  sea- 
man, age  40 ;  Manuel  Castilh%  seaman,  age 
33  ;  Domingo  Guzman,  seaman,  an  Indian, 
age  29;  Antonio  Portana,  seaman,  age  20  ; 


Jose  Velasquez,  seaman,  age  30 ;  Angel  Gar- 
cia, seaman,  age  29. 

The  comparative  youth  of  this  band  is 
noticeable :  the  oldest  is  but  forty  years  of 
age,  and  the  youngest  seventeen.  The.  aver- 
age age  of  the  twelve  is  less  than  twenty- 
nine  years.  This  fact  gave  rise  to  more  or 
less  sympathy  at  the  beginning  of  the  trial, 
but  as  it  proceeded,  the  hardened  nature  of 
this  precious  dozen  was  exhibited  to  such  an 
extent  that  sympathy  was  found  to  be  mis- 
placed. 

As  the  men  were  all  Spaniards,  or  accus- 
tomed to  the  Spanish  language,  the  services 
of  an  interpreter  were  necessary,  and  Stephen 
Badlam  was  duly  sworn  to  the  position.  Ev- 
ery facility  was  given  the  prisoners  to  main- 
tain complete  knowledge  of  the  proceedings, 
the  interpreter  during  the  whole  of  the  trial 
sitting  by  the  criminals,  informing  them  of 
everything  that  passed.  They  were  allowed, 
also,  to  consult  freely  with  their  counsel. 
Captain  Gibert,  and  his  mate,  de  Soto, 
availed  themselves  of  their  right  of  challenge 
to  its  full  extent,  and  the  full  number,  twen- 
ty, were  peremptorily  challenged.  Thirty- 
six  jurors  in  all  were  summoned,  and  twelve 
finally  selected  and  sworn,  after  the  usual 
sparring  between  counsel  as  to  bias  among 
the  jurymen  was  brought  to  a  close.  The 
jury  was  composed  of  men  of  position  in  the 
community,  good,  honest,  and  capable,  and 
no  doubts  were  entertained  but  that  they 
would  render  an  honest  verdict. 

Delay  was  asked  to  afford  time  to  procure 
papers  from  foreign  countries.  This  was 
refused  by  the  court,  on  the  ground  that  the 
court  was  unable  to  issue  any  process  which 
would  be  effectual  in  procuring  such  papers. 
Inch  by  inch  the  counsel  for  defense  fought 
to  maintain  the  legal  points  involved,  and  the 
usual  exceptions  were  taken  to  the  ruling  of 
the  judge,  as  his  Honor  gathered  up  one  by 
one  the  obstacles  sought  to  be  placed  in  the 
path  of  justice.  The  court  was  now  ready 
for  the  testimony,  and  some  of  the  more  im- 
portant witnesses  were  excluded  from  the 
court  room. 

Joseph  Perez,  one  of  the  most  intelligent  of 
the  crew,  had  turned  State's  evidence,  and 


532 


The   Cruise,  of  the  "Panda" 


[Nov. 


was  accordingly  not  indicted.  He  was  placed 
upon  the  stand,  and  related  the  story  of  the 
cruise  of  the4'  Panda,"  in  the  Spanish  tongue, 
in  a  clear  and  concise  manner.  In  his  state- 
ment he  testified  that  he  had  himself  buried 
the  stolen  money,  assisted  by  Velasquez. 
During  the  recital,  and,  in  fact,  all  the  time 
he  was  upon  the  stand,  he  was  constantly 
interrupted  by  the  low,  muttered  curses  of 
the  prisoners ;  Captain  Gibert  getting  up  in 
his  seat  and  shaking  his  fist  at  the  witness, 
called  down  the  judgments  of  Heaven  upon 
him.  Throughout  his  whole  testimony,  the 
court-room  was  the  scene  of  wild  excitement ; 
the  rage  of  the  prisoners  was  not  easily  con- 
trolled, and  it  required  the  constant  efforts 
of  the  officers  of  the  court  to  keep  them 
from  tearing  the  witness  to  pieces  upon  the 
stand.  Indeed,  in  consequence  of  the  vocif- 
erous talking  amongst  themselves,  the  court 
had  very  nearly  determined  to  place  them 
widely  apart  from  each  other.  The  story  of 
the  piracy  was  told  in  all  its  details,  being 
substantially  the  same  as  related  by  the  offi- 
cers of  the  brig  "  Mexican." 

Two  of  the  prisoners  had  confessed  at 
Fernando  Po  to  having  a  share  in  the  enter- 
prise, but  laid  all  blame  upon  the  captain. 
The  second  mate  of  the  "  Mexican "  was 
placed  upon  the  stand,  and,  accompanied  by 
an  officer,  he  went  amongst  the  prisoners 
and  selected  the  five  who  had  boarded  the 
"  Mexican,"  especially  the  boatswain  with  the 
blemish  in  his  eye,  and  also  Ruiz,  Boyga, 
Castillo,  Garcia,  and  Montenegro.  The  same 
five  were  mentioned  by  Perez  by  name  in  his 
testimony,  as  the  men  who  were  sent  on  board 
the  brig.  Captain  Butman  related  his  story, 
and  identified  Captain  Gibert  and  de  Soto 
as  the  officers  he  had  seen  on  board  the 
"  Panda,"  when  commanded  to  come  along- 
side. He  also  identified  the  boat's  crew, 
more  particularly  the  boatswain,  whose  evil 
eye  was  to  prove  his  destruction. 

Next,  two  or  three  old,  experienced  ship- 
masters, who  had  spent  years  in  regular  voy- 
ages to  and  from  the  island  of  Cuba,  were 
called  to  the  stand,  and  my  father  was  now 
to  learn  why  he  had  been  summoned  in  the 
case.  The  greatest  secrecy  had  been  ob- 


served, and  not  until  he  was  placed  upon 
the  stand  as  a  shipmaster  of  experience  in 
Cuban  navigation,  did  he  get  a  glimmer  of 
what  was  desired  of  him  as  a  witness.  The 
chart  of  the  North  Atlantic  Ocean,  used  by 
the  "  Mexican  "  in  her  voyage,  was  placed  in 
evidence  and  sworn  to  by  the  master,  as  con- 
taining the  route  pursued  by  his  vessel  up  to 
the  point  of  meeting  with  the  "  Panda,"  and 
the  question  was  asked,  whether  the  "  Pan- 
da," sailing  from  Havana,  bound  to  the  coast 
of  Africa,  on  the  2oth  day  of  August,  would 
be  likely  to  meet  the  "  Mexican,"  sailing  from 
the  port  of  Salem,  on  the  23d  of  the  same 
month,  bound  for  Rio  Janeiro,  in  latitude  33° 
North,  and  longitude  3  4°.  30,  or  if  not  likely, 
would  it  be  possible  ?  This  question  was  to 
cut  an  important  figure  in  the  case.  The 
counsel  for  the  prisoners  were  taken  by  sur- 
prise, for  they  had  proposed  to  insist  upon 
the  impossibility  of  meeting,  in  their  argu- 
ment before  the  jury.  Both  sides  wrangled 
over  the  question  for  some  time,  the  court 
finally  deciding  it  a  proper  question  to  ask, 
and  that  it  was  not  a  leading  question,  but  a 
matter  of  nautical  skill,  experience,  and  opin- 
ion. If  the  vessels  could  not  have  met  there, 
the  case  was  for  the  prisoners. 

The  witness  answered  the  question,  after 
examining  the  chart  closely,  and  decided  that 
the  meeting  of  the  two  vessels  at  the  point  in- 
dicated was  altogether  probable  in  any  event. 
The  "Panda"  had  three  days  the  start  of 
the  "  Mexican,"  and  the  point  of  meeting 
was  some  six  hundred  miles  farther  from 
Havana  than  from  Salem,  which  would  con- 
sume these  three  extra  days.  It  lay  a  little 
to  the  northward  of  a  direct  course  to  Cape 
Mount  Africa,  but  adverse  winds  may  have 
caused  the  deviation;  or  should  the  "Panda" 
have  passed  up  the  Gulf  Stream,  from  Ha- 
vana to  the  north  of  the  Bahama  Banks,  a 
route  often  pursued,  she  would  reach  the 
exact  latitude  of  33°  North,  after  getting 
clear  of  the  Gulf  and  laying  her  course  for 
the  African  coast.  On  this  question  of  nau- 
tical experience,  the  answers  of  all  the  wit- 
nesses were  Substantially  the  same.  Here 
another  objection  was  urged  as  to  the  evi- 
dence offered,  and  was  based  upon  the  fact 


1885.] 


The   Cruise  of  the  "Panda" 


533 


that  the  log-book  of  the  "Panda"  was  not 
produced,  and  it  was  claimed  that  the  log- 
book was  the  only  legal  evidence  of  the  date 
of  the  sailing  of  the  "  Panda."  After  argu- 
ment, the  court  ruled  against  the  objection, 
and  denied  that  the  log-book  was  the  only 
legal  evidence  of  the  date  of  sailing. 

Here  the  government  rested  their  case. 
It  was  fully  proved  that  the  offense  had  been 
committed,  and  the  prisoners  fully  identified 
as  the  actors  in  the  drama.  The  defense 
were  now  put  to  their  wits'  end  to  disapprove 
the  direct  testimony  of  the  prosecution. 
The  evidence,  circumstantial  and  real,  was 
clear  and  explicit,  and  had  woven  a  web 
around  the  victims  difficult  to  break  ;  in  fact, 
the  defense  had  no  testimony  to  offer  in  re- 
buttal of  the  facts  testified  to,  and  the  only 
course  to  pursue  was  to  contest  the  mat-1* 
ter  point  by  point.  They  argued  that  the 
cargo  of  the  "  Panda  "  clearly  indicated  she 
had  not  started  on  a  piratical  voyage,  but  for 
slave- stealing;  and  this  should  be  taken  as 
proof  of  her  regular  calling.  They  claimed 
that  connecting  the  prisoners  with  the  crime 
was  merely  a  matter  of  mistaken  identity. 
They  argued  that  the  prisoners  should  be 
tried  separately,  if  they  so  desired,  and  they 
had  expressed  such  desire.  They  argued  in 
behalf  of  a  part  of  the  criminals,  that  those 
only  are  guilty  who  actively  cooperate.  That 
circumstantial  evidence  should  be  taken 
" cum  grano  salts"  and  that  such  evidence 
should  not  weigh  against  the  lives  of  the  ac- 
cused. They  argued  that  in  law,  convictions 
for  murder  could  not  obtain  when  no  body 
was  found. 

In  mitigation  of  punishment,  or  in  the 
hope  of  securing  an  acquittal  for  de  Soto,  the 
defense  placed  a  witness  upon  the  stand,  one 
Daniel  F.  Hale,  who  stated  that  he  was 
a  passenger  on  board  the  American  ship 
"  Minerva,"  bound  from  New  York  to  New 
Orleans,  in  1831,  which  vessel  had  stranded 
on  the  Bahama  Banks,  and  that  the  seventy- 
two  persons  on  board  would  have  found  a 
watery  grave,  but  for  the  humanity  of  the 
prisoner,  Bernardo  de  Soto,  captain  of  a  Span- 
ish vessel,  who  came  to  their  relief,  took  them 
on  board,  and  carried  them  to  Havana. 


Here  the  defense  closed,  and  something 
over  three  days  were  occupied  by  counsel  in 
presenting  the  case  to  the  jury.  The  coun- 
sel on  both  sides  went  into  a  review  of  the 
evidence,  and  pointed  out  the  salient  points, 
counsel  for  defense  reviewing  the  evidence, 
only  to  throw  discredit  upon  it,  and  show  its 
improbability. 

The  court  decided  upon  the  questions 
raised  by  the  counsel  for  defense,  that  the 
weight  and  character  of  circumstantial  evi- 
dence belongs  to  the  jury  to  determine;  that 
all  who  are  present,  acting  and  assisting  in 
acts  of  piracy,  are  to  be  deemed  principals  ; 
thatit  was  legal  and  proper  to  produce  parole 
evidence  to  establish  the  time  of  sailing  of 
the  "  Panda,"  and  to  prove  the  course  and 
termination  of  the  voyage. 

The  case  was  now  ready  for  the  charge  to 
the  jury,  and  the  greatest  interest  was  felt  in 
this,  as  indicating  the  condition  of  the  judi- 
cial mind.  The  judge  dwelt  upon  the  solemn 
character  of  their  deliberation,  where  twelve 
human  lives  were  at  stake,  instead  of  a  single 
life,  and  the  great  importance  of  thoroughly 
sifting  the  testimony,  and  weighing  the  evi- 
dence ;  and  upon  the  scrutiny  with  which 
they  should  consider  circumstantial  evidence, 
which  he  averred  was  the  best  evidence,  if  a 
completed  chain  could  be  made  out  so  com- 
plete in  itself  that  it  could  not  be  gainsaid. 
He  charged  the  jury  that  they  were  to  de- 
cide, first,  whether  a  rdbbery  of  the  "  Mexi- 
can" had  been  committed;  second,  did  the 
prisoners  at  the  bar  form  any  or  all  of  the 
officers  and  crew  of  the  "  Panda,"  which 
was  the  vessel  alleged  to  have  been  concern- 
ed in  the  robbery :  third,  if  so,  did  all  or 
only  a  part,  and,  if  a  part,  who  were  the 
guilty  parties.  He  referred  to  the  objections 
raised  by  counsel,  and  said  that  conviction 
may  take  place  when  the  "corpus  delicti"  is 
wanting.  That  in  case  of  a  murder  commit- 
ed  upon  the  high  seas,  the  body  cannot  be 
found,  and  it  was  a  bad  rule  to  be  invented. 
He  instructed  the  jury  that  simple  presence 
was  not  sufficient,  and  only  those  are  guilty 
who  actively  cooperate,  unless  they  start  on 
a  piratical  voyage,  which  in  this  case  was 
not  proved.  The  judge  then  went  minutely 


534 


The   Cruise  of  the  "Panda" 


[Nov. 


into  the  whole  of  the  evidence,  and  left  the 
facts  with  the  jury.  He  added,  at  the  con- 
clusion of  the  charge,  that  by  the  evidence, 
if  any  were  guilty  of  the  crime,  the  captain 
and  mate  must  be,  for  they  controlled  the 
whole.  He  thought  no  direct  cooperation 
was  proved  against  Portana,  Guzman,  Fer- 
rer, and  Costa,  and  the  sole  evidence  against 
Velasquez  was  that  he  assisted  in  burying 
the  treasure,  as  testified  by  Perez. 

The  judge  concluded  his  charge,  and  the 
case  was  given  to  the  jury  for  deliberation. 
During  the  whole  of  the  trial,  lasting  fifteen 
days,  the  jury  had  been  kept  together  night 
and  day.  It  was  agreed  between  counsel  in 
open  court  that  the  jury  might  have  refresh- 
ments, and  might  communicate  with  friends 
respecting  their  business  affairs,  and  if  ill, 
call  a  doctor  to  attend  them.  After  a  long 
deliberation,  the  jury  brought  in  their  ver- 
dict. There  were  found  guilty,  Captain  Gi- 
bert,  age  38;  Bernardo  de  Soto,  mate,  age  28 ; 
Ruiz,  carpenter,  age  32  ;  Boyga,  seaman,  age 
40 ;  Castello,  seaman,  age  33 ;  Garcia,  sea- 
man, age  29 ;  Montenegro,  alias  Castro,  age 
23:  not  guilty,  Costa,  cabin  boy,  age  17; 
Ferrer,  cook,  age  27;  Guzman,  age  29;  Por- 
tana, age  20 ;  Velasquez,  age  30.  The  aver- 
age age  of  the  convicted  was  thirty-two  years, 
and  of  the  acquitted  not  over  twenty-five 
years.  It  is  a  singular  fact  that  nearly  all 
of  the  oldest  were  convicted,  and  the  youngest 
acquitted. 

De  Soto  was  recommended  to  mercy,  on 
account  of  his  noble  and  self-sacrificing  con- 
duct in  saving  the  lives  on  board  the  "  Mi- 
nerva," as  testified  to  during  the  trial.  De 
Soto  had  shown  real  despondency  through- 
out the  trial,  while  Captain  Gibert's  face  re- 
mained unchanged  during  the  whole  pro- 
ceedings. 

After  the  verdict,  and  before  judgment  was 
pronounced,  counsel  for  prisoners  moved  for 
a  new  trial,  and  a  day  was  set  to  hear  the 
argument  in  support  of  the  -motion.  In  the 
motion  they  averred  that  the  jury  had  not 
been  kept  secluded,  and  were  allowed  to 
communicate  with  friends,  and  to  read  the 
daily  papers  during  the  trial ;  that  the  pris- 
oners had  been  tried  together  and  not  sepa- 


rately, although  they  had  requested  a  separate 
trial ;  that  the  jury  had  been  allowed  the 
use  of  ardent  spirits;  that  the  direct  commu- 
nication between  counsel  and  the  prisoners 
had  been  abridged;  and  finally,  that  they  have 
affidavits  of  the  acquitted  men  relating  to 
material  points  in  the  case.  For  three  days 
the  court  listened  to  the  arguments  for  a 
new  trial,  and  rendered  its  decision  :  that 
with  reference  to  a  collective  or  a  separate 
trial  of  the  prisoners,  the  matter  was  entirely 
in  the  discretion  of  the  court  to  decide 
upon  the  manner  of  trial;  that  the  jury  had 
been  kept  strictly  together,  and  that  any 
communication  to  a  member  of  the  jury  was 
required  to  be  and  was  witnessed  and  heard 
by  a  sworn  officer  of  the  court.  Newspapers 
had  been  inspected,  and  everything  relating 
tto  the  trial  carefully  cut  out  before  they  were 
given  to  the  jury;  and  both  the  officers  and 
the  jury  swear  that  the  jury  never  saw  any- 
thing in  the  newspapers  relating  to  the  trial, 
and  there  is  no  reason  to  believe  that  these 
papers  influenced  the  verdict  in  the  least. 
It  might  be  irregular  for  officers  to  give  the 
newspapers,  but  it  is  not  every  irregularity 
that  would  justify  a  court  in  setting  aside  a 
verdict,  and  granting  a  new  trial.  The  court 
was  satisfied  that  the  irregularity  had  not 
been  in  the  slightest  manner  prejudicial  to 
the  prisoners.  The  use  of  ardent  spirits  had 
been  agreed  to  in  open  court;  as  some  of 
the  jury  were  sick,  moderate  indulgence  was 
granted,  and  there  is  no  proof  that  such 
privilege  was  abused.  Every  indulgence  had 
been  given  to  counsel  to  communicate  with 
the  prisoners,  and  it  had  been  freely  used. 
The  affidavits  of  the  acquitted  men  in  the 
new  evidence  relied  upon  swore  to  facts,  if 
true,  utterly  inconsistent  with  the  testimony; 
they  denied  that  they  ever  met  or  robbed 
the  "  Mexican,"  denied  that  they  had  any 
intention  or  made  any  attempt  to  destroy  the 
"  Panda"  at  river  Nazareth  ;  their  testimony 
was  utterly  irreconcilable  with  strong,  direct 
testimony  of  officers  and  crew  of  the  "  Mex- 
ican," seven  in  all,  who  spoke  positively  as 
to  the  identity  of  Ruiz,  Boyga,  and  others ; 
and  if  Perez  was  to  have  any  credit  at  all, 
when  he  was  confirmed  by  other  testimony, 


1885.] 


The   Cruise  of  the  "Panda." 


535 


it  was  utterly  irreconcilable  with  the  whole 
substance  of  his  testimony.  Besides,  their 
character  detracted  from  the  confidence  we 
should  have  in  their  testimony.  Acquittal 
is  not  always  proof  of  innocence,  and  the 
court  would  not  be  justified  in  granting  a 
new  trial  on  affidavits  of  acquitted  pris- 
oners which  would  imply  a  belief  that  good 
men  had  perjured  themselves. 

The  counsel  asked  the  court  to  respite 
the  execution,  to  give  time  to  send  to  Havana 
and  England  to  clear  up  this  dark  affair;  and 
the  court  replied  it  should  be  allowed,  and 
if  the  time  was  not  long  enough,  executive 
clemency  would  extend  it  by  reprieve. 

On  the  1 6th  of  December,  the  arguments 
and  postponements  came  to  an  end.  A  sol- 
emn silence  pervaded  the  court  room,  as  the 
judge  sentenced  the  guilty  men  to  be  hanged 
on  March  nth,  between  the  hours  of  nine 
and  twelve  o'clock,  in  the  yard  of  the  coun- 
ty jail.  Upon  receiving  the  sentence,  which 
was  duly  translated  to  the  condemned,  Cap- 
tain Gibert  simply  bowed  his  head,  but  was 
otherwise  unmoved.  Ruiz  was  greatly  ex- 
cited, and  muttered  vehemently,  and  with 
clenched  fists  defied  the  judge.  Garcia,  with 
the  rest,  found  fault  and  grumbled  that  all 
did  not  fare  alike,  saying  they  were  all  in  the 
same  ship.  Costa,  the  cabin  boy,  appeared 
reckless,  and  showed  a  total  disregard  of  the 
mercy  extended  to  him  in  granting  him  an 
acquittal. 

About  three  months  were  to  elapse  before 
the  sentence  of  the  court  was  carried  out. 
During  that  time,  the  friends  of  de  Soto 
were  not  idle.  Much  sympathy  was  excited 
in  his  behalf — a  young  man  of  twenty-eight 
years  and  fine  appearance ;  and  now  the  ar- 
rival of  his  pretty  Castilian  wife,  whose  ef- 
forts to  obtain  a  pardon  were  untiring,  gave 
renewed  interest  in  his  case.  The  ladies  es- 
poused his  cause,  and  every  man  of  promi- 
nence was  appealed  to,  to  use  his  influence  for 
the  pardon  of  the  young  mariner.  But  men 
not  easily  moved  by  impulse  reasoned  that 


de  Soto  was  a  dangerous  man.  To  be  sure, 
in  the  case  of  the  "Minerva,"  he  rescued 
seventy-two  souls  from  a  watery  grave;  but 
common  humanity  would  have  done  that, 
and  only  a  year  after  we  find  him  the  second 
in  command  of  a  band  of  cut-throats.  This 
very  fact,  however,  was  urged  to  support  the 
theory  that  piracy  was  not  intended  at  the 
start,  but  an  after-thought  of  the  African  voy- 
age, and  the  appearance  of  the  "  Mexican  " 
offered  the  temptation;  that  it  was  a  sudden 
impulse  that  involved  de  Soto  in  Captain 
Gibert's  crime. 

The  Castilian  wife  secured  all  possible 
aid  in  the  way  of  an  extensively  signed  peti- 
tion, and  wended  her  way  to  Washington, 
and  on  her  knees  asked  President  Andrew 
Jackson  for  the  life  of  her  husband.  The 
petition  for  pardon  was  granted  by  the  hu- 
mane president,  and  the  faithful  wife  re- 
turned to  Boston,  armed  with  the  precious 
document,  which  was  to  unbar  the  prison 
doors  and  allow  her  to  lead  her  husband 
forth  a  free  man.  The  couple  returned  at 
once  to  Cuba,  and  he  was  heard  of  after- 
wards in  command  of  a  vessel  trading  from 
Havana. 

The  day  appointed  for  the  execution  of 
the  condemned  arrived.  The  Spanish  gov- 
ernment had  sought  in  vain  for  some  pre- 
text to  save  the  lives  of  their  subjects.  Upon 
the  morning  of  the  execution,  the  house-tops 
of  buildings  in  the  vicinity  that  overlooked 
the  jail-yard  were  filled  with  curious  specta- 
tors. Ruiz,  in  anticipation  of  his  fate,  had 
cut  his  throat  the  night  before,  but  as  he 
failed  to  sever  an  artery,  the  wound  was 
sewed  up,  and  he  met  his  fate  with  the  rest. 
Justice  long  delayed  had  been  meted  out  at 
last.  The  cruel  villains,  who,  not  content 
with  robbery,  would  have  made  a  holocaust 
of  ten  innocent  mariners,  had  been  captured 
at  last,  and  although  ably  defended  by  the 
best  legal  talent,  paid  the  penalty  of  their 
crimes  on  the  scaffold.  Truth  was  mighty, 
and  it  did  prevail. 

/  S.  Bacon. 


536  Ashes  of  Hoses.  [Nov. 


ASHES  OF  ROSES. 

Two  time-stained  papers  by  me  lie, 
Covered  with  tender  bits  of  rhyme, 

Written  in  years  long  since  gone  by, 

And  little  meant  to  reach  my  eye 
In  this  far  western  clime. 

My  grandsire  wrote  them  in  the  days, 

When  in  his  youth  he  wooed  the  dame 
That,  moved  by  these  enticing  lays, 
So  neatly  framed  to  sing  her  praise, 
My  grandmother  became. 

With  careful  touch  each  word  is  made, 

As  if  the  foolish  lover  thought 
With  every  line  so  lightly  laid 
A  soft  caress  could  be  conveyed 

To  her  for  whom  he  wrought. 

The  verse  is  filled  with  sighs  and  tears, 

And  budding  roses  wet  with  dew, 
With  hope  that  leaves  no  room  for  fears  ; — 
Lovers  have  learned  in  seventy  years 
But  little  that  is  new. 

And  lovers  then,  as  now,  made  bold 
By  force  of  youth's  impulsive  fire, 

Defied  the  years  to  make  them  old ; 

They  should  not  make  their  hearts  grow  cold, 
Nor  bid  their  passion  tire. 

But,  spite  of  love  that  laughed  at  fate, 
Old  Father  Time  kept  on  his  way; 

These  youthful  lovers  grew  sedate ; 

Did  love,  I  wonder,  never  bate, 
As  slacked  their  pulses'  play? 

Full  thirty  years  have  gone  their  round, 

Since  these  once  ardent  hearts  grew  still. 
Where  side  by  side  they  lie,  no  sound, 
No  movement  stirs  the  quiet  ground, 
No  feeling  makes  them  thrill. 

Yet  dare  not  say  their  trust  was  vain 

That  time  would  spare  a  love  so  pure  : 
If  aught  of  self  the  soul  retain 
In  other  worlds,  such  loves  remain, 
Forever  to  endure. 


1885.] 


The  New  Mills  College,  its  Past  and  Future. 


537 


I  read  the  verses  soft  and  low, 

I  fold  them  tenderly  away, 
Thinking  how  much  of  joy  and  woe, 
And  greater  issues  than  we  know, 
Hang  on  a  maiden's  yea. 


Charles  S.  Greene. 


THE  NEW  MILLS  COLLEGE,  ITS  PAST  AND  FUTURE. 


A  PLEASANT  drive  of  five  miles  eastward 
from  Oakland,  the  terminus  of  the  Pacific 
Railway,  brings  the  traveler  to  Mills  Semi- 
nary and  College.  If  he  prefer  quicker  tran- 
sit, he  has  the  opportunity  four  times  daily 
of  making  the  journey  by  rail  to  Seminary 
Park  station,  where  he  will  always  find  a 
conveyance  in  waiting  to  take  him  to  the 
Seminary  itself,  a  mile  and  a  half  away.  The 
road  leads  in  a  direct  line  from  an  arm  of 
San  Francisco  Bay  towards  the  hills  of  the 
Coast  Range,  or  the  foothills,  as  they  are 
more  familiarly  known.  Farm  houses  and 
pleasant  country  homes,  among  them  that  of 
Thomas  Hill,  the  artist,  are  passed  on  the 
way,  and  just  as  you  seem  face  to  face  with 
the  near  slope  of  the  hills,  and  further  travel 
barred  by  trees  and  fences,  your  driver  turns 
suddenly  to  the  left,  and  crossing  the  wide 
bridge  which  spans  a  willow  and  alder  shaded 
creek,  you  find  yourself  in  the  Seminary 
grounds. 

A  broad,  graveled  driveway  encircles  a 
spacious  lawn,  on  the  north  side  of  which 
stands  the  main  building,  three  stories  in 
height,  presenting  a  front  of  two  hundred  and 
twelve  feet,  and  having  a  wing  one  hundred 
and  thirty-six  feet  in  depth.  A  little  back 
from  this  building,  on  the  west,  is  a  large 
three-story  structure,  having  on  the  lower 
floor  an  ample  gymnasium,  and  above,  the 
studio  and  museum.  This  building  contains 
also  several  class-rooms.  Farther  away  are 
the  engine-house,  and  steam  laundry  with  its 
appurtenances,  the  gas  house,  servants'  hous- 
es, stables,  etc.  East  of  the  main  building 
stands  the  Sage  Library,  named  from  its  do- 
nor, Miss  Sarah  Sage,  of  Ware,  Massachusetts. 
Among  the  paintings  that  adorn  its  walls 


are  a  Holy  Family,  by  Correggio,  and  two 
large  views  of  California  scenery,  by  R.  D. 
Yelland.  There  are  also  gifts  of  statuary  from 
graduates  of  the  institution,  and  at  the  east 
end  is  a  beautiful  memorial  window,  placed 
there  by  the  alumnse  in  remembrance  of 
Doctor  Mills.  Upon  the  shelves  of  the  vari- 
ous alcoves,  a  library  of  five  thousand  vol- 
umes is  accessible  to  the  students. 

The  buildings  thus  equipped,  and  eighty- 
five  acres  of  land  in  the  midst  of  which  they 
stand,  constitute  a  property  valued  at  $275,- 
ooo,  which  is  unencumbered  by  any  debt. 
Such  an  institution,  on  such  a  basis,  is  wor- 
thy of  notice  as  Californians  search  for  the 
foundation  stones  which  underlie  the  "  Build- 
ing of  a  State." 

Achievements  like  this  are  not  the  result 
of  accident  or  unexpected  good  fortune. 
They  are  the  outcome  of  forethought,  wis- 
dom, never-tiring  diligence,  and  never-ceasing 
care.  A  little  more  than  eighteen  months 
ago  Doctor  Mills  was  laid  to  rest  on  a  sunny 
slope  near  the  Seminary  Buildings.  Little 
more  than  a  month  has  passed  since  the 
newly-elected  president  of  the  institution  ar- 
rived here  to  carry  on  the  enlarged  work  to 
the  completeness  which  was  in  the  minds  of 
its  founders  from  the  first.  It  is  a  favorable 
time  to  glance  at  the  past  history,  the  present 
condition,  and  the  future  outlook  of  the 
work. 

Thirteen  years  after  Henry  Durant,  the 
father  of  our  State  University,  finished  his 
course  at  Yale,  Cyrus  T.  Mills  graduated 
with  honor  at  Williams  College.  After  com- 
pleting his  studies  at  Union  Theological 
Seminary,  he  was  married  in  September,  1848, 
to  Miss  Susan  L.  Tolman,  who  had  for  six 


538 


The  New  Mills   College,  its  Past  and  Future. 


[Nov. 


years,  as  pupil  and  teacher,  been  a  member 
of  Mount  Holyoke  Female  Seminary.  While 
they  were  learning  the  lesson  of  wisdom 
which  none  could  better  impart  than  Presi- 
dent Hopkins  and  Mary  Lyon,  the  gold  and 
the  silver  lay  undisturbed  in  the  beds  of  its 
streams  and  the  depths  of  its  mountains ; 
but  in  the  early  part  of  the  year  in  which 
these  learners  united  their  fortunes  and  set 
forth  consecrated  to  the  life  work  of  teach- 
ing, the  precious  secret  had  been  discovered, 
and  the  tide  of  gold-seekers  had  set  towards 
the  Pacific  coast.  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Mills,  too, 
set  out  for  California  at  the  same  time  as 
multitudes  of  '49ers,  though  their  destination 
was  all  unknown  to  themselves,  and  many 
years  were  to  elapse  before  their  adventurous 
predecessors  should  have  made  due  prepa- 
ration for  the  planting  of  a  female  college. 
They  sailed  for  India,  where  for  six  years 
Doctor  Mills  was  President  of  Batticotta 
Seminary,  in  Ceylon,  conducting  its  affairs 
with  marked  ability,  both  educationally  and 
financially.  Hard  work  and  the  enervating 
climate  compelled  an  unwilling  return  to 
America,  where  he  remained  a  few  years. 
But  the  lines  of  his  favorite  chant,  sung  at 
his  graduation,  and  to  be  sung  many  years 
later  at  his  funeral,  were  still  ringing  in  his 
ears : 

"  The  voice  of  my  departed  Lord, 
'  Go,  teach  all  nations,'  from  the  eastern  world 
Comes  on  the  night  air  and  awakes  my  ear, 
And  I  will  gladly  go." 

For  four  years,  in  obedience  to  this  call, 
he  discharged  the  duties  of  President  of 
Oahu  College,  at  Honolulu.  His  remark- 
able executive  ability  freed  the  College  from 
a  burdensome  debt,  and  rendered  it  inde- 
pendent of  the  American  Board  of  Missions. 

At  this  time  Miss  Atkins,  a  pioneer  teacher, 
whose  name  is  still  held  in  dear  remem- 
brance by  hundreds  of  California  women, 
had  become  worn  with  her  work  at  Benicia, 
and  started  on  a  voyage  around  the  world. 
At  Honolulu  she  met  Doctor  and  Mrs.  Mills. 
A  tropical  climate  had  again  made  serious 
inroads  on  Doctor  Mills's  health,  and  Miss 
Atkins,  seeing  that  he  could  not  remain 
there  long,  urged  him  to  go  to  California 


and  carry  on  the  work  she  had  begun.  The 
proposal  was  not  immediately  acted  upon, 
but  as  the  necessity  for  a  change  became 
imperative,  it  was  carefully  considered,  and 
appeared'  to  offer  the  opportunity  desired 
for  carrying  out  the  educational  work  so  long 
planned. 

The  purchase  was  finally  made,  and  in 
1865  the  Benicia  school  was  opened  under 
its  new  auspices.  It  continued  under  the 
same  direction  for  seven  years,  growing  dur- 
ing that  time  to  a  size  which  demanded  more 
ample  accommodations.  Doctor  Mills,  with 
that  business  sagacity  for  which  he  was  re- 
markable, had  provided  for  this  emergency 
by  purchasing  the  eighty-five  acres  which 
form  the  present  site.  The  selection  was 
most  happy ;  near  enough  to  San  Francisco 
to  be  easily  accessible,  and  yet  as  secluded 
and  isolated  as  if  it  were  fifty  miles  from 
human  habitation ;  commanding  an  ample 
water  supply,  and  in  a  location  sheltered 
from  wind  and  fog,  and  free  from  malaria. 

Public  spirited  citizens  aided  the  enter- 
prise, and  appreciating  the  value  of  an  in- 
stitution like  the  one  proposed,  offered  pecu- 
niary inducements  to  secure  its  location 
among  them.  In  all,  about  $30,000  were 
given  by  outside  parties  in  money  and  other 
gifts,  with  no  legal  pledge,  but  with  the  full 
understanding  of  Doctor  Mills's  ultimate 
design  to  found  on  an  enduring  plan  a  Chris- 
tian college  *for  the  young  women  of  Cali- 
fornia. 

The  school  flourished  from  its  beginning. 
Year  by  year  new  facilities  were  added  for 
carrying  forward  its  educational  work,  while 
externally  new  beauties  appeared  in  lawn  and 
garden,  orchard  and  meadow.  It  was  by  no 
niggardliness  in  the  management  of  affairs 
that  Doctor  Mills  in  five  years  reduced  the 
debt  of  $80,000  to  $50,000. 

He  told  a  friend  not  many  weeks  before 
his  death  that  he  had  not  been  free  from  bod- 
ily pain  for  a  single  day  during  thirty  years. 
A  chronic  disease  of  the  liver,  contracted 
no  doubt  in  those  earlier  Indian  days,  added 
to  the  subsequent  years  of  constant  toil,  had 
made  serious  inroads  upon  his  health,  and 
he  hastened  to  mature  his  long-cherished 


1885.] 


The  New  Mills  College,  its  Past  and  Future. 


539 


plan  of  placing  the  Seminary  on  a  perma- 
nent and  enlarged  basis,  which  would  at  the 
same  time  lighten  the  burden  of  responsibil- 
ity hitherto  borne  by  himself  and  Mrs.  Mills 
alone. 

At  the  annual  commencement,  June  i, 
1876,  Doctor  Mills  named  twelve  gentlemen 
whom  he  solicited  to  act  with  him  as  trus- 
tees of  the  Seminary.  They  consented,  and 
organized  August  30,  1877;  a  few  weeks 
later  the  institution  was  legally  incorporated, 
and  the  large  property  transferred  by  Doctor 
and  Mrs.  Mills  to  the  following  board,  who 
chose  Doctor  Eells  as  their  first  President : 
James  Eells,  D.D.,  I.  E.  Dwinell,  D.D.,  Rev. 
H.  D.  Lathrop,  Rev.  T.  K.  Noble,  Rev.  A. 
S.  Fiske,  Governor  H.  H.  Haight,  Judge  E. 
D.  Sawyer,  Robert  Simson,  A.  J.  Bryant,  J. 
O.  Eldridge,  W.  A.  Bray,  William  Meek,  C. 
T.  Mills,  D.D. 

By  the  desire  of  the  trustees,  Doctor  and 
Mrs.  Mills  were  to  have  entire  control  of  the 
affairs  of  the  Seminary  for  five  years,  and  at 
the  expiration  of  that  time  the  arrangement 
was  renewed.  During  all  this  time  Doctor 
Mills  was  still  striving  to  free  the  enterprise 
from  the  debt  on  which  he  bad  in  fact,  at 
the  time  of  his  death,  paid  more  than  $50,- 
ooo  in  interest  alone.  He  was  aided  by  the 
trustees,  of  whom  Mr.  J.  P.  Pierce  of  Santa 
Clara  contributed  $3,000,  Doctor  Eells  se- 
cured a  gift  of  $1,000  from  the  late  Mrs.  M. 
S.  Percy,  of  Oakland,  Doctor  Dwinell,  $1,000 
from  Mr.  Charles  Crocker,  and  $3,000  was 
given  by  Hon.  W.  Hyde  and  family,  of  Ware, 
Mass. 

But  still  the  debt  remained.  It  could 
never  be  met  from  the  income  of  the  school, 
whose  plans  demanded  and  received  a  con- 
stantly increasing  outlay. 

In  the  summer  of  1882,  Doctor  Mills, 
while  visiting  Southern  California,  saw  an 
opportunity  which  promised  to  his  sagacious 
foresight  the  lifting  of  the  long-endured  bur- 
den, and  the  possibility  of  at  least  a  part  of 
the  endowment  necessary  in  order  to  carry 
out  the  original  plan  of  a  college  in  addition 
to  the  Seminary. 

He  organized  the  Pomona  Land  and 
Water  Company,  retaining  for  himself  the 


presidency  and  control,  and  as  soon  as  the 
scheme  was  an  assured  success,  arranged  at 
once  for  the  liquidation  of  the  debt  out  of  his 
own  property. 

He  said  to  an  intimate  friend  soon  after  : 
"  If  I  can  only  live  five  years,  I  think  I  can 
accomplish  what  I  desire  for  the  Seminary." 
But  in  less  than  six  months  his  life-work  was 
finished.  Long  years  of  labor  had  enfeebled 
a  frame  never  rugged,  and  a  slight  injury  re- 
ceived at  Pomona  developed  a  disease  in  the 
bone  of  the  arm,  which  necessitated  amputa- 
tion. The  first  shock  was  well  sustained,  but 
blood-poisoning  succeeded,  and  April  aoth, 
1884,  he  passed  away  as  gently  as  a  tired 
child  falls  asleep  in  his  mother's  arms. 

The  Seminary,  now  for  fourteen  years  es- 
tablished in  its  new  home,  stood  free  from 
debt.  More  than  sixteen  hundred  pupils 
had  received  instruction  there,  of  whom 
three  hundred  had  graduated.  The  records 
show  an  aggregate  of  three  hundred  years  of 
teaching  done  by  alumnse,  and  in  various 
parts  of  our  country  others  in  private  life  are 
exerting  an  influence  which  cannot  be  meas- 
ured in  numbers,  but  cannot  fail  to  be  more 
sweet  and  healthful  for  the  lessons  of  their 
school  days.  Of  the  graduates,  about  two 
hundred  have  become  professing  Christians, 
most  of  them  during  their  school  life. 

Nine*  scholarships  have  been  founded  to 
aid  worthy  pupils  of  limited  means,  viz : 
two  of  $2,500  each,  by  Mr.  William  Ray- 
mond, of  San  Francisco  ;  one  of  $2,000,  by 
Mrs.  William  Hyde  and  Miss  Sarah  Sage,  of 
Ware,  Massachusetts ;  two  of  $2,500  each, 
by  Mrs.  James  Williamson,  of  New  York ; 
one  of  $3,000,  by  Mr.  and  Mrs.  W.  H.  Bai- 
ley, of  the  Sandwich  Islands ;  one  of  $3,000, 
by  Mrs.  M.  S.  Percy,  of  Oakland;  one  of 
$2,000,  by  Mrs.  William  E.  Dodge,  of  New 
York;  one  of  $1,000,  by  Rev.  L.  H.  Hallock, 
of  Portland,  Maine. 

In  furtherance  of  Doctor  Mills's  plans, 
and  by  Mrs.  Mills's  request,  the  Board  of 
Trustees  immediately  took  steps  for  the  or- 
ganization of  the  college  proper.  To  pro- 
vide for  all  future  contingencies,  a  change  in 
the  law  of  the  State  was  necessary.  A  bill 
drafted  by  Warren  Olney,  attorney  for  the 


540 


The  New  Mills   College,  its  Past  and  Future. 


[Nov. 


Seminary,  was  passed  by  the  Legislature,  and 
under  the  revised  law,  Mills  Seminary  Col- 
lege was  legally  incorporated. 

With  a  success  almost  beyond  their  hopes, 
the  Trustees  induced  Doctor  Homer  B. 
Sprague  to  leave  a  position  of  distinction 
in  Boston,  and  take  the  Presidency  of  the  in- 
fant College.  He  reached  his  new  field  of 
labor  September  30,  and  was  formally  inaug- 
urated October  24,  1885. 

Doctor  Sprague,  in  outlining  his  plans  and 
hopes  for  the  institution  in  its  new  departure, 
says :  "  The  establishment  of  the  college 
proper  will  be  a  gradual  process,  and  in  pro- 
portion to  its  growth  it  is  likely  that  there 
will  be  a  diminution  of  the  elementary  pre- 
paratory work.  No  one  favors  the  substitu- 
tion of  a  second-rate  college  for  a  first-rate 
academy.  It  is  not  proposed  to  lower  the 
standard  of  collegiate  instruction.  No  one 
will  be  admitted  to  the  Freshman  class  next 
July,  unless  fully  up  to  the  standard  required 
at  the  best  Eastern  colleges.  It  is  probable 
that  among  all  those  found  to  be  prepared, 
large  pecuniary  rewards  will  be  equally  dis- 
tributed upon  admission.  It  is  probable 
that  no  prizes  will  be  offered  for  relative  su- 
periority; absolute  attainments  will  be  hand- 
somely recognized  and  rewarded.  Better 
motives  to  industry  and  fidelity  will  «be  em- 
ployed than  the  mere  desire  to  outdo  others 
in  intellectual  attainments. 

"  Special  effort  will  be  made  not  to  pros- 
elyte, but  to  develop  a  noble  and  broad  Chris- 
tian character,  and  a  disposition  to  be  in 
the  highest  degree  useful  to  the  world. 

"  It  is  hoped  that  unusual  attention  will  be 
paid  to  the  study  of  the  English  language 
and  literature.  To  speak  and  read  and 
write  English  well,  and  to  appreciate  the  best 
works  of  the  best  authors,  will  be  a  prominent 
object. 

"Physical  grace,  strength,  and  health  will 
be  regarded  as  matters  of  prime  importance, 
and  no  pains  will  be  spared  to  secure  them. 

"  It  is  hoped  that  more  intimate  relations 
will  exist  between  the  lady  professors  and  pu- 
pils than  is  commonly  the  case  in  colleges- 
The  value  of  companionship  between  gifted 


instructors  and  students  is  too  often  ignored. 
If  men  fill  the  professors'  chairs,  they  will  be 
strong,  mature,  and  inspiring,  and  so  situ- 
ated that  no  romantic  attachments  can  spring 
up  between  them  and  their  pupils." 

Plans  like  these  successfully  executed  can 
not  fail  to  bring  large  rewards  to  the  women 
of  California.  The  trustees  no  doubt  ap- 
preciate the  difficulty  of  the  work  they  have 
undertaken.  The  great  obstacle  to  be  en- 
countered is  lack  of  material  for  a  sufficient 
clientage  to  warrant  a  complete  equipment 
The  entire  population  of  California  is  less 
than  a  million — not  equal  to  that  of  New 
York  city.  Of  those  girls  who  fill  the  higher 
schools  which  should  be  tributary  to  the 
college,  the  majority  belong  to  two  classes. 
First  are  those  who,  looking  forward  to  teach- 
ing as  an  easy  and  reputable  means  of  liveli- 
hood, without  the  shadow  of  a  suspicion 
that  any  depth  or  breadth  of  culture  is  de- 
sirable for  this  occupation,  confine  their 
studies  to  those  technicalities  which  will 
enable  them  to  pass  an  examination  and 
gain  a  teacher's  certiffcate.  In  the  second 
class  are  those  who  regard  a  certain  amount 
of  education  as  a  factor  in  social  success. 
These  pay  special'  attention  to  the  so-called 
"  accomplishments  " — music,  drawing,  paint- 
ing, dancing,  a  little  French,  less  German, 
a  skimming  of  history  and  literature — and 
are  ready  for  "society." 

We  are  glad  to  recognize  a  small  and  slow- 
ly increasing  third  class,  made  up  of  those 
who  love  learning  for  its  own  sake,  and  to 
whom  the  taste  which  they  get  in  our  higher 
schools  serves  only  to  create  an  appetite  for 
deeper  draughts.  This  latter  is  largely  in 
the  minority. 

The  popular  outcry  against  the  higher  ed- 
ucation, the  frivolous  spirit  of  the  age,  and, 
above  all,  the  restrictions  of  our  State  con- 
stitution in  regard  to  High  Schools,  are  also 
serious  obstacles  to  the  success  of  a  college 
in  California  for  either  sex.  Especially  must 
a  college  for  girls  be  of  growth  so  slow  as  to 
discourage  its  projectors,  unless  they  are 
possessed  of  unwearying  patience,  strong 
faith,  dauntless  courage,  and  boundless  en- 
thusiasm. The  trustees  have  been  fortunate 


1885.] 


The  New  Mills   College,  its  Past  and  Future. 


541 


in  securing  as  their  President  a  man  whose 
long  and  successful  experience  in  similar 
work  elsewhere  must  have  fostered  the  growth 
of  these  very  requisites.  No  gift  of  greater 
value  can  be  bestowed  on  our  State  than  a 
college  which  shall  be,  not  only  theoretically, 
but  practically  and  continually,  what  Doctor 
Sprague  proposes  in  the  words  quoted  above, 
"fully  up  to  the  standard  of  the  best  Eastern 
colleges."  We  have  more  than  enough, 
throughout  all  our  Western  States,  of  pre- 
tentious schools  a  little  above  the  grade  of  a 
good  grammar  school,  which  call  themselves 
colleges.  But  we  need,  desire,  and  shall 
prize  for  our  girls  an  institution  which  shall 
combine  the  highest,  broadest,  and  deepest 
mental  training,  with  the  most  careful  physi- 
cal and  moral  culture,  in  a  refined,  Christian 
home. 

If  the  proposed  college  has  difficulties  to 
overcome,  it  has  also  many  and  valuable 
aids  and  encouragements.  The  first  hard 
struggle  is  long  ago  past.  The  Seminary  is 
an  assured  success  on  a  self-supporting  basis, 
having  a  large  body  of  alumnae  devoted  to  its 
interests,  an  unencumbered  property  of  great 
and  growing  value,  a  wide  spread  and  envi- 
able reputation.  The  trustees  are  hampered 
by  none  of  those  political  complications 
which  have  so  limited  and  crippled  the  work 
of  our  State  University.  An  irresponsible 
report  had  some  currency  at  the  time  of  the 
application  for  a  college  charter,  to  the  ef- 
fect that  the  property  had  been  offered  to  the 
State.  Nothing  could  be  farther  from  the 
truth,  nor  from  the  desires  and  plans  of  its 
owners.  It  is  of  the  State  and  for  the  State, 
but  will  never  be  subject  to  State  control. 
It  was  founded  as  a  Christian  college.  Yet 
it  is  not  a  sectarian  institution.  The  charter 
expressly  provides  that  no  religious  sect  shall 
be  represented  by  a  majority  of  the  trustees, 
while  at  the  same  time  a  part  must  be  Chris- 
tian ministers. 

The  friends  of  female  education  welcome 
so  able  a  coadjutor  as  Doctor  Sprague,  and 
feel  that  a  college  carrying  out  the  plans 
proposed  will  be  an  incentive  and  source  of 
power  and  enthusiasm,  both  to  teachers  and 
pupils,  in  every  school  of  our  State. 


The  standard  for  admission  is  high,  em- 
bracing Latin  and  Greek,  which  are  required 
also  in  the  Freshman  year,  but  are  elective 
during  the  rest  of  the  course.  French  is  re- 
quired in  Sophomore  year ;  German  in 
Junior  year..  Higher  mathematics  are  oblig- 
atory for  the  first  two  years,  supplemented 
in  the  last  two  by  their  application  in  physics  ; 
moral  and  mental  science,  rhetoric,  and  a 
due  proportion  of  physical  sciences,  make  up 
the  regular  course.  To  this  is  added  a  long 
list  of  elective  studies,  which  will  doubtless 
be  modified  as  the  Faculty  discover  a  need 
for  it.  It  is  certainly  a  good  place  and  a 
good  time  in  which  to  check  the  increasing 
tendency  of  Young  America  to  hold  the  reins, 
and  not  only  direct  its  own  course,  but  over- 
ride in  its  triumphant  career  the  experience 
and  judgment  of  parents  and  of  teachers, 
from  Plato  down  to  the  present  time.  If 
concessions  are  to  be  made,  they  should  not 
be  of  a  nature  to  render  a  degree  valueless, 
or  to  make  the  name  of  the  higher  educa- 
tion a  cloak  for  superficiality  and  sham.  To 
quote  the  words  of  a  wise  and  successful 
teacher,  "Scholars  should  graduate,  not  by 
their  weakness,  but  by  their  strength."  Evi- 
dently, it  is  a  discouragement  and  hindrance, 
almost  beyond  computation,  to  the  prepara- 
tory schools,  if  ill-fitted  pupils,  whom  they 
endeavor  to  hold  to  high  standards  of  excel- 
lence, be  admitted  to  college  and  university 
without  the  necessary  training.  Progress  is 
good;  we  should,  indeed,  press  onward  to 
occupy  the  ever-widening  fields  of  thought, 
but  not,  meanwhile,  "forgetting  the  things 
that  are  behind,"  in  the  sense  of  dropping 
them  entirely  from  memory,  or  failing  to  give 
due  consideration  to  the  methods  of  study 
which  made  the  sturdy  scholars  of  the  past. 
There  is  no  better  motto  for  a  student  than 
"  Non  multa  sed  multum." 

Women  are  pressing  forward  as  never  be- 
fore into  the  various  avenues  of  industry. 
This  is  as  it  should  be.  In  our  complex 
life,  the  process  of  differentiation  must  be 
more  and  more  marked,  as  new  discoveries 
open  new  fields  of  labor.  But  it  still  remains 
that  brain  is  more  than  brawn  ;  that  the  in- 
ventor is  greater  than  the  machine;  that  the 


542 


Recent  Sociological  Discussions. 


[Nov. 


real  source  of  all  material  and  social  progress 
is  found  in  the  trained  intellect,  the  broad- 
ened culture,  of  the  wisely-educated  men  and 
women  of  the  time.  Great  thoughts  are 
born  in  minds  that  have  learned  how  to  think. 
Great  inventions  are  the  fruit  $>f  keen  per- 
ceptions, trained  to  look  below  the  surface, 
and  a  well  developed  judgment,  accustomed 
to  investigate  the  logical  relations  of  discov- 
ered truths.  Real  material  progress  results 
from  trained  minds  guiding  skilled  hands. 

The  two  mischievous  tendencies  which  the 
teacher  of  the  present  age  has  to  combat,  are 
the  superficiality  born  of  frivolous  views  of 
life  already  mentioned,  and  that  more  potent, 
because  more  specious,  enemy  voiced  in  the 
clamor  for  practical  education,  which,  being 
interpreted,  means  the  ability  to  earn  money 
at  the  earliest  possible  age.  This  latter  is 
by  no  means  an  obstacle  in  the  education  of 
boys  alone.  Many  times  has  the  writer, 
when  urging  upon  girls  the  broad  culture 
which  language  and  literature  give,  been 
met  with  the  reply  :  "  I  shall  not  need  that 
for  a  teacher's  examination " ;  and,  on  the 
other  hand,  when  advocating  the  study  of 
more  technical  branches,  or  the  extension  of 
a  short  school  course,  has  had  the  answer : 
"  I  don't  see  of  what  use  it  would  be  to  me 
to  learn  anything  more ;  I  don't  intend  to 
teach  school." 

The  new  President  of  Mills  Seminary  and 
College  is  known  as  one  who  will  fight  both 


these  chimeras  valiantly ;  and  in  this  contest 
he  is  doing  battle,  not  for  one  institution 
alone,  but  for  the  great  cause  in  which  all 
true  educators  stand  shoulder  to  shoulder. 

The  future  prosperity  of  this  new  College 
is  largely  dependent  on  the  material  aid 
which  shall  be  given  by  those  who  have  the 
means  and  the  disposition  to  endow  the  nec- 
essary professorships.  As  has  been  already 
said,  the  death  of  Doctor  Mills  interrupted 
the  completion  of  his  plans  for  even  a  partial 
endowment.  The  Seminary  will  still  continue 
its  course,  and  valuable  aid  will  no  doubt  be 
given  to  the  larger  work  of  the  College  by 
the  present  Faculty.  But  there  is  need  for 
large-hearted  men  and  women,  like  those 
who  have  endowed  Smith,  and  Wellesley,  and 
Vassar,  to  nurture  on  these  western  shores 
an  institution  in  every  sense  as  well  equipped 
as  they.  The  founders  of  the  Seminary  have 
taken  those  first  steps,  usually  so  slow  and 
difficult.  No  money  is  needed  for  ground 
or  buildings,  but  all  donations  go  to  a  per- 
manent endowment  fund,  which  should  be 
ample  enough  to  call  to  the  college  profess- 
orship the  best  talent  in  the  land.  This  is 
a  work,  not  for  our  time  only,  but  for  #//time 
— a  work  which  should  fitly  crown  that  which 
California  has  already  done ;  that  as  her 
flowers  and  fruits,  her  gold  and  grain,  are  the 
wonder  of  the  age,  so  her  daughters  may 
glean  the  fuller  harvests  of  thought,  and  fath- 
om the  richer  mines  of  wisdom  and  truth. 
Katharine  B.  Fisher. 


RECENT  SOCIOLOGICAL   DISCUSSIONS. 


WE  said  last  month  that  the  various  dis- 
cussions of  social  questions  coming  before  us 
seemed  to  point  to  the  class  problem  as  the 
pressing  one  now  before  society,  and  to  indi- 
cate the  impossibility  of  any  single  or  simple 
solution  and  direct  the  student  to  all  the 
various  ameliorations  of  social  conditions — 
religious,  moral,  educational,  and  economic 
reforms — in  the  hope  that  a  concerted  effort 
all  along  the  lirte  of  these  will  go  far  to  solve 
the  problem.  They  showed  the  fallacy  of  all 


hopes  to  wholly  rearrange  the  social  order, 
and  the  inability  of  any  revolutionary  powers 
at  present  in  existence  to  do  so,  but  at  the 
same  time,  their  ability  to  throw  society 
into  disorder  by  their  attempts ;  a  danger 
which  might  be  avoided,  perhaps  for  genera- 
tions, by  vigorous  pressing  of  all  means  of  im- 
provement possible.  To  the  present  reviewer 
it  seems  clear  that  the  real  problem  on  which 
turns  the  whole  fate  of  human  society,  is 
something  deeper  and  more  difficult  than  the 


1885.] 


Recent  Sociological  Discussions. 


543 


labor  problem,  which  is  its  most  conspicu- 
ous outgrowth  :  viz,  the  tendency  of  the  hu- 
man race  to  increase  in  its  lower  types  more 
than  in  its  higher,  contrary  to  the  rule  of  all 
other  species  in  the  animate  kingdom.  The 
danger  of  the  final  pressure  of  population 
upon  the  means  of  subsistence  is  merely  a 
corollary  of  this  problem,  for  it  will  probably 
be  conceded  that  if  all  the  human  race  could 
be  assimilated  in  mental  and  moral  character 
and  physical  type  to  the  best  specimens  now 
in  existence,  this  danger  could  be  easily 
managed.  At  present,  however,  the  strong 
tendencies  away  from  such  assimilation  seem 
to  be  more  significant  than  the  strong  ten- 
dencies toward  it.  The  danger  seems  to  be 
absolutely  beyond  the  present  power  of  the 
race  to  grapple  with,  and  even  intelligent 
discussion  of  it  is  rare,  and  mostly  of  a  very 
preliminary  nature.  All  consideration  of  it 
must  lead  back  to  the  same  conclusion  ar- 
rived at  above :  that  for  the  present,  little  is 
possible  beyond  ameliorating  effort  all  along 
the  line,  which  shall  tend  always  to  the  same 
end — the  improvement  of  the  quality  of  the 
race ;  and  it  is  not  impossible  that  such  ef- 
forts, increased  in  quantity,  and  more  intel- 
ligently directed  than  heretofore,  will  prove 
sufficient  to  control  the  course  of  human 
evolution  and  decide  the  fate  of  society. 

The  number  and  variety  of  these  special 
efforts  to  improve  the  race  are,  of  course, 
vast.  Many  of  them  are  exceedingly  fatu- 
ous. Those  which  come  under  our  review 
this  month  are  all  reasonable  and  intelli- 
gent. The  monograph  which  bears  most 
directly  of  those  before  us  upon  the  prob- 
lem of  poverty  is  Public  Relief  and  Private 
Charity^-  by  Mrs.  Josephine  Shaw  Low- 
ell. This  is  an  admirable  tract,  designed  to 
urge  the  very  doctrine  we  have  indicated  as 
the  essential  one  in  practical  sociology  :  the 
need  of  improving  the  quality  of  men — or, 
rather,  its  converse,  the  danger  of  injuring 
their  quality  in  the  attempt  to  improve  their 
condition.  Mrs.  Lowell  says  in  her  preface: 
"I have  compiled  this  little  book  because  I be- 

1  Public  Relief  and  Private  Charity.  By  Josephine 
Shaw  Lowell.  New  York  and  London :  G.  P.  Putnam's 
Sons.  1884. 


lieve  some  such  restatement  of  the  principles 
upon  which  the  modern  methods  of  charity  are 
based  is  needed  "  ;  and  no  reviewer  can  more 
justly  describe  the  "  little  book  "  than  she 
herself  goes  on  to  do :  "  There  is  not,  per- 
haps, an  original  thought  or  suggestion  in  it ; 
an  important  part  of  it  is  direct  and  verbal 
quotation ;  and  to  every  student  of  the  sub- 
ject it  will  be  apparent  that  almost  the  whole 
of  it  is  taken  from  the  writings  of  wise  men 
and  women  who  have  lived  during  the  past 
hundred  years.  Yet  I  do  not  apologize  for 
offering  it  to  my  fellow-workers  and  the  pub- 
lic, for  there  is  nowhere  a  small  book  in 
which  the  principles  underlying  our  science 
can  be  found  clearly  stated."  The  book — 
it  is  one  of  the  Putnams'  "  Questions  of  the 
Day  "  series,  and  can  be  had  in  cloth  or  in 
cheap  paper  form — is  divided  into  two  parts, 
one  of  which  treats  of  public  relief,  and  the 
other  of  private  charity. 

Of  course,  the  experience  of  England 
with  her  poor-laws  must  figure  most  largely 
in  any  investigation  of  the  question  of 
public  relief,  for  any  experience  we  have 
on  the  subject,  in  this  country,  is  com- 
paratively small.  Following  Mrs.  Shaw's 
own  principle,  we  can  better  give  her 
views  by  a  series  of  fragmentary  and  con- 
densed quotations  than  in  any  other  way: 
"About  the  end  of  the  last  century,  the  up- 
per and  middle  classes  of  England  came  to 
the  conclusion  that  every  man  ought  to  be 
able  to  make  a  living  for  himself  and  his 
family,  and  that,  if  he  could  not  make  it,  it 
should  be  furnished  him  ;  and  for  about  fifty 
years  there  was  no  man  in  England  who,  how- 
ever idle,  vicious,  or  even  dangerous  he  might 
be,  could  not  obtain  from  the  "  rates "  the 
means  of  supporting  himself  and  his  family 
of  six,  ten,  or  twenty  children  and  grandchil- 
dren." It  will  be  observed  that  there  is  a 
startling  analogy  between  this  benevolent 
theory  of  the  last  century,  and  the  most 
modern  doctrine  of  socialism,  as  stated  by 
Mr.  Chamberlain  and  others — that  it  is  so- 
ciety's business  to  see  to  it  that  every  one  is 
cared  for.  "  Instead,  however,  of  increased 
comfort  and  prosperity  and  of  diminished 
suffering,  the  tide  of  poverty,  most  unac- 


544 


Recent  Sociological  Discussions. 


[Nov. 


countably,  rose  higher  and  higher,  and  the 
flood  of  pauperism  seemed  about  to  engulf 
not  only  the  paupers  themselves,  but  the 
whole  population  of  England."  The  multi- 
tude of  official  and  unofficial  reports  called 
out  by  this  frightful  increase  of  crime  and 
pauperism  all  present  "  the  same  picture  of 
unmitigated  woe  and  deep  and  growing  deg- 
radation." Parliamentary  commissions  re- 
port on  the  growing  disinclination  to  save 
among  the  poor,  and  consequent  increase  of 
drunkenness;  the  recklessness  in  marriage, 
the  loss  of  sense  of  obligation  toward  helpless 
relatives,  and  the  great  deterioration  of  char- 
acter in  every  respect  among  the  laboring 
classes.  "  It  appears  to  the  pauper  that  the 
government  has  undertaken  to  repeal  in  his 
favor  the  ordinary  laws  of  nature ;  to  enact 
that  children  shall  not  suffer  for  the  miscon- 
duct of  their  parents;  that  no  one  shall  lose 
the  means  of  comfortable  subsistence,  what- 
ever be  his  indolence,  prodigality,  or  vice: 
in  short,  that  the  penalty  which,  after  all, 
must  be  paid  by  some  one  for  idleness  and 
improvidence,  is  to  fall  not  on  the  guilty 
person  or  his  family,  but  on  the  proprietors 
of  the  lands.  .  .  .  Can  we  wonder  if  the  un- 
educated are  seduced  into  approving  a  sys- 
tem which  aims  its  allurements  at  all  the 
weakest  parts  of  our  nature,  which  offers 
marriage  to  the  young,  security  to  the  anx- 
ious, ease  to  the  lazy,  and  impunity  to  the 
profligate?"  "When  a  parish  has  become 
pauperized,  the  laborers  not  only  avoid  ac- 
cumulation, but  even  dispose  of  and  waste 
in  debauchery  any  small  property  which  may 
have  devolved  on  them."  "  It  appears  from 
the  evidence  that  the  great  supporters  of  the 
beer-shops  are  the  paupers.  In  Cholesbury, 
where,  out  of  one  hundred  and  thirty-nine 
individuals,  only  thirty-five,  including  the 
clergyman  and  his  family,  are  supported  by 
their  own  exertions,  there  are  two  public 
houses."  Still  more  important :  "  The  char- 
acter and  habits  of  the  laborer  have  been 
completely  changed.  The  poor  man  of  twen- 
ty years  ago  who  tried  to  earn  his  money 
and  was  thankful  for  it,  is  now  converted 
into  an  insolent,  discontented,  surly,  thought- 
less pauper."  "  I  can  decidedly  state  as  the 


result  of  my  experience,  that  when  once  a 
family  has  received  relief,  it  is  to  be  expected 
that  their  descendants  for  some  generations 
will  receive  it  also.  The  change  made  in  the 
character  and  habits  of  the  poor  by  once  re- 
ceiving parochial  relief  is  quite  remarkable  ; 
they  are  demoralized  ever  afterwards.  If 
once  a  young  lad  gets  a  pair  of  shoes  given 
him  by  the  parish,  he  never  afterward  lays 
by  sufficient  to  buy  a  pair.  The  disease 
is  hereditary,  and  when  once  a  family  has 
applied  for  relief,  they  are  pressed  down 
forever.  Whether  in  work  or  out  of  work, 
when  they  once  become  paupers,  it  can  only 
be  by  a  sort  of  miracle  that  they  can  be 
broken  off.  All  the  tricks  and  deceptions 
of  which  man  is  capable  are  resorted  to ; 
the  vilest  and  most  barefaced  falsehoods  are 
uttered."  The  effect  of  pauper  relief  in  low- 
ering the  wages  of  those  who  continued  in- 
dustrious was  found  to  be  enormous.  Nor 
did  the  belief  that  people's  own  sense  of  in- 
dependence would  make  them  prefer  indus- 
try, prove  well  founded.  Lord  Brougham, 
summing  up  the  evidence  of  the  report,  says  : 
"  We  have  a  constant  proof,  in  every  part  of 
the  country,  that  able-bodied  men  prefer  a 
small  sum  in  idleness  to  a  larger  sum  in 
wages"  that  must  be  earned.  Even  the 
once  hardy  Kentish  sailors  had  taken  to  re- 
maining ashore  and  living  on  the  parish. 
Paupers  considered  themselves  entitled  to 
easy  living,  and  complaint  was  made  if  they 
were  asked  to  work  as  hard  as  outside  labor- 
ers. The  connection  between  rioting,  dis- 
content, and  hatred  of  the  upper  classes,  and 
large  expenditure  in  relief,  was  shown  to  be 
constant.  Some  amendments  to  the  poor 
laws  have  modified  their  evils  a  little,  but  on 
the  whole,  they  remain  a  dead  weight  on 
England's  prosperity. 

Again,  Mr.  Fano,  "  one  of  the  highest  au- 
thorities on  matters  relating  to  the  condition 
of  the  poorer  classes  in  Italy,"  says :  "  The 
growth  of  that  misery  in  our  country  is 
largely  due  to  those  very  institutions  that 
were  created  for  its  suppression.  The  very 
profusion  of  charities  is  one  of 'the  principal 
causes  of  the  spread  of  mendicity  in  our 
country.  In  Italy  there  are  1,355,341  in- 


1885.] 


Recent  Sociological  Discussions. 


545 


digent  persons,  but  no  system  of  legal  char- 
ity exists.  But  the  multitude  of  charitable 
institutions  and  the  improvident  manner  in 
which  their  funds  are  frequently  applied,  are 
vices  which  have  for  us  the  same  effects  as 
legal  charity.  I  persist  in  thinking  that  in 
Italy  mendicity  is  an  imposture,  and  not  pro- 
duced by  real  destitution." 

Swiss  reports  tell  the  same  story,  of  the 
greatest  misery,  indolence,  and  poverty  in 
the  cantons  where  the  most  relief  is  given. 

In  the  United  States  the  system  of  public 
out-door  relief  has  not  progressed  very  far, 
but  it  exists  "in  many  of  our  cities"  (and 
Mrs.  Lowell  might  have  added,  counties,  as 
is  the  case  in  California,  where  the  evil  is  be- 
coming serious,  constantly  increasing  claims 
being  made  on  the  supervisors,  and  granted 
with  careless  good  nature  and  little  investi- 
gation). The  Massachusetts  State  Board  of 
Charities,  upon  investigation,  found  the  same 
evils  following  the  system  as  in  England, 
yet  had  not  quite  the  courage  to  give  it 
up ;  and  the  New  York  Superintendent  of 
the  Poor  says  :  "I  know  of  nothing  which 
does  so  much  to  encourage  pauperism  and 
educate  paupers  for  the  next  generation. 
There  is  nothing  except  intemperance  which 
is  more  demoralizing  to  the  head  of  a  family, 
or  more  ruinous  to  children,  than  to  become 
imbued  with  the  idea  that  the  public  is  bound 
to  provide  for  them.  If  people  could  only 
realize  when  they  recommend  a  family  com- 
posed in  part  of  bright  children  to  the  super- 
intendent of  the  poor,  and  insist  on  aid  be- 
ing furnished,  that  such  an  act  was  almost 
sure  to  ruin  those  bright  children,  and  edu- 
cate them  for  paupers  or  criminals,  it  seems 
to  me  that  such  people  should  exhaust  every 
other  resource  before  incurring  the  fearful 
responsibility."  The  State  Board  of  Chari- 
ties and  Reform  of  Wisconsin  also  reports : 
"  All  experience  shows  that  the  demand  for 
poor  relief  grows  with  the  supply,  and  that  a 
large  amount  for  poor  relief  does  not  indi- 
cate a  large  amount  of  suffering  which  needs 
to  be  relieved,  but  a  large  amount  of  laxity 
or  corruption  on  the  part  of  officers,  and  a 
large  amount  of  willingness  by  able-bodied 
idlers  to  be  fed  at  the  public  expense." 
VOL  VI.— 35 


Mrs.  Lowell  accepts  herself  the  doctrine 
that  society  is  bound  to  save  its  members 
from  starvation,  but  brings  strong  evidence 
to  show  that  private  charity  is  entirely  ade- 
quate to  do  this,  with  a  very  little  help  from 
the  public;  but  that  neither  public  nor  private 
help  should  take  the  form  of  alms-giving. 
Her  admirable  conclusions  and  practical  sug- 
gestions are  the  most  interesting  parts  of  the 
book — although,  as  they  would  lose  much  of 
their  weight  apart  from  the  data  that  lead  up 
to  them,  we  have  preferred  to  quote  from 
these,  and  to  refer  the  reader  to  the  book  it- 
self for  the  conclusions.  We  quote  only  a 
few  of  the  most  significant  sentences  :  "  Dis- 
cipline and  education  should  be  inseparably 
associated  with  any  system  of  public  relief." 
"  There  is  still  another  point  to  be  insisted 
on :  while  .  .  .  every  person,  born  into  a 
civilized  community,  has  a  right  to  live,  yet 
the  community  has  the  right  to  say  that  in- 
competent and  dangerous  persons  shall  not, 
so  far  as  can  be  helped,  be  born  to  acquire 
this  right  to  live  upon  others.  To  prevent  a 
constant  and  alarming  increase  of  these  two 
classes  of  persons,  the  only  way  is  for  the 
community  to  refuse  to  support  any  except 
those  whom  it  can  control.  ...  It  is  cer- 
tainly an  anomaly  for  a  man  and  woman,  who 
have  proved  themselves  incapable  of  supply- 
ing their  own  daily  needs,  to  bring  into  the 
world  other  helpless  beings,  to  be  also  main- 
tained by  a  tax  upon  the  community." 

Our  Penal  Machinery  and  Its  Victims'2' 
goes  a  step  farther  down  in  the  social  scale 
— or  perhaps  a  step  higher — from  paupers  to 
criminals.  The  arrests  made  by  the  police 
of  Chicago  in  1882  numbered  five  per  cent. 
of  the  population.  This  excludes  the  arrests 
made  by  State  and  Federal  officials.  Mr. 
Altgeld  estimates  the  annual  arrests  in  the 
whole  country  at  two  and  a  half  million  and 
the  first  arrests  at  one  and  a  half  million. 
These  figures  give  some  idea  of  the  stand- 
ing army  of  hostiles  to  society  steadily  in 
campaign  among  us.  An  analysis  of  their 
occupations  from  the  reports  of  jails  shows 

2  Our  Penal  Machinery  and  Its  Victims.  By  John  P. 
Altgeld.  Chicago:  Jansen,  McClurg  &  Co.  1884.  For 
sale  in  San  Francisco  by  A.  L.  Bancroft  &  Co. 


546 


Recent  Sociological  Discussions. 


[Nov. 


that  the  great  majority,  men  and  women, 
came  from  humble  life— laborers  and  servants 
contributing  the  largest  number ;  that  far 
more  of  them  are  between  twenty  and  thirty 
years  of  age  than  at  any  other  period  of 
life ;  that  a  very  large  proportion  had  no 
homes,  or  bad  ones  ;  and  a  still  larger,  very 
limited  schooling  or  none.  Of  five  hundred 
convicts  examined  in  one  institution,  over 
four-fifths  were  without  home  influence  at 
eighteen  years  and  under ;  two-fifths  had 
never  attended  school,  and  another  fifth  had 
only  the  most  imperfect  education.  "  I  have 
read  every  available  thing  on  crime,  its  cause 
and  cure ;  on  prisons,  their  discipline,  etc.," 
says  Mr.  Thompson,  the  chaplain  of  the 
Southern  Illinois  penitentiary.  "  I  have 
talked  freely  with  the  convicts  as  to  their 
early  lives,  .  .  .  and  I  have  come  to  the  con- 
clusion that  there  are  two  prime  causes  of 
crime — the  want  of  proper  home  influence 
in  childhood,  and  the  lack  of  thorough,  well- 
disciplined  education  in  early  life."  Of  those 
who  did  go  to  school,  the  truant  and  refrac- 
tory pupils  prove  to  be  the  material  from 
which  convicts  are  made.  The  multitude 
of  convicts,  then,  are  the  young  and  ill-dis- 
ciplined. Mr.  Altgeld  then  considers,  with 
much  good  sense  and  force,  the  sort  of  train- 
ing they  get  out  of  the  penal  system,  which 
should  obviously  be  planned  to  meet  and 
correct  the  defects  of  their  early  training. 
He  now  and  then  leans  a  little  toward  sen- 
timent, but  is,  in  the  main,  very  practical. 
The  two  evils  that  he  brings  out  most  clearly 
are  the  perpetual,  aimless  repetition  of  use- 
less punishments — as  small  fines,  or  terms 
of  a  few  days,  for  drunkenness ;  and  the  ine- 
quality of  sentences,  and  entire  failure  to  pro- 
portion them  to  guilt.  In  the  State  prison 
of  Michigan,  for  instance,  eight  prisoners 
were  recently  serving  out  terms  for  assault 
with  intent  to  kill.  There  seems  to  have 
been  no  great  difference  in  the  character  of 
the  crimes,  but  the  terms  ranged  from  one 
year  to  forty-five.  These  inconsistencies  pre- 


vent the  convict  from  acquiring  an  idea  of 
justice  in  connection  with  punishment.  Mr. 
Altgeld  urges  a  system  of  indeterminate  pun- 
ishments, whose  principle  shall  be  to  keep 
the  prisoner  until  he  has  been  trained  to  rea- 
sonable probability  of  better  things.  We 
have  not  space  to  speak  of  other  suggestions, 
but  must  linger  to  mention  the  very  wise  one 
that  prisoners  should  be  not  only  allowed 
but  made  to  earn  money,  from  which  the 
cost  of  their  maintenance  and  care  should 
be  appropriated  to  the  State,  and  the  surplus 
should  go  to  their  families,  or  be  laid  up  for 
their  future  use,  as  the  case  may  be.  The 
regular  outside  rates  should  be  paid  for  labor 
to  prevent  clashing  with  free  labor.  The 
length  of  the  indeterminate  sentence  could 
be  decided  by  the  amount  of  surplus  earn- 
ings laid  up — no  one  to  be  discharged  be- 
fore a  certain  amount  had  been  earned. 
This  would  be  an  inducement  which  would 
persuade  the  laziest  to  acquire  habits  of 
work. 

Coming  into  the  field  of  political  corrup- 
tion, we  have  Defective  and  Corrupt  Legisla- 
tion^ again  in  the  Putnams'  "  Questions  of 
the  Day"  series.  We  have  scarcely  left  our- 
self  space  from  the  more  directly  sociologi- 
cal subjects  to  say  much  of  this.  It  brings 
out  strongly  the  great  evil  which  all  our 
States  suffer  from  the  flood  of  private  bills, 
many  of  them  corrupt,  which  our  legislatures 
grind  out,  to  the  neglect  of  legitimate  busi- 
ness and  the  injury  of  every  class  in  society ; 
and  propounds  what  would  seem  to  be  a 
very  sensible  remedy,  in  "  A  division  of  local 
and  special  laws  from  general  laws,  treating 
the  former  as  private  petitions,  to  be  tried 
before  enactment,"  at  the  petitioner's  risk, 
as  regards  expense.  The  plan  is  explained 
in  detail,  and  seems  simple  and  effective,  and 
more  just  than  the  total  prohibition  of  pri- 
vate bills  as  in  this  State. 

1  Defective  and  Corrupt  Legislation :  The  Cause  and 
the  Remedy.  By  Simon  Sterne.  New  York  and  Lon- 
don: G.  P.  Putnam's  Sons.  1885. 


1885.] 


Recent  Fiction. 


547 


RECENT   FICTION. 


THERE  is  a  tacit  understanding  between 
publishers  and  the  public  that  the  light  nov- 
els shall  be  reserved  for  the  summer  and 
the  heavy  ones  for  the  winter.     We  do  not 
know  that  it  follows  that  all  the  melancholy 
ones  belong  to  the  winter  class ;  for  tragic 
novels  may  be  as  sprightly  and  as  easy  read- 
ing as  the  most  cheerful  ones;  and  one  would 
suppose  it  was  better  to  be  depressed  in  sum- 
mer, with  long  days  and  sunshine  in  which 
to    recover,  than  in   the  dull  weather    and 
early  darkness  of  winter.     This  winter's  nov- 
els, however,  present  a  harrowing  collection 
of  tragedy — madness,  and  murder,  and  heart- 
break, and  despair — in  quite  an  unusual  pro- 
portion to  the  cheerful  stories.     There  are 
four  or  five  new  editions  of  old  American 
books,  a  translation  from  Balzac,  some  half- 
dozen  reprints  of   English   current    novels, 
and   then    a   considerable   number  of  new 
American  novels — not  a  large  number  com- 
pared to  the  flood  of  stories  that  issue  stead- 
ily from  English  presses,  but  still  one  that 
shows  a  continual  increase  in  novel-writing 
among  us.     It  is  gratifying  to  observe  that 
the  authors  of  these  last  almost  invariably 
respect  their  art  and  treat  it  as  a  serious  one. 
By  this  sincere  art-intention,  American  novel- 
writing,  whatever  its  crudities,  appears  very 
advantageously  in  contrast  with  the  present 
sort  of  English  work.     The  English  stories 
are  sometimes  well-told  and  sometimes  ill- 
told  ;  but  there  are   scarcely  half  a   dozen 
writers  among  the  whole  English  corps  who 
write  with  the  art  conscience  and  direct  refer- 
ence to  nature  as  a  model  that  never  fails  to 
appear  in  every  month's  issue  of  American 
novels,  quite  successfully  in  many,  but  pres- 
ent at  least  as  a  blundering  attempt  in  al- 
most every  one. 

None  of  the  exceptional,  "  scarcely  half  a 
dozen  writers,"  appears  among  the  English 
reprints  now  before  us,  and  the  difference 
between  them  and  the  American  novels 
would  almost  dispose  one  to  think  that 


fiction  is  becoming  as  distinctly  an  Amer- 
ican art  as  engraving.  One  or  two  of  them 
have  qualities  that  give  them  some  hold  on 
the  memory ;  but  the  rest  are  scarcely  to  be 
distinguished  one  from  another  after  read- 
ing. Of  these  latter,  two  are  by  the  same 
author,  The  Parson  <?'  Dumford^  and  Sweet 
Mace?  They  are  not  as  inane  as  a  good 
many  novels  that  get  printed,  and  bear  no 
marks  of  illiteracy  about  them,  as  some  do ; 
but  it  is  hard  to  imagine  why  any  intelligent 
person  should  care  about  reading  them  as 
long  as  he  can  get  better.  If  novels  were  to 
be  classed  with  precision  from  first-rate  to 
fifth-rate,  these  would  be  set  down  as  fourth 
rate.  The  "Parson  o'  Dumford"  is  an 
athletic  young  man,  who  poses  rather  of- 
fensively in  the  hail-fellow  fashion,  even 
to  the  beer-drinking,  in  order  to  make 
friends  with  his  rough  factory  parish,  and 
spends  the  rest  of  his  time  rescuing  from 
mobs  and  other  scrapes  the  vicious  young 
factory  owner,  his  successful  rival  in  love. 
The  author  has  been  unable  to  observe 
any  economy  of  bad  traits  in  fitting  out 
this  wicked  youth,  making  him  coward  or 
bravo,  passionate  or  calculating,  just  as  the 
exigency  of  the  story  demands.  He  would 
have  been  intolerable  to  any  woman,  but  in 
the  story  has  the  affections  of  both  the  hero- 
ines, till  the  novel  has  been  dragged  on  to 
the  due  length,  when  the  girls  revert  to  their 
deserving  lovers.  &veet  Mace  has  rather 
more  invention  about  it ;  its  action  takes 
place  in  the  reign  of  James  i.,  but  the  author 
does  not  trouble  himself  much  about  historic 
color.  There  is  a  fair  daughter  of  a  choleric 
powder  and  cannon  manufacturer,  competed 
for  by  a  buccaneer  captain  and  a  court  gal- 

1  The   Parson  o'    Dumford.      By    George  Manville 
Fenn.     London,  Paris,  and  New  York:  Cassell,  Petter, 
Galpin,  &  Co.     For  sale  in  San  Francisco  by  A.    L. 
Bancroft  &  Co. 

2  Sweet  Mace.     By  George  Manville  Fenn.    London, 
Paris,  and  New  York:  Cassell,  Petter,  Galpin,  &  Co. 
For  sale  in  San  Francisco  by  A.  L.  Bancroft  &  Co. 


548 


Recent  fiction. 


[Nov. 


lant ;  a  jealous  baronet's  daughter,  and  a 
witch  ;  a  powder  explosion,  which  kills  the 
heroine  for  a  year,  after  which  she  comes  to 
life,  insane,  and  hidden  in  a  cave ;  she  recov- 
ers her  wits,  and  marries  her  buccaneer.  Of 
a  better  sort  is  The  Old  Factory*  a  story  of  a 
Lancashire  manufacturer  in  the  first  half  of 
the  century.  Nominally,  it  is  the  story  of 
his  son's  love  affairs  ;  but  the  only  part  that 
amounts  to  anything  is  that  which  traces  the 
fortunes  of  the  father  from  a  laborer  to  a  rich 
manufacturer,  able  to  look  forward  to  "found- 
ing a  family."  We  should  judge  there  was 
real  knowledge  of,  and  sympathy  with,  Eng- 
lish lower  middle  class  dissenting  life  here  ; 
and  it  is  interesting  to  see  some  common 
traits  come  out  between  this  and  American 
life,  that  are  not  seen  in  other  phases  of  Eng- 
lish society.  Struck  Down*  is  a  detective 
story,  and  a  very  ordinary  one  indeed.  It 
has  a  frank  and  direct  way  of  telling  the  sto- 
ry ;  but  so  inefficient  is  the  attempt  at  a  de- 
tective plot,  that  after  a  not  very  complex 
web  of  evidence  has  been  woven  about  the 
wrong  person  (the  reader  being  all  the  time 
privately  assured  by  the  author's  obvious 
sympathy  that  this  is  the  wrong  person),  a 
tame  bit  of  testimony  turns  suspicion  directly 
to  the  right  one,  and  then  the  author,  appar- 
ently satisfied  to  have  extricated  his  favorite, 
hastily  winds  up  by  saying  that  "a  good 
deal  of  slight  confirmatory  evidence"  was  got 
together,  and  "two  days'  impartial  investiga- 
tion resulted  in  overwhelming  evidence  against 
the  prisoner,"  and  he  was  convicted  and  sen- 
tenced to  the  extreme  penalty  of  the  law. 

More  noticeable  is  the  latest  story  by  Flor- 
ence Warden,  A  Vagrant  Wife?  This  is  by 
no  means  a  novel  to  be  praised,  but,  on  the 
contrary,  one  to  be  censured  in  every  respect. 
It  is  impossible  in  plot,  absolutely  without 
high  motive,  either  moral  or  artistic,  full  of 
melodramatic  absurdities  ;  but  it  has  ability 

1  The  Old  Factory.    A  Lancashire  Story.    By  William 
Westall.     London,   Paris,   New  York,  and  Melbourne : 
Cassell  &  Co.     1885. 

2  Struck  Down.  By  iftwley  Smart.     New  York  :  D. 
Appleton  &  Co.     1885.     For  sale  in  San  Francisco  by 
James  T.  White. 

8  A  Vagrant  Wife.  By  Florence  Warden.  New  York: 
D.  Appleton  &  Co.  1885.  For  sale  in  San  Francisco  by 
James  T.  White. 


behind  it.  Nothing  could  bring  out  more 
strikingly  the  difference  we  have  noted  be- 
tween the  English  and  the  American  attitude 
toward  novel-writing  as  a  serious  art,  than 
the  fate  of  this  young  woman's  work,  com- 
pared to  that  of  several  young  American  wo- 
men who  have  made  a  hit  with  a  first  novel 
— Miss  Howard,  or  Miss  Woolson,  or  Miss 
Litchfield.  What  serious  acceptance  of  the 
work  as  a  lofty  one,  on  the  one  side ;  what 
honest  study  of  the  art ;  what  improvement, 
and  attainment  of  a  dignified  place — whether 
great  or  small,  still  dignified — in  the  literary 
world:  on  the  other  side,  what  an  evident- 
conception  of  a  novel  merely  as  a  thing  to 
sell ;  and  what  a  steady  deterioration,  book 
after  book.  One  is  almost  disposed  to  think 
that  a  difference  must  exist  between  the  two 
countries  in  the  class  of  society — always  ex- 
cepting a  few  names — that  does  the  novel- writ- 
ing ;  that  it  must  be  an  occupation  regarded 
there  with  some  social  disesteem,and  so  rarely 
thought  of  by  the  men  and  women  of  most 
ability — while  here  it  is  well  known  what  a 
source  of  social  prestige  a  successful  novel 
is;  great  physicans  and  admirals  long  for 
the  novelist's  laurels ;  and  inconceivable  as 
it  is  that  Matthew  Arnold  should  undertake 
a  novel,  we  have  seen  our  poet  Longfellow 
and  our  essayist  Holmes  both  attracted  to 
that  form  of  literature.  There  are  degrading 
conditions  attached  to  English  novel-writing 
(for  new  authors,  at  all  events)  in  that  fa- 
vorable notices  have  to  be  solicited.  This 
is  likely  to  repel  the  best  men  from  the  field. 
Anthony  Trollope  records  that  he  never  bent 
to  the  custom,  but  his  independence  cost 
him  years  of  waiting  for  success.  Miss  War- 
den dates  her  success — in  being  read  and 
making  money — from  a  favorable  notice  ob- 
tained by  solicitation.  This  was  enough  to 
destroy  all  high  ideas  of  her  art  from  the 
first.  Had  she  had  and  kept  such,  it  seems 
certain  that  she  might  have  accomplished 
much.  Even  this  worthless  story,  A  Vagrant 
Wife,  has  excellent  writing  in  it :  she  does  not 
stumble  in  her  sense  of  humor;  the  talk  is  al- 
most always  clever  and  natural,  the  figures 
distinct,  and  she  usually  hits  the  effect  she 
aims  at. 


1885.] 


Recent  Fiction. 


549 


Mr.  James  Payn  is  a  novelist  who  is  re- 
spected among  his  own  people,  and  has  good 
rank  with  English  critics.  He  writes  intelli- 
gently, and  probably  knows  his  London.  But 
he  has  doubtless  been  too  prolific,  and  his 
last  book,  The  Luck  of  the  Darrells,1  shows 
very  faint  gleams  of  ability,  and  many  signs 
of  weakness.  It  is  ineffective,  and  does  not 
seem  worth  the  telling.  The  heroine  is  a 
pretty  creature,  and  lovable,  and  that  is 
about  the  best  one  can  say  for  the  story.  We 
are  surprised  to  note  that  a  young  lady  of  ed- 
ucation and  refinement  says,  without  jest  or 
quotation,  that  a  sick  girl  "  seems  quite  peart 
today."  Mr.  Payn  probably  knows  whereof 
he  speaks,  but  it  is  unexpected  to  find  the 
word  in  England,  and  in  good  standing. 

The  repellant  title  of  Houp-L(?  proves  to 
belong  to  no  rowdy  tale,  but  to  a  touching 
little  story,  told  with  a  straight- forward  ear- 
nestness that  makes  it  seem  more  like  an  in- 
genious narration  of  real  events  than  like  fic- 
tion. If  one  looks  at  it  coolly,  it  is  a  trifle 
sentimental  (not  in  a  lover's  way,  for  it  is 
not  a  love-story),  but  so  is  many  another 
touching  thing.  It  is  not  in  the  manner  of 
the  day,  but  has  an  old-fashioned  air.  In 
one  chapter,  the  soldiers  sit  telling  each  oth- 
er stories,  and  we  have  never  seen  anything 
of  the  sort  better  done  in  a  modest  way,  or 
more  worthy  of  a  quiet  laugh ;  while  the 
soft-hearted  reader  is  very  likely  to  cry  over 
other  chapters. 

A  bridge  which  spans  perfectly  the  gap  be- 
tween the  English  and  American  novels  of 
our  present  collection  is  J.  Esten  Cooke's  The 
Maurice  Mystery?  It  is  curious  how  often 
whatever  folly  is  in  a  man  will  come  out 
when  he  undertakes  to  write  a  novel.  Novel- 
writing  is  popularly  supposed  to  be  the  easi- 
est form  of  literary  effort ;  but  we  are  dis- 
posed to  think  it  the  one  which  requires  the 
severest  special  training.  It  is  certainly  the 
one  in  which  any  defect  of  taste  appears  most 
glaringly ;  and  this  is  natural,  for  novels  are 

1  The  Luck  ol  the  Darrells.     By  James  Payn.     New 
York:  Harper  &  Brothers.     1885. 

2  Houp-La.     By  John  Strange  Winter.     New  York : 
Harper  &  Brothers.     1885. 

8  The  Maurice  Mystery.  By  J.  Esten  Cooke.  New 
York;  Appleton  &  Co.  1885.  For  sale  in  San  Fran- 
cisco by  James  T.  White. 


behaviorand  human  relations,  and  something 
of  the  extreme  difficulty  we  find  in  regulating 
these  properly  in  life  must  assail  us  when  we 
,  try  to  do  the  same  thing  on  paper.  More 
than  once,  lately,  men  of  high  repute  in 
their  own  calling  have  attempted  novel-writ- 
ing, and — to  be  frank — made  fools  of  them- 
selves. Now  comes  a  scholar  and  historian 
of  no  mean  rank  (and,  moreover,  one  who 
achieved  a  very  pretty  little  historical  novel, 
"My  Lady  Pokahontas,"  a  few  months  since), 
who  in  his  new  book  has  not  come  out  as 
much  above  folly  as  could  be  wished.  It  is 
a  semi-detective  story,  and  the  detective  part 
of  it  is  not  ill-managed  ;  the  complications 
are  unwound  well,  and  the  final  solution 
sprung  upon  the  reader  with  due  unexpect- 
edness. But  the  love-making,  the  conversa- 
tion, much  of  the  character  drawing,  are  of 
the  weakest ;  they  are  ruined  by  an  attempt 
at  jocose  sprightliness,  of  a  sort  which  in  any 
but  a  Southern  novel  would  indicate  inferior 
social  training.  But  whatever  the  reason  may 
be,  defective  humor  is  not  uncommon  in  old 
school  Southern  writing;  it  is  not  "  broad," 
but  it  is  silly.  Yet  the  story  has  spirit  and 
movement,  and  that  is  much. 

Another  old-fashioned  story,  obviously  not 
the  work  of  a  professional  novelist,  is  a 
home-production,  and  as  such  calls  for  kindly 
criticism — for  we  are  disposed  to  think  that 
in  a  region  where  the  literary  impulse  is  rare, 
every  respectable  effort  toward  literature  is 
a  good  omen,  rather  than  that  a  good 
native  literature  can  only  be  created  by 
sternly  rebuking  all  but  the  best.  Endura  * 
is  a  story  of  three  generations  of  a  New 
England  family,  who,  beginning  in  the  first 
as  poor  and  rugged  pioneers,  prospered, 
and  in  the  third  found  themselves  heirs  to 
an  enormous  foreign  estate;  as  it  is  a  French 
one,  the  wet  blanket  of  Minister  Phelps's  re- 
cent manifesto  to  "  American  heirs "  is  es- 
caped. The  story  is  very  naive  and  sin- 
cere, and  (one  or  two  points  excepted)  excites 
rather  friendly  feeling  in  the  critic  by  its 
spirit.  It  rambles  on  with  little  reference  to 
its  plot,  and  an  evident  determination  to  put 
in  about  all  the  author  remembers  of  New 

4 Endura:  or,  Three  Generations.     By  B.  P.   Moore. 
San  Francisco:  Golden  Era  Publishing  Co.     1885. 


550 


Recent  Fiction. 


[Nov. 


England,  whether  it  comes  into  the  story  or 
not.  The  New  England  that  appears  in  it 
is  evidently  drawn  from  boyhood  memories ; 
but  the  mere  fact  that  the  village  remem- 
bered is  a  Baptist  and  Methodist  village, 
shows  that  it  is  not  to  be  considered  in  the 
least  a  typical  one,  for  these  denominations 
— except,  indeed,  in  Rhode  Island — formed 
an  inconsiderable  part  of  New  England's 
population  at  the  time  of  the  story,  and  did 
not  give  the  characteristic  color  to  its  society. 
A  great  deal  of  stress  is  laid  upon  the  decay 
of  the  New  England  village,  which  is  credited 
largely  to  bigotry ;  but,  in  view  of  the  way 
in  which  many  towns  in  the  middle  West 
thrive  upon  this  same  bigotry,  it  is  not  worth 
while  to  join  issue  upon  the  point.  The 
preface  is  well  worth  reading,  for  the  sake  of 
the  author's  ingenuous  exposition  of  the 
trouble  he  had  with  his  plot. 

We  judge  A  Social  Experiment1  to  be  a 
first  book.  We  do  not  think  it  a  very  pleas- 
ant one,  but  as  we  have  already  said,  the 
novels  of  the  season  do  not  run  to  pleasant- 
ness and  peace.  It  deals  with  a  young  fac- 
tory girl,  who  was  "  taken  up  "  by  a  capricious 
lady  of  fashion  for  her  innocent  beauty  and 
delicate  nature,  made  a  social  success,  and 
then  dropped,  to  the  shattering  of  all  her 
schemes  of  life.  The  moral  is  intended  to 
be  the  cruelty  of  the  patroness,  and  the  care- 
less selfishness  of  the  girl  in  trying  to  separate 
herself  from  her  duties  in  that  walk  of  life 
whereto  it  had  pleased  the  Lord  to  call  her ; 
but,  in  fact,  the  thing  that  spoiled  her  life  was 
the  selfish  urgency  of  a  rustic  lover,  who  en- 
trapped her  into  a  secret  marriage  before  she 
had  entered  the  great  world.  The  author's 
sympathies  are — we  think  erroneously — giv- 
en to  the  lover.  The  story  contains  impos- 
sibilities— first,  in  the  rapidity  and  complete- 
ness with  which  the  factory  girl  could  be 
transformed  into  a  refined  and  intelligent 
lady;  and  second,  in  such  a  lady's  recovering 
— even  at  the  point  of  death — the  capacity 
of  contentment  in  her  other  life.  Yet  it  is 
well  and  prettily  written. 

One  ought  to  find  something  much  better 

*A  Social  Experiment.  By  A.  E.  P.  Searing.  New 
York  and  London:  G.  P.  Putnam's  Sons.  1885.  For 
sale  in  San  Francisco  by  Chilion  Beach. 


when  he  comes' to  Bret  Harte  and  Julian 
Hawthorne;  but^the  novels  of  both  these 
gentlemen  now  before  us  are  far  from  leaving 
a  sense  of  satisfaction.  Both  begin  with  the 
skillful  handling  that  in  the  first  dozen  words 
reveals  the  touch  of  a  man  who  knows  how 
to  write ;  and  both  leave  us  possessed  of  little 
besides  good'^writing,  when  all  is  done.  Mr. 
Harte's  Marujcft  shows  more  than  any  pre- 
vious book  a  falling-off  in  the  vividness  of 
his  memory  of  California,  and  the  plot  is 
rather  whimsical  than  dramatic.  Yet,  there 
is  an  endless  picturesqueness  in  everything  he 
does,  an  effectiveness  in  grouping  of  people, 
and  incidents,  and  scenery,  an  intelligence 
and  keen  perception  in  the  touches  of  satire 
(for  satire  it  always  is,  rather  than  pure  hu- 
mor— Mr.  Harte  takes  the  attitude  of  cov- 
ertly ridiculing  the  world  even  when  he  sen- 
timentalizes), which  makes  one  like  to  read 
the  book,  and  even  to  read  it  again,  in  spite 
of  his  recognition  that  it  is  essentially  worth 
little.  Mr.  Hawthorne  has  not  nearly  so  high 
a  degree  of  literary  power,  and,  accordingly, 
the  graces  of  his  story  do  not  so  nearly  ex- 
cuse its  vices.  He  almost  invariably  begins 
a  book  in  a  peculiarly  graceful  and  engaging 
tone,  an  echo  of  his  own  father  and  still  more 
of  Thackeray,  an  air  of  one  bred  in  the 
very  best  traditions  of  the  novelist's  art; 
sketches  in  his  characters  in  outline  with  a 
firm  and  pleasant  touch,  and  foreshadows  an 
excellent  plot ;  and  then  "  flats  out "  (to  use 
an  expressive  old  phrase),  weakens  and  de- 
stroys his  characters  in  the  development, 
substitutes  bizarre  fancy  for  sustained  inven- 
tion in  plot,  and  ends  with  some  weak  and 
sensational  catastrophe.  Love,  or  a  Namf 
has  these  virtues  in  a  lower  degree  than  usual, 
and  these  vices  in  a  higher  degree.  It  has 
some  uncommonly  disagreeable  incidents, 
and  leaves  an  unpleasant  impression.  The 
theme  is  a  gigantic  political  plot,  by  which  a 
gentleman  of  unbounded  wealth  and  ability, 
who  represents  the  best  school  of  American 
statesmanship,  proposes  to  secretly  and  fraud- 

2  Maruja.  By  Bret  Harte.  Boston  and  New  York  : 
Houghton,  Mifflin  &  Co,  1885.  For  sale  in  San  Fran- 
cisco by  Chilion  Beach. 

8  Love,  or  a  Name.  By  Julian  Hawthorne.  Boston  : 
Ticknor  &  Co.  1886. 


1885.] 


Eecent  Fiction. 


551 


ulently  capture  the  government,  and  convert 
it  from  a  democracy  to  a  dictatorship,  in  the 
interest  of  virtue  and  purity,  which  are  lost 
under  the  present  system ;  and  this  scheme, 
on  the  eve  of  success, Js  thwarted  by  the  se- 
duction of  his  high-bred  and  accomplished 
daughter,  out  of  revenge,  by  a  coarse,  unat- 
tractive subordinate,  whom  he  had  offended. 
The  story  comes  down  about  the  reader's 
ears  in  a  crash  of  suicide,  despair,  and  de- 
struction, from  which  the  couple  whose  love 
affairs  have  been  wound  up  in  the  course  of 
events  emerge  free  and  happy.  There  is 
neither  serious  politics  nor  serious  art  about 
it  all. 

From  Mr.  Hawthorne's  prententious  un- 
dertakings and  weak  completions,  we  turn 
with  real  relief  to  Nora  Perry's  modest  and 
charming  little  story,  for  a  Woman.*-  It  is 
among  novels  what  her  verses  are  among 
poetry.  It  is  fresh,  healthy,  and  refined ;  has 
plenty  of  feeling,  yet  nothing  dramatic ;  and 
is,  we  think,  correct  and  wise  in  its  reading 
of  life  and  love.  Its  very  completeness  within 
its  own  degree  excludes  much  comment.  It 
is  not  one  of  the  books  that  "every  one 
should  read " ;  but  it  is  one  that  a  great 
many  people  should,  and  we  refer  our  readers 
to  the  story  itself  for  farther  knowledge  of  it. 

Two  collections  of  short  stories,  Color 
Studies*  and  A  Lone  Star  Bopeep*  contain 
much  that  is  good.  Color  Studies  consists 
of  the  four  stories  which  the  author  contrib- 
uted to  the  "  Century."  Their  trick  con- 
sists in  the  use  of  names  of  colors  for  the 
characteis,  as  "  Rose  Madder,"  "Vandyke 
Brown  "  ;  which,  as  they  are  all  about  artists 
and  are  located  in  studios,  and  full  of  their 
shop  talk,  is  a  neat  one,  and  proved  taking. 
Of  the  four,  "Jaune  d'Antimoine"  is  the 
only  one  that  has,  apart  from  these  ingenui- 
ties, much  merit,  but  it  is  good  enough  to 
carry  the  rest.  They  are  all  written  with  a 
playful  manner  that  is  occasionally  overdone, 

1  For  a  Woman.     By  Nora  Perry.    Boston  :  Ticknor 
&  Co.  1885. 

2  Color  Studies.     By  Thomas  A.  Janvier.    New  York  : 
Charles  Scribner's  Sons.  1885.     For  sale  in  San  Fran- 
cisco by  A.  L.  Bancroft  &  Co. 

8  A  Lone  Star  Bopeep,  and  Other  Tales  of  Texas 
Ranch  Life.  By  Howard  Seely.  New  York:  W.  L. 
Mershon  &  Co.  1885. 


but  for  the  most  part  not  unpleasant.  The 
stories  of  the  other  collection  are  of  Texas 
ranch-life.  The  imitation  of  the  Harte  school 
is  obvious,  but  not  altogether  successful. 
Harte's  finer  qualities  of  manner  are  not 
caught,  while  a  certain  burlesque  tone,  which 
he  himself  imitated  from  Dickens,  is  exag- 
gerated. Thus:  "I  may  remark  parenthet- 
ically at  this  point  that  the  gentlemanly  pro- 
prietor of  the  Eden  Saloon,  as  aggregating 
in  his  collective  individuality  the  functions 
of  hotel-proprietor,  bar-keeper,  and  gambler, 
typified  in  the  mind  of  Penelope  the  ser- 
pent of  Biblical  story,  with  the  general  out- 
lines of  whose  disreputable  advice  to  con- 
fiding womanhood  and  subsequent  depress- 
ing influence  upon  mankind  in  general,  she 
was  mistily  familiar."  Now,  this  sort  of 
thing  is  false  style,  whether  Dickens,  or 
Harte,  or  a  young  disciple  writes  it.  It  is 
bad  because  it  is  cumbrous  and  hard  to  read, 
and  worse  because  it  is  artificial ;  and  that  it 
is  more  or  less  clever  does  not  altogether 
excuse  it  —  the  author  should  manage  to 
keep  the  cleverness  and  avoid  the  cum- 
brousness  and  artificiality.  Like  the  sample, 
the  stories  are  clever  and  somewhat  artificial ; 
they  are  vigorous  and  picturesque,  jocose  in 
their  prevailing  tone,  and  pressed  down  and 
overrunning  with  local  color,  much  of  which 
seems  excellently  caught.  They  do  not  al- 
ways keep  on  the  safe  side  of  the  line  in 
their  jocose  treatment  of  the  rowdy  element. 
"  A  Wandering  Melibceus  "  is  beyond  com- 
parison the  best  of  them  as  a  study,  and 
the  most  sincere. 

Of  all  the  uncomfortable  stories  of  the 
season,  the  palm  lies  with  As  it  was  Writ- 
ten? It  is  a  very  well-written  thing,  but  ghast- 
ly and  repulsive  in  plot.  Any  one  who  does 
not  mind  this,  will  find  it  quite  worth  his 
while  to  read  it.  It  is  said  to  resemble 
"  Called  Back,"  and  perhaps  it  does  in  man- 
ner, but  the  melodrama  of  "  Called  Back  "  is 
child's  play  to  the  gloomy  effort  of  As  it  was 
Written  after  the  utmost  tragedy  conceivable. 
Not  that  the  story  is  of  a  noisy  sort ;  it  is 
very  quiet.  It  claims  to  be  a  story  of  the 

4  As  it  Was  Written.  A  Jewish  Musician's  Story.  By 
Sidney  Luska.  New  York:  Cassell  &  Co.  For  sale  in. 
San  Francisco  by  A.  L.  Bancroft  &  Co. 


552 


Recent  Fiction, 


[Nov. 


Jewish  quarter  of  New  York,  and  interesting 
as  a  study  of  Jewish  life ;  but  there  is  no 
study  of  manners  or  life  about  it.  The  mo- 
tive is  supernatural,  and  the  Jewish  element 
merely  incidental.  Scarcely  less  unpleasant 
than  As  it  was  Written,  and  even  better  told, 
is  A  Wheel  of  Fire}  This  is  by  an  author 
already  more  or  less  known.  Its  subject  is 
hereditary  insanity,  and  the  worrying  into 
madness  of  a  lovely  girl  by  the  very  fear  of 
it,  intensified  by  the  question  whether  she 
might  or  might  not  marry,  her  lover  and  her 
love  and  her  scruples  and  the  conflicting  ad- 
vice of  doctors  tearing  her  to  and  fro  in  an 
agony  of  doubt  which  it  is  harrowing  to  read 
of.  The  gradual  steps  by  which  the  beauti- 
ful young  creature  was  fairly  forced  into  the 
doom  which  she  might  have  escaped  are 
only  too  well  told;  and  so  real  is  Damaris 
made,  and  so  lovely,  that  the  reader  perforce 
follows  her  story  with  painful  interest,  and 
cannot  reconcile  himself  to  the  final  catas- 
trophe. The  surroundings  —  an  ancestral 
home  of  the  bluest  blood  in  New  England, 
with  all  its  picturesque  accompaniments — 
are  well  drawn,  and  the  sombreness  is  a  little 
relieved  by  a  subordinate  pair  of  lovers  who 
come  out  all  right.  There  are  some  unusu- 
ally well-said  things  in  it.  For  instance: 
"  This  power  of  human  nature  to  suffer  has 
so  stamped  itself  upon  the  consciousness 
of  mankind,  it  has  so  deeply  penetrated  the 
very  inmost  soul  of  the  race,  that  there  is 
scarcely  a  mythology  which  does  not  insist 
upon  the  incarnation  of  deity  in  the  flesh,  as 
the  only  means  by  which  even  omniscience 
could  obtain  a  just  appreciation  of  the  intol- 
erable anguish  of  human  existence."  Good, 
too,  is  the  mention  of  "  a  Wainwright  of  the 
last  century,  who  had  broken  his  neck  while 
fox-hunting  on  the  estates  of  an  English 
cousin,  a  "method  of  leaving  this  world  which 
had  commended  itself  to  his  contemporaries 
as  so  eminently  respectable,  that  his  memory 
still  preserved  in  the  family  the  aroma  of 
clever  achievement." 

Still  other  two  uncomfortable  stories  are 

1  A  Wheel  of  Fire.  By  Arlo  Bates.  New  York: 
Charles  Scribner's  Sons.  1885.  For  sale  in  San  Fran- 
cisco by  Samuel  Carson  &  Co. 


Andromeda*  and  Criss- Cross.3  They  are 
not  nearly  so  bad  as  the  two  just  noticed, 
however,  involving  no  madness  nor  despair, 
but  only  heart-breaks.  In  Andromeda,  the 
Italian  hero,  who  is  the  most  noble  of  men, 
and  has  all  his  life  had  his  own  happiness 
postponed  to  that  of  others,  and  bestowed 
much  affection  and  received  little,  finds  per- 
sonal happiness  at  last  come  to  him  in  the 
form  of  an  English  sweetheart,  whom  he 
soon  has  to  renounce,  finding  that  her  heart 
has  strayed  to  his  nearest  friend.  The  story 
is  well  told,  but  not  so  well  as  to  make  the 
heart-break  very  painful  to  the  reader.  Criss- 
Cross  ^  though  less  mature,  is  more  effective. 
It  is  instructive  to  note  that  this  is  Miss 
Litchfield's  third  book  only,  since  she  made 
a  hit,  in  a  small  way,  with  a  first  one,  some 
two  years  since ;  while  in  a  considerably 
less  time  since  her  hit  with  "The  House 
on  the  Marsh,"  Florence  Warden  has  run 
her  books  up  to  five.  Miss  Litchfield's  writ- 
ing, we  think,  improves;  and  the  genuine 
study  which  she  puts  into  it  is  evident. 
Criss-Cross  is  a  study  of  a  flirt — a  subject  to 
which  the  author  has  before  given  attention, 
and  with  very  fair  success ;  but  this  time 
she  has  done  it  with  more  than  fair  success. 
We  doubt  if  there  is  anywhere  as  delicate, 
penetrating,  and  complete  a  study  of  the 
genus  flirt.  Miss  Litchfield  has  caught  ad- 
mirably the  lovableness  which  makes  this 
class  of  women  so  dangerous ;  the  baffling 
union  of  sweetness  with  the  coolest  selfish- 
ness ;  the  temporary  reality  in  them  of  the 
feelings  which  a  shallower  observer  would 
say  they  pretend ;  the  puzzling  genuineness 
of  their  falsehoods.  Mr.  Black  made  a  very 
good  study  of  the  type  in  "Shandon  Bells," 
and  it  is  testimony  to  the  accuracy  of  both 
studies  that  they  coincide  in  so  many  traits, 
too  subtle  for  imitation  to  be  possible.  But 
"  Freddie  "  is  a  more  typical  specimen  than 
"  Kitty."  It  is  the  more  to  Miss  Litchfield's 
credit  that  she  should  draw  her  so  justly 

2  Andromeda.  By  George  Fleming.  Boston :  Rob- 
erts Brothers.  1885.  For  sale  in  San  Francisco  by 
Samuel  Carson  &  Co. 

8  Criss-Cross.  By  Grace  Denio  Litchfield.  New 
York  &  London :  G.  P.  Putnam's  Sons.  1885.  For  sale 
in  San  Francisco  by  Chilion  Beach. 


1885.] 


Recent  Fiction. 


553 


and  appreciatively,  because  she  does  not  at 
all  approve  of  her.  Her  sympathies  are  en- 
tirely with  the  good,  earnest  girl  who  loves 
one  only,  but  whom  she  makes  rather  more 
sentimental  than  is  attractive.  The  moral 
of  the  book  is  the  cruelty  and  wickedness  of 
flirting,  and  it  is  well  emphasized ;  but  preach- 
ing the  cruelty  and  wickedness  of  her  sport 
will  never  reform  a  flirt ;  to  make  her  see  its 
vulgarity  is  the  only  way  to  reach  a  vulner- 
able point  in  the  vain  little  soul.  We  do 
not  think  that  "Freddie"  would,  in  fact, 
have  refused  Davenant;  still  less  that  Lucy 
would  have  finally  discarded  him — though 
she  would  probably  have  done  so  very  posi- 
tively for  a  while,  to  yield  at  last  to  the 
pressure  that  he,  if  he  knew  anything  of  wo- 
men's hearts,  would  have  brought  to  bear. 
When  women  really  and  irretrievably  love 
men,  they  do  not  renounce  them  for  a  no- 
tion. But  it  would  have  blunted  the  point 
of  Miss  Litchfield's  moral  if  Lucy  had  been 
thus  human. 

Of  a  decidedly  lower  literary  quality  is 
The  Bar  Sinister.1  It  is  a  novel  with  a 
purpose,  intended  to  be  the  Uncle  Tom's 
Cabin  of  Mormonism.  It  has  not,  however, 
sufficient  merit  to  accomplish  very  much  in 
the  way  of  rousing  people.  It  is  fairly  well 
told  ;  but  a  story  must  be  more  than  fairly 
well  told  to  be  much  of  a  reforming  power. 
It  is  not  so  violent  in  setting  down  all  Mor- 
mons as  depraved  brutes  as  previous  books 
have  been,  but  it  adds  really  nothing  new  to 
any  one's  comprehension  of  the  question,  and 
does  not  even  touch  upon  its  most  difficult 
elements. 

The  two  most  important  novels  of  the  year 
are  yet  to  be  mentioned — The  Prophet  of 
the  Great  Smoky  Mountains'*-  and  The  Rise 
of  Silas  Lapham?  Both  are  books  of  real 
significance  in  literary  history.  They  make 
a  curious  contrast :  the  Southern  woman's, 

1  The  Bar  Sinister.    A   Social  Study.       New   York : 
Cassell  &  Co.     1885.     For  sale  in  San  Francisco  by  A. 
L.  Bancroft  &  Co. 

2  The  Prophet  of  the  Great  Smoky  Mountains.      By 
Charles    Egbert    Craddock.      Boston    &   New   York: 
Houghton,  Mifflin  &  Co.    1885.    For  sale  in  San  Fran- 
cisco by  Chilion  Beach. 

3  The  Rise  of  Silas  Lapham.      By  William  D .  How- 
ells.     Boston:  Ticknor  &  Co.     1885.     For  sale  in  San 
Francisco  by  Strickland  &  Pierson. 


luxuriant,  full  of  sentiment  and  lavish  dic- 
tion, and  of  sympathy  with  her  own  charac- 
ters; and  the  Northerner's,  the  very  perfec- 
tion of  the  observant  school.  We  are  dis- 
posed to  believe  the  critics  who  say  Miss 
Murfree's  dialect  is  not  absolutely  correct ; 
we  are  disposed  to  go  farther,  and  question 
whether  the  high  souls  she  places  among 
her  stolid  mountaineers  do  really  exist  there, 
or  whether  the  commonplace  types  with 
whom  she  always  surrounds  them  are  not  in 
fact  all  there  are.  At  all  events,  whether 
from  life  or  her  own  imagination,  she  has 
made  a  beautiful  story,  highly  poetic  in  its 
character,  and  entirely  unique.  Except  for 
some  superficial  resemblances,  "Charles  Eg- 
bert Craddock  "  is  not  of  the  Harte  school. 
She  enters  into  her  story  seriously  and  sym- 
pathetically ;  they  construct  theirs  from  the 
outside.  Whether  any  suggestion  came  to 
her  from  Harte  or  not,  she  is  no  one's  imita- 
tor. Her  vein  is  narrow,  and  we  do  not 
know  how  much  longer  she  can  work  it ;  but 
for  the  present  it  is|even  increasing  in  promise. 
It  is  very  gratifying,  too,  to  be  able  to  say, 
after  all  the  wonderful  work  Mr.  Howells 
has  done,  that  perhaps  his  last^  book  is  the 
best  of  all.  It  is  always  possible  to  criticise 
Howells:  to  say  that  he  sometimes  over- 
steps the  line  of  good  taste ;  that  he  is  at 
bottom  cynical  and  never  heartily  sympa- 
thizes with  his  characters,  and  so  fails  to  catch 
in  his  stories  the  final  glow  of  secret  fire  that 
would  make  them  great  and  very  great.  But 
it  is  much  better  to  appreciate  what  Mr. 
Howells  is,  than  to  seek  out  the  few  things 
that  he  is  not.  He  is  the  most  significant 
figure  in  American  literature  today,  and  still 
on  the  up-grade ;  he  is  the  man  who  has 
given  American  novel-writing  its  standing  ; 
who  has  achieved  some  virtues  of  insight 
and  of  expression  that  are  new  to  literature. 
It  is  impossible  to  do  justice  to  the  precis- 
ion and  perfection  with  which  he  "  takes  off" 
every-day  life  and  speech;  and  more  than  that, 
he  has  only  to  turn  his  scrutiny  upon  the 
most  bare  and  unromantic  phase  of  life, 
and  the  reader  sees  it  in  its  true  light,  as  it 
appears  to  the  one  that  is  living  it.  When 
was  the  romance  of  business — the  anxiety 
and  pain  and  desire  that  do,  in  fact,  make 


554 


-Recent  Fiction. 


[Nov. 


business  life  almost  as  full  of  human  emotion 
as  love  affairs — so  brought  out,  as  in  The 
Rise  of  Silas  Lapham  ?  Moreover,  there  is  a 
warmer  quality  in  this  than  in  any  previous 
book — a  movement  toward  the  higher  plane 
yet,  that  his  admirers  have  always  longed  to 
see  him  rise  to.  It  must  be  granted  that 
The  Rise  of  Silas  Lapham  ends  unsatisfac- 
torily— the  general  criticism  to  that  effect 
seems  to  us  just.  The  enthusiasm  and  in- 
terest with  which  the  reader  follows  it  along, 
receive  an  impalpable  chill  in  the  last  chap- 
ter. It  is  hard  to  say  why,  for  the  conclusion 
is  well  judged ;  but  there  seems  to  be  a  relax- 
ation of  the  author's  own  interest — the  writ- 
ing sounds  if  he  had  grown  tired  of  his  char- 
acters, and  meant  to  hustle  them  out  of  the 
way  as  soon  as  he  could,  and  had  done  it  a 
little  too  hastily  for  dignified  exit  from  the 
stage.  Nor  can  we  acquiesce  in  his  hand- 
ling of  one  minor  point — the  giving  the  sym- 
pathy of  third  parties  to  the  sister  who  open- 
ly took  a  man's  suit  for  granted  without  war- 
rant, instead  of  to  the  one  who  had  kept 
silence,  and  allowed  her  sister  to  arrogate  to 
herself  the  lover  whom  both  desired.  Mr. 
Howells's  own  sympathies  are  apparently  with 
Penelope,  and  we  think  he  would  have  been 
more  true  to  nature  if  he  had  turned  those 
of  all  except  the  parents  the  same  way.  It 
is  hard,  too,  to  believe  that  proud  New  Eng- 
land rural  people,  like  the  Laphams,  would 
ever  have  let  a  suspicion  of  Irene's  discomfi- 
ture reach  the  Coreys.  But  waiving  criti- 
cisms, it  remains  that  both  the  love-romance 
and  the  business  romance  are  carried  through 
with  an  almost  unparalleled  comprehension 
of  character  and  feeling,  and  perfection  in 
expressing  them.  Lapham  himself  is,  of 
course,  the  central  figure,  and  nothing  could 
be  more  perfect  than  the  rough  man  of  suc- 
cess, all  whose  gentlemanly  virtues  at  bottom 
cannot  make  him  agreeable.  No  social  study 
has  ever  made  so  clear  the  inevitable  differ- 
entiations that  create  themselves  in  even  a 
democratic  society. 

The  new  editions  of  old  novels  that  we 
mentioned  above  are  of  Uncle  Tom's  Cabin l 

1  Uncle  Tom's  Cabin.  By  Harriet  Beecher  Stowe. 
Boston:  Houghton,  Mifflin  &  Co.  1885.  For  sale  in 
San  Francisco  by  Chilion  Beach. 


and  The  Scarlet  Letter?- — editions  neat  in 
appearance  and  clear  in  typography,  though 
their  object  is  cheapness  of  price.  The  one 
is  preceded  by  an  "  account  of  the  work,  by 
the  author,"  and  the  other  has  an  introduc- 
tion by  G.  P.  Lathrop.  We  have,  besides,  a 
translation  of  Balzac's  Pere  Goriot*  the  first 
volume,  we  take  it,  of  a  beautiful  edition  of 
his  complete  works.  We  postpone  any  re- 
view of  the  translation  till  it  is  farther  ad- 
vanced. 

There  remains  to  be  noticed  a  collection 
of  the  Saxe  Holm  Stories,4  the  popular  inter- 
est in  which  has  been  renewed  by  Mrs.  Jack- 
son's death.  No  authoritative  statement  of 
her  authorship  of  them  has  been  made,  but 
little  doubt  seems  to  be  felt  that  she  had  at 
least  a  share  in  them.  To  us,  it  seems  that, 
however  unlike  her  later  fiction  they  undoubt- 
edly are,  it  cannot  be  questioned  that  the 
same  hand  was  in  them  and  in  the  "  No 
Name"  novels  now  acknowledged  as  Mrs. 
Jackson's.  Mercy  Philbrick  and  Draxy  Mil- 
ler are  sisters.  The  insistence  upon  love  of 
beauty,  and  upon  extreme  sensitiveness  to  im- 
pressions, are  identical  in  the  acknowledged 
and  unacknowledged  writings.  The  very  de- 
tails of  people's  behavior,  their  ways  of  adorn- 
ing their  rooms,  coincide.  The  stories  are  not 
up  to  the  reputation  of  "H.  H."  "Joe  Hale's 
Red  Stockings,"  for  a  simple  trifle,  and  "How 
One  Woman  kept  her  Husband,"  for  a  wise 
and  powerful  bit  of  fact  or  fiction,  are  sim- 
ply and  strongly  told.  But  the  rest,  though 
they  always  possess  some  good  qualities,  have 
more  or  less  crudity  and  a  sort  of  unreal  at- 
titude. There  are  dreadful  bits  of  bad  taste 
in  dress  and  furnishing,  as  in  the  dress  em- 
broidered with  a  lapful  of  pond  lilies;  but 
these  are  not  without  parallel  in  "  Mercy 
Philbrick's  Choice."  "  H.  H."  must  have 
been  too  good  a  critic  not  to  know  that 
these  stories  did  not  represent  her  real 
powers,  or  her  deliberate  taste. 

2  The  Scarlet  Letter.  By  Nathaniel  Hawthorne. 
Boston:  Houghton,  Mifflin  &  Co.  1885.  For  sale  in 
San  Francisco  by  Chilion  Beach. 

8  Pere  Goriot.  By  Honore  de  Balzac.  Boston :  Rob- 
'  erts  Brothers.  1885.  For  sale  in  San  Francisco  by  Sam- 
uel Carson  &  Co. 

4  Saxe  Holm  Stories.  New  York :  Charles  Scribner's 
Sons.  1885. 


1885.] 


Etc. 


555 


ETC. 


AN  important  event  in  the  history  of  the  State  has 
just  taken  place,  in  the  appointment  of  a  president 
to  the  State  University.  If  the  new  president — who 
is  an  astronomer  of  high  rank — prove  to  possess  ex- 
ecutive qualities  equal  to  his  scientific  attainments, 
we  may  look  to  see  a  new  era  open  for  the  Uni- 
versity. It  is  necessary  that  a  college  president — 
and  very  much  more  a  University  president  — 
should  be  a  man  of  catholic  interests,  peculiarly  well 
balanced  between  the  demands  of  science  and  let- 
ters ;  a  man  of  tact,  who  "gets  along  with"  people 
well ;  and  a  man  of  great  administrative  capacity. 
Although  Professor  Holden  is  a  specialist,  he  may 
well  prove  to  possess  all  these  qualities.  Every- 
thing that  is  known  of  him  to  this  State  is  admirable, 
and  the  friends  of  the  University  are  awaiting  his 
advent  with  high  hopes. 

WE  cannot  but  note  with  a  good  deal  of  misgiving 
the  recent  action  of  the  Presbyterian  denomination 
in  this  State  toward  establishing  a  denominational 
college.  The  State  already  contains,  besides  its  own 
University,  two  Methodist  colleges,  and  the  Baptist 
denomination  has  already  committed  itself  to  the  plan 
of  a  Baptist  college ;  there  is  the  new  Mills  College 
for  girls  ;  and  there  are  still  other  "colleges,"  with 
power  to  give  degrees,  whose  existence  we  know 
only  from  the  pages  of  reports.  Now,  while  it  is 
probably  true  that  this  State  can  scarcely  afford  to 
support  but  one  institution  for  the  higher  education, 
that  if  all  the  funds  were  put  into  the  State  Univer- 
sity, it  would  still  be  little  enough,  and  if  all  the 
students  were  sent  there,  they  would  receive  a  broad- 
er education  than  at  any  of  the  lesser  colleges,  and  a 
degree  of  more  value;  still,  we  have  no  criticism  to 
make  of  two  supplements  to  the  State  University — 
one,  a  girls'  college ;  the  other,  a  religious  college. 
For  while  the  education  of  girls  with  boys  has  pro- 
duced none  of  the  direful  results  prophesied,  the  ma- 
jority of  parents  will  not,  for  a  generation  or  two, 
believe  that  it  does  not,  and  their  girls  will  go  uned- 
ucated unless  they  can  be  educated  in  a  girls'  college; 
and  while  the  State  University  does  not,  in  fact, 
have  a  demoralizing  effect  upon  the  religious  faith  of 
students,  there  are  many  who  will  not  believe  that  it 
does  not,  and  whose  sons  would  lose  a  college  train- 
ing altogether  were  a  religious  college  inaccessible. 
Moreover,  while  the  religious  prejudice  against  the 
University  is  largely  temporary,  produced  by  foolish 
and  hasty  talk  in  the  papers  and  founded  on  erro- 
neous information,  there  is  a  much  more  sound  and 
permanent  reason  for  the  existence  of  religious  col- 
leges: that  is,  the  permanent  conviction  of  a  great 
number  of  intelligent  people,  who  are  in  sympathy 


with  the  intellectual  ends  of  education,  that  all  teach- 
ing should  be  closely  connected  with  religion.  The 
drift  of  the  best  opinion  seems  to  be  away  from  this 
belief,  and  in  favor  of  conducting  education  as  entire- 
ly for  its  own  sake  as  building  a  bridge,  leaving  re- 
ligious training  to  the  home,  the  church,  and  the 
religious  press.  The  necessity,  too,  of  finding 
ground  on  which  Protestant,  Catholic,  Jew,  and 
agnostic  can  unite,  enforces  this  secular  view  of  edu- 
cation. But  so  great  a  number  remain  who  cannot 
acquiesce  in  it,  and  have  consistent  and  intelligent 
reasons  for  not  doing  so,  that  even  in  a  small  popu- 
lation there  is  reason  enough  for  the  diversion  of 
strength  from  the  University  to  a  single  Christian 
college,  provided  that  this  college  can  be  made  a 
good  one.  But  unless  it  can  be  made  an  honestly 
good  one,  according  to  the  severest  standards,  it 
should  be  let  alone;  and  for  the  existence  of  a  college 
for  each  sect  we  can  see  no  excuse.  Some  of  the  no- 
blest colleges  in  the  country,  it  is  true,  were  founded 
by  a  single  denomination  and  are  still  controlled  by  it; 
but  we  do  not  recall  an  instance  in  which  more  than 
one  of  the  sort  has  attained  any  considerable  rank 
within  a  limited  area,  and  with  a  small  college  popu- 
lation to  draw  upon.  There  maybe  a  difference  be- 
tween Greek  syntax  or  trigonometry  viewed  in  a 
Christian  light,  and  the  same  things  in  an  agnostic 
light;  but  hardly  between  the  Methodist  and  the 
Baptist  views  of  them;  while  the  multiplication  of  de- 
nominational colleges  not  only  tends  to  weaken  each 
one  by  division  of  forces,  and  to  narrow  education  by 
treating  trifling  differences  as  important,"  but  to  dis- 
credit the  denominations  themselves  by  bringing  the 
degrees  of  their  colleges  into  disrepute.  A  matter  of 
$50,000  or  $75,000  is  scraped  up — enough  to  endow 
a  single  professorship  in  a  good  college,  or  even  to 
start  in  modest  fashion  an  excellent  preparatory 
school — and  an  attempt  made,  which  must  necessa- 
rily be  futile  with  any  such  sum  of  money,  to  take  a 
creditable  stand  in  the  family  of  colleges.  What 
with  inadequate  means  for  professorships,  forcing  the 
managers  to  look  to  those  whose  denominational  zeal 
is  high,  irrespective  of  other  qualifications,  and  with 
the  natural  temptation  to  find  places  in  the  college 
.for  those  whom  the  denomination  honors  as  vigorous 
church  workers  (whose  very  activity  in  ecclesiastical 
lines,  must  have  more  or  less  interfered  with  scholar- 
ship), — it  is  almost  impossible  to  give  any  standing  at 
all  to  one  of  these  meagerly-endowed  colleges. 
Where  it  is  the  only  one  on  the  ground,  no  endow- 
ment can  be  too  small,  if  joined  with  endless  energy 
and  self-sacrifice  and  tenacity,  to  start  with.  So  far 
from  despising  the  day  of  small  things  in  such  a 
case,  nothing  is  more  to  be  honored;  as  in  the  case 


556 


Etc. 


[Nov. 


of  the  old  College  of  California.  But  when  entered 
upon  merely  for  the  sake  of  denominational  differ- 
ence, such  struggles  cease  to  be  heroic. 

NEVERTHELESS,  we  do  not  underrate  the  difficul- 
ties in  the  way  of  denominational  union  in  building  a 
college.  An  attempt  has  been  made  already  to  es- 
tablish a  Christian  college  here  by  cooperation  of 
the  denominations,  but  it  proved  hopelessly  futile. 
The  fault  is  not  so  often  in  the  projectors  of  the  col- 
lege as  in  the  money-contributing  laity,  who  take  no 
interest  in  providing  means  for  a  union  college,  but 
respond  fairly  well  to  appeals  for  one  owned  by  their 
own  denomination.  It  isnperhaps  true,  as  it  has 
been  said,  that  it  is  easier  to  get  money  for  six  de- 
nominational schools  than  one-sixth  of  the  money 
for  a  union  one.  Still,  we  think  this  and  other  diffi- 
culties are  things  which  should  be  contended  with, 
not  yielded  to.  One  denomination — the  Methodist — 
has  already  the  ground,  and  has  made  a  respectable 
beginning,  with  the  great  advantage  of  a  liberal- 
minded  man  for  a  president.  It  would  seem  to  us 
that  the  right  course  for  both  the  Presbyterians  and 
Baptists  to  take  would  be,  either  to  make  a  very  ear- 
nest effort  to  unite  forces  with  this  Methodist  begin- 
ning, concessions  being  made  on  both  sides,  or  else, 
like  the  Congregationalists  and  Episcopalians,  to  put 
their  money  each  into  a  good  denominational  acad- 
emy. Apart  from  the  general  objection  to  multipli- 
cation of  denominational  colleges,  however,  the  plan 
of  the  Presbyterians  seems  peculiarly  judicious  and 
promising ;  for  there  is  no  intention  of  scraping  up 
money  enough  for  one  professorship,  and  then  setting 
up  a  weakling  college  full-blown  ;  but  of  allowing 
their  theological  seminary,  now  well  endowed  with 
over  a  quarter  of  a  million,  to  expand  downward,  as 
demand  arises,  into  college  classes,  thus  allowing  a 
college  to  create  itself  by  a  natural  and  healthful  pro- 
cess of  evolution.  So  judicious  does  this  seem,  that 
were  not  the  Methodist  college  already  on  the  ground, 
we  should  say  that  in  this  extension  of  the  Presbyte- 
rian seminary  lay  the  the  promise  of  a  nucleus  for 
the  future  religious  college  of  the  coast,  to  which  the 
other  denominations  should  bring  accretions.  It  is 
true  that  the  connection  with  the  seminary  would 
tend  to  produce  a  decided  sectarianism,  unfavorable 
to  union  ;  but  the  experience  of  Princeton,  for  in- 
stance, shows  that  intimate  connection  with  a  theo- 
logical seminary  need  not  prevent  a  college's  expand- 
ing beyond  strictly  sectarian  bounds. 

"Women  and  Politics  in  Paris. 

[The  following  account  of  a  women's  political 
meeting  in  Paris  is  from  a  private  letter  written  by 
an  American  lady  sojourning  in  that  city.J 

My  dear  C :    I  was  so  stupid  the   other   day 

when  I  wrote  to  you  as  quite  to  forget  to  tell  you  about 
a  political  meeting  I  had  been  to  the  night  before. 
This  was  a  meeting  called  by  the  Republican  Social- 


ists to  hear  addresses  from  a  number  of  the  women 
candidates  for  seats  in  the  Chamber  of  Deputies.  I 
am  told  by  the  French  themselves  that,  taken  as  a 
whole,  French  women  are  more  capable,  business- 
like, energetic,  and  pushing  than  the  men,  and  I 
believe  it  to  be  true.  Of  course,  they  don't  surpass 
the  race  masculine  in  the  higher  reaches  of  the  arts, 
sciences,  belles-lettres,  etc.;  but  in  all  the  every-day, 
ordinary  occupations  of  life — the  keeping  of  little 
shops,  the  running  of  small  farms,  hotels,  etc.,  etc. — 
they  are  "  the  man  of  the  house."  Sometimes  it's  a 
very  large  business  they  manage,  too.  For  instance, 
there  is  an  immense  dry  goods  establishment  here, 
the  Bon  Marche,  where  you  can  buy  not  alone  dry 
goods  of  every  description — but  all  necessaries  for 
house  furnishing  of  every  sort  and  kind,  and  where 
there  are  hundreds  of  employes.  The  head  owner 
of  this  really  grand  and  interesting  establishment  is 
a  woman — and  a  good  woman,  too.  Her  employes 
form  one  large  family,  who  all  board  and  room  under 
the  one  roof  of  the  great  store.  She  takes  care  of 
them  if  they  are  sick,  provides  amusements  for  their 
evenings,  and,  I  am  told,  looks  after  them  morally  as 
well  as  physically.  Then  another  woman  is  at  the 
head  of  the  Duval  Restaurants,  which  are  not  to  be 
numbered,  they  are  so  many.  So  you  can  see  from 
all  this,  as  also  the  history  of  the  France  of  all  ages 
has  shown,  when  women  meddle  with  politics  here, 
it's  a  meddle  not  to  be  despised.  So  I  went  to  the 
meeting  the  other  evening,  expecting  to  be  really  in- 
terested and  enlightened — and  I  was. 

As  we  went  into  the  hall,  various  campaign  docu- 
ments were  handed  us,  and  those  given  to  me  were 
offered  with  a  "  Void,  Citoyenne"  that  gave  me  an 
instant  First  Revolution,  Robespierre  sensation ;  the 
feeling  didn't  go  away,  either,  and  two  or  three  events 
of  the  evening  deepened  it  much.  There  were  pres- 
ent a  large  audience — more  than  half  men  ;  but  after 
a  few  words  of  introduction  by  one  of  the  Republican 
Socialist  party  who  had  convened  the  meeting,  a 
president,  three  vice  presidents,  and  secretary,  all 
women,  were  chosen,  and  all  was  supposed  to  be 
ready  for  the  speeches  of  the  candidates.  But  first  a 
prominent  member  of  the  party  wished  to  make 
some  explanatory  remarks — a  handsome  gray-haired 
old  gentleman  he  was,  and  I  expected  his  simple  ap- 
pearance, so  benevolent  and  dignified,  would  obtain 
for  him  a  quiet  hearing.  But  no ;  it  was  time  for  the 
candidatesses  to  speak,  and  no  manly  discourse  was 
wanted,  so  he  was  at  first  politely  asked  to  retire.  He 
refused,  whereupon,  in  one  body,  the  president,  the 
three  vice  presidents,  the  secretary,  and  a  candidate 
made  one  rush,  seized  the  old  gentleman,  and  in  less 
time  than  it  takes  me  to  tell  it,  he  was  dragged,  pulled, 
or  pushed  off  the  stage  and  behind  the  scenes.  The 
last  glimpse  of  him  was  just  as  he  disappeared  ;  some- 
how, he  had  managed  to  get  hold  of  a  chair,  which, 
as  he  backed  out,  he  held  up  before  him,  as  some 
sort  of  protection.  That  was  the  end  of  him  and  his 
speech.  In  the  meantime,  the  president,  the  three 


1885.] 


Etc. 


557 


vice  presidents,  and  the  candidate  calmly  returned  to 
their  places,  paying  no  attention  to  the  ten  or  twenty 
men  that  had  mounted  the  platform  and  were  rush- 
ing about,  evidently  in  a  wild  search  for  the  captive 
man.  As  for  the  audience,  all  was  dire  confusion, 
and  for  half  an  hour  nothing  was  done,  nothing  could 
be  heard  but  cries  of  "  On  cst  Legrn?"  (the  name  of 
the  old  gentleman);  "Madame  la  Presidente,  on  cst 
Legnt?"  The  first  vice  president  rung  wildly  the 
president's  big  bell,  which  was  supposed  to  com- 
mand order.  The  president's  baby  cried,  and  some 
kind  soul  in  the  audience  handed  up  baby's  bottle. 
That  tickled  the  audience  into  a  better  humor,  and 
after  some  time  of  waves  of  noise  and  intervals  of 
comparative  quiet,  it  became  sufficiently  quiet  to  al- 
low a  commencement  of  the  speeches. 

There  were  some  half-dozen.  Every  one  of  the 
speakers  spoke  as  easily  as  though  she  was  in  her 
own  room  at  home,  with  but  an  audience  of  one. 
All  were  interesting — that  is  to  say,  without  an  atom 
of  dullness — on  the  contrary,  bright,  sparkling,  viva- 
cious. All  used  excellently  smooth,  pure  language, 
but  in  more  than  one  case  they  were  illogical.  The 
most  interesting  speaker  for  me  was  an  interloper — 
that  is  to  say,  not  a  candidate.  They  called  her 
Louise.  She  is  absolutely  the  type  of  the  women  of 
the  First  Revolution  or  the  Commune,  I  am  sure. 
She  is  an  avowed  anarchist ;  and  that  there  were 
many  anarchists  in  the  audience  was  proved  by  the 
attention  and  applause  she  received.  I  should  think 
she  was  twenty-six  years  old.  She  had  very  black 
hair  and  eyes,  a  thin,  sallow  face,  a  mouth  so  clearly 
cut,  so  determined.  Her  words  flowed  faster  than 
thought  almost,  gestures  accompanying  every  phrase ; 
the  whole  air,  the  intonation,  the  manner,  absolute 
defiance.  So  when  finally  she  said  :  "But  why  do 
we  listen  to  these  candidates?  What  do  we  want  of 
candidates?  What  do  we  want  of  a  House  of  Dep- 
uties ?  We  want  no  rulers,  but  liberty,  equality  " — 
one  was  not  surprised.  It  hardly  took  one  by  surprise, 
when,  as  finale  to  her  speech,  she  descended  sud- 
denly by  table  and  chair  from  the  platform  to  deal 
summary  and  personal  vengeance  on  some  one  of 
the  audience  who  had  dared  in  an  insulting  manner 
to  interrupt  her,  and  who  paid  for  his  temerity  by 
being  obliged  to  retire  earlier  than  he  would  have 
preferred. 

Oh,  it's  a  strangely  undisciplined,  chaotic  thing — 
this  sister  republic  of  ours.  The  present  govern- 
ment is  too  good,  and,  alas  !  too  weak.  They  don't 
dare  insist.  For  instance,  at  a  large  political  meet- 
ing last  Sunday,  held  in  the  Merchants'  Exchange, 
nothing  could  be  accomplished — all  was  simply  one 
dreadful  row.  They  broke  to  pieces  chairs  and 
tables,  the  platform  erected  for  the  occasion,  took  the 
water  decanter  and  glasses — everything  they  could 
get  hold  of— to  right  with,  finally  resorting  to  fire- 
arms. And  the  police  dared  not  interfere. 

People  who  watch  things  carefully  and  anxiously, 
predict  another  revolution  in  a  year.  The  good  peo- 


ple— and  they  are  many — are  so  easy;  they  wish  for 
quiet  and  peace  so  much  that  they  won't  even  fight 
for  it,  and  so  the  Anarchists  and  the  Socialists  and 
the  Communists  get  the  upper  hand.  And  it's  such  a 
shame  to  think  of  the  peril  for  all  the  treasures  of  art 
— for  all  the  beautiful  parks  and  noble  buildings  of 
this  most  magnificent  city  of  the  world. 

Politics  over  here  are  far  more  exciting  than  with 
us  ;  for  here,  alas,  everything  may  turn  in  incredibly 
short  time  to  tragedy.  There  is  always  the  over- 
hanging war  cloud — while  with  us  it's  only  words  — 
much  noise;  but  we  need  to  have  no  fear  of  ourselves, 
or  of  encroaching  neighbors. 

There's  no  doubt  about  it,  we're  a  wonderful  peo- 
ple; made  up  of  so  many  diverse  and  contradictory 
elements,  and  yet  pursuing  the  even  tenor  of  our  na- 
tional way,  accepting  grand  changes  of  party  with 
such  unruffled  serenity  of  the  national  temper.  We 
have  great  cause  for  thankfulness — we  Americans — as 
well  as  for  pride.  L.  H.  T. 

Paris,  September,  1885. 

With  Gloves. 

Go,  happy  little  messengers, 

I  envy  you  your  lot ; 
To  clasp  her  dainty  finger-tips 

Must  blissful  be,  I  wot. 

To  think  a  little  senseless  kid 

Such  privilege  shall  own, 
Unvalued  and  unmerited, 

Compels  a  heart-felt  groan. 

But  I  shall  see  you,  blessed  things, 

I  may  e'en  gently  touch  ; 
I'll  be  so  glad  I'll  ill  restrain 

The  passion-prompted  clutch. 

And  if  I  chance  to  press  full  hard 

The  tender  hand  you  hold, 
Pray  do  not  let  your  mistress  feel 
N    That  I  am  over-bold. 

C.  A.  M. 

Tecumseh  not  Killed  by  Colonel  Johnson. 

EDITOR  OVERLAND  MONTHLY: 

The  June  number  of  the  "Century  Magazine" 
contained  a  communication,  from  which  it  appeared 
almost  conclusively  proved  that  the  noted  Shawnee 
chief,  TecumHeh,  was  killed  by  Colonel  Richard  M. 
Johnson.  I  ask  for  a  few  lines  in  your  valuable  mag- 
azine, to  give  publicity  to  the  story  told  me  by  an  eye- 
witness of  his  fall,  who  was  with  him  almost  daily 
during  the  three  years  previous  to  his  death. 

Let  me  say,  in  passing,  that  it  may  not  be  gener- 
ally known  just  where  the  famous  chief  was  born. 
He  was  born  in  the  year  1770,  between  the  third  and 
the  fourth  moons,  near  Station  Pond— a  body  of 
water  on  Mad  River,  in  Green  County,  Ohio,  some 
four  miles  south  of  Springfield,  and  within  a  mile 
and  a  half  northwest  of  the  town  of  Fairfield,  Greene 
County,  Ohio,  where  I  was  born  in  1836,  and  near 
where  I  lived  until  1852.  During  these,  my  boyhood 


558 


Book  Eeviews. 


[Nov. 


days,  I  became  familiar  with  the  following  unwritten 
history  regarding  Tecumseh.  My  informant  was 
William  Casad — or,  as  he  was  always  called,  "Old 
Uncle  Billy" — who  was  born  about  1772,  in  Vir- 
ginia, and  was  living  about  a  mile  from  Fairfield, 
Ohio,  at  the  time  of  my  father's  settlement  there,  in 
1832,  and  how  much  longer  I  cannot  say;  but  this  I 
know,  that  he  was  surrounded  by  numerous  relatives, 
extending  to  the  fourth  generation,  numbering  at 
least  twenty  families — the  descendants  of  which  are 
scattered  into  nearly  every  State  in  the  Union,  a 
number  of  the  name  still  remaining  in  Ohio,  and  one, 
Martin  Casad,  being  now  a  resident  of  this  city. 
He  will  be  able  to  corroborate  the  following  facts, 
and  perhaps  add  to  them.  I  have  sat  for  hours  lis- 
tening to  "Old  Uncle  Billy's  "  stones  of  hair-breadth 
escapes  from  Indians,  bears,  wolves,  or  panthers, 
when  he  was  hunting  in  the  mountains  of  Virginia, 
and  the  forests  of  the  West.  Among  them  was  this: 

During  the  protracted  war  with  the  Indians  from 
1800  to  1810,  he  was  a  hunter  by  trade,  hunting  bear 
especially,  and  also  smaller  game.  He  sometimes 
spent  nine  months  at  a  time  in  the  western  wilds, 
without  seeing  the  face  of  an  Indian,  let  alone  that  of 
a  white  man.  He  always  hunted  alone,  and  became 
so  attached  to  the  woods  that  he  could  scarcely  toler- 
ate any  other  life.  During  the  fall  of  1810,  while 
on  a  hunting  expedition,  he  was  taken  prisoner  by  a 
band  of  Shawnees,  who  carried  him  hundreds  of 
miles  in  a  direction  he  had  never  been.  His  Indian- 
like  appearance,  courage,  and  ability  to  stand  as  much 
hardship  and  privation  as  any  Indian,  caused  his 
adoption  as  one  of  them,  and  finally  into  Tecumseh's 
own  family.  He  slept  in  Tecumseh's  tent  for  more  than 
two  years,  and  was  allowed  to  carry  the  War  Hatchet 
in  battles,  which  was  quite  an  honor  among  them. 
Hehad  many  interesting  personal  reminiscenses  of  Te- 
cumseh— among  others,  of  his  musical  turn,  especial- 
ly with  the  flute ;  he  would  lie  on  his  back  and 
play  a  sort  of  march  on  the  flute,  which  "  Uncle 
Billy  "  had  never  heard  before  or  since,  and  which 
the  chief  himself  called  "Tecumseh." 

Casad  made  his  escape  from  the  Indians  the  day 
that  Tecumseh  fell,  and  was  within  fifty  feet  of  him 
at  the  time  he  was  killed,  at  the  Battle  of  the  Thames, 
Canada,  October  5th,  1813.  "  It  has  been  reported 


for  years,"  "  Uncle  Billy"  would  say,  "  that  Colonel 
Dick  Johnson  killed  him;  and  Colonel  Dick  Johnson 
thought  he  did;  but  he  did  not.  Tecumseh  was 
killed  by  a  common  soldier."  He  gave  the  soldier's 
name,  but  I  have  forgotten  it.  The  cause  of  the 
mistake  was  this:  Tecumseh  never  went  into  battle 
with  his  chiefs  or  general's  suit  on  (he  was  a  British 
brigadier-general  from  February,  1813);  but  some 
Indian  of  his  own  tribe  was  always  found  brave 
enough  to  wear  the  habiliments  of  the  chief  for  that 
day.  On  the  day  that  Tecumseh  fell,  fell  also,  and 
by  the  hand  of  Colonel  Johnson,  the  brave  who  wore 
Tecumseh's  suit.  "I  often  asked  the  soldier  who 
killed  Tecumseh,"  said  Casad,  "  why  he  did  not 
write  to  the  War  Department,  and  claim  the  honor 
of  having  killed  the  chief  of  the  Shawnees;  but  he 
always  answered:  "  Oh,  I  am  only  a  common  soldier, 
and  it  would  do  me  no  good;  whereas,  to  one  in  the 
position  of  my  commander,  it  will  give  additional 
honor.'"  Perhaps  some  reader  of  this  will  be  able 
to  supply  the  name  of  the  soldier  that  "  Old  Uncle 
Billy  "  used  to  give. 

There  existed  a  legend  among  the  surviving  de- 
scendants of  Tecumseh  who  remained  near  Station 
Pond  up  to  the  time  they  were  sent  to  Indian  Terri- 
tory, that  Tecumseh's  bones  and  all  his  war  trophies 
were  carried  back  from  Canada  and  buried  on  the 
spot  of  his  birth.  Respectfully  yours, 

L.  P.  McCarty. 

San  Francisco,  October,  1885. 

The  "  Golden-Thread." 

WITHIN  the  canons  dim,  where  grasses  lush 
Bend  down  the  stream,  or  struggle  tall  and  rank 
With  twisted  willows  and  the  mosses  dank  ; 

Where  manzanita  reddens  in  the  flush 

Of  tardy  dawn  ;  where  grand  in  awful  hush 

The  mountains  tower  with  torn  and  jagged  flank; 
Where  scarcely  venturing  to  the  dizzy  bank 

The  thirsty  deer  disturbs  the  brooding  thrush  ; 

Strong  boughs  of  shrubs,  rock-rooted,  thick  and  young, 
The  tangled  skeins  of  golden-thread  ensnare 

With  parasitic  tendrils  subtly  flung ; 
Anon  shines  forth  its  beauteous  death-light  flare 

O'er  trees  that  die,  by  its  embraces  stung  : 
Even  Nature  says  "  Of  gold's  soft  gleam  beware." 
Amelia  Woodward  Truesdell. 


BOOK  REVIEWS. 


The  Coming  Struggle  for  India.1 

THIS  is  a  plea  in  behalf  of  English  as  adverse  to 
Russian  civilization,  and  an  appeal  to  the  people  of 
Great  Britain  to  stay  the  further  progress  of  Russia 

1  The  Coming  Struggle  for  India.  By  Arminius 
Vambery.  London,  Paris,  New  York,  and  Melbourne: 
Cassell  &  Company,  Limited.  For  sale  in  San  Francisco 
by  A.  L.  Bancroft  &  Co. 


into  Afghanistan  on  its  way  to  India.  It  is  written 
by  a  Hungarian,  a  professor  in  the  university  at  Buda 
Pesth,  a  scholar  in  the  oriental  languages,  a  traveler 
and  resident  in  central  Asia  at  intervals  extending 
over  some  twenty  years,  and  a  frequent  writer  upon 
questions  relating  to  the  politics  of  the  countries  with 
which  he  has  so  long  been  familiar.  He  disclaims 
being  moved  simply  by  any  spite  against  Russia,  be- 


1885.] 


Book  Reviews. 


559 


cause  of  its  treatment  of  his  native  land  ;  but  urges, 
with  some  force,  that  he  is  moved  by  "motives 
strictly  humanitarian,"  in  no  way  influenced  "by  any 
special  predilection  for,  or  unconditional  admiration 
of,  the  English."  After  a  study  of  the  history  of  the 
Russian  advance  to  Tashkend,  the  conquest  of  the 
Three  Khanates,  the  material  and  moral  victory  of 
the  Russians  at  Geok  Tepe,  the  further  progress  from 
Ashkabad  to  Merv,  and  the  further  encroachments 
towards  Herat,  the  author  took  up  the  question  and 
discussed  it  in  a  course  of  lectures  in  various  locali- 
ties in  England.  Encouraged  by  the  sympathies 
which  he  apparently  succeeded  in  arousing  among 
his  hearers,  and  in  a  spirit  of  gratitude  therefor,  he 
has  written  this  volume,  hoping  thereby  to  arouse 
"the  masses  also  to  the  necessity  of  an  active,  patri- 
otic, and  decisive  policy  as  to  Russia."  The  story  of 
the  advance  of  Russia  is  necessarily  brief,  but  very 
interesting,  and  as  an  ex parte  statement  of  the  case 
in  behalf  of  England  is  forcible.  The  author  includes 
in  this  discussion,  arguments  upon  the  importance  of 
Herat,  Russia's  chances  of  conquering  that  place, 
the  chances  in  favor  of  the  English  defense,  and  her 
best  method  of  that  defense.  He  compares  the  re- 
sult of  Russian  civilization  in  the  new  countries,  in 
which  it  "has  supplanted  the  more  barbarous  native 
tribes,  and  the  result  of  English  civilization,  as  dis- 
played in  the  occupation  of  India;  and,  finally,  sets 
forth  the  grounds  on  which  England  should  retain 
India,  which,  by  her  inaction,  the  author  believes 
she  is  certain  to  lose  to  Russia.  The  author  appeals 
to  English  statesmen  as  well  as  to  English  people, 
and  can  scarcely  suppress  his  indignation  at  the  gov- 
ernment that  apparently  supinely  allows  Russia  to 
advance,  when  but  a  few  more  steps  will,  in  his 
opinion,  bring  her  so  near  to  India  that  her  progress 
and  conquest  over  that  country  will  be  inevitable. 
As  a  plea  on  one  side  of  the  great  debate,  it  is  meri- 
torious and  convincing.  If  its  influence  shall  be  con- 
siderable among  those  to  whom  it  is  chiefly  addressed, 
and  so  great  that  it  shall  become  known  among  those 
whom  it  specially  attacks,  it  may  be  that  it  will  call 
forth  from  Russian  sources  statements  of  Russia's  po- 
sition, and  the  world  be  better  taught  in  a  great 
question,  which  were  much  better  determined  by  in- 
telligent arbitrament  than  by  the  commoner  resort 
to  the  god  of  battles. 

Briefer  Notice. 

THE  Philistinism  that  gives  the  name  to  the  Rev- 
erend R.  Heber  Newton's  book  of  sermons1  is  mod- 
ern materialistic  scepticism,  and  its  Goliath  is  Inger- 
soll,  whom  the  preacher  calls  "the  blatant  mouth- 
piece of  the  crude  thought  of  the  day."  Yet  these 
sermons  have  drawn  upon  the  Rector  of  All  Souls' 
the  criticism  of  many  well-meaning  people,  both  in 

1  Philistinism.  By  R.  Heber  Newton,  Rector  of  All 
Souls'  P.  E.  Church,  New  York.  New  York:  G.  P.  Put- 
nam's Sons.  188.5,  For  sale  in  San  Francisco  by  Strick- 
land &  Pierson. 


and  out  of  his  communion.  He  expresses  in  the 
preface  a  mild  surprise  that  it  should  have  been  so, 
being  "conscious  of  an  earnestly  constructive  aim." 
It  is  difficult  to  see  how  he  could  have  expected  any 
other  result  from  some  of  his  utterances.  For  in- 
stance: "The  popular  notion  of  the  Trinity  is  un- 
doubtedly utterly  grotesque— a  sort  of  Midsummer 
Night's  Dream  of  a  Divine  Being,  at  once  one  and 
three,  of  whom  no  conceivable  thought  can  be  formed 
better  than  that  which  the  popular  imagination  of 
India  cast  into  the  monstrous  form  of  an  image  with 
three  heads  "  (p.  58).  True,  he  goes  on  to  build  up 
a  new  conception  that  may  be  clothed  in  the  lan- 
guage of  the  received  formulas;  but  the  sentences  that 
cling  in  the  memory  and  make  the  deepest  impres- 
sion are  those  like  the  above.  Mr.  Newton  is  more 
fearless,  more  intellectual,  and  more  liberal  than 
most  of  his  brethren.  He  cares  not  where  his  logic 
leads  him;  he  studies  Huxley  and  Tyndall  and  Spen- 
cer; he  quotes  from  Theodore  Parker,  and  pro- 
nounces him  "the  greatest  American  preacher  of  the 
last  generation."  There  are  two  introductory  ser- 
mons on  historic  Christianity,  in  which  the  results  of 
recent  criticism  are  discussed;  three  on  dogmatic 
theory,  in  which  the  doctrines  of  the  Trinity,  origi- 
nal sin,  election,  atonement,  the  resurrection  of  the 
body,  and  future  punishment  are  developed  in  the 
old  forms  and  in  the  newest  thought  concerning 
them;  and  seven  sermons  on  the  essential  Christian 
faiths.  In  these,  modern  science  is  put  on  the  wit- 
ness stand,  and  made  to  testify  regarding  mind  and 
matter,  design  in  nature,  the  problem  of  pain,  both 
animal  and  human,  Jesus  the  Christ,  and  immortality. 
Spiritualism,  the  mind  cure,  and  other  modern  ideas, 
are  discussed  in  connection  with  these  last  subjects. 
It  will  be  seen  that  Mr.  Newton's  book  is  one  that 
thinking  people  will  like  to  read,  and  it  is  a  book 
that  invites,  almost  demands,  a  second  and  third 
perusal.  That  is  sufficient  praise  for  a  book  of  ser- 
mons.  "  Due  West,"  by  M.  M.  Ballou,  published 

some  time  ago,  was  successful  enough  to  lead  to  the 
publication  of  a  new  book  by  the  same  hand — Due 
South2.  In  the  earlier  book  the  author,  starting 
from  Boston,  contiued  his  westward  course  till  he 
reached  his  home  again.  It  would  be  rather  unrea- 
sonable to  expect  an  attempt  at  the  same  plan  in 
the  present  book;  for  that  would  condemn  the  voy- 
ager to  a  perpetual  home  in  the  Antarctic  regions. 
In  point  of  fact,  Mr.  Ballou's  present  book  deals 
with  Cuba.  Not  having  so  much  ground  to  cover  as 
in  the  former  volume,  the  narrative  is  more  detailed 
and  more  enjoyable.  The  history  of  the  island  is 
briefly  given,  but  the  greater  part  of  the  book  is  filled 
with  description  of  her  present  condition  and  re- 
sources. The  picture  is  painted  from  the  New  Eng- 
land standpoint,  and  does  not  lack  for  dark  shadows 
to  offset  the  high  lights.  Mr.  Ballou  considers  the 

2  Due  South.  By  Maturin  M.  Ballou.  Boston :  Hough- 
on,  Mifflin  &  Co.  1885.  For  sale  in  San  Francisco  by 
C.  Beach. 


560 


Book  Reviews. 


[Nov. 


present  a  crisis  in  Cuban  history.  Despite  the  mer- 
ciless extortion  of  taxes  that  bankrupt  the  natives, 
Cuba  is  an  expense  to  the  crown,  and  thousands  of 
the  soldiery  of  Spain  are  sent  there  every  yeajr  to 
maintain  the  garrison.  Twenty-five  percent,  of  these 
soldiers  die  during  the  first  year.  Spain,  always  in 
financial  and  military  distress,  cannot  endure  the  drain 
much  longer,  and  Mr.  Ballou  predicts  and  justifies 

the  acquisition  of  Cuba  by  the  United  States. 

The  Philosophy  of  Art  in  America)-  is  an  attempt,  ac- 
companied by  many  digressions,  to  prove  the  advisa- 
bility and  even  the  necessity  of  establishing  a  de- 
partment of  Fine  Art  and  Art  Industries  in  the 
Government.  As  a  secondary  object,  the  author 
pleads  for  the  abolition  of  the  duties  on  art  subjects. 
It  cannot  be  said  that  Mr.  De  Muldor  is  successful  in 
his  attempt.  As  regards  his  primary  object,  he  does 
not  even  apprehend  the  objection  of  those  that-  op- 
pose the  paternal  idea  of  government,  but  thinks  it 
sufficient  to  show  that  several  European  nations  have 
such  departments  with  apparently  good  results.  He 
is  under  the  delusion,  too,  that  to  make  his  work 
philosophical  it  must  be  written  in  a  style  so  stilted 
and  involved  that  it  would,  indeed,  take  a  philos- 
opher to  discover  the  meaning  of  the  page-long  sen- 
tences.  No.  I42  of  Geo.  M.  Baker's  series  of  se- 
lections contains  fifty  readings  of  fair  average  merit. 
At  first  it  is  a  little  doubtful  whether  the  claim  of 
entire  novelty  can  be  allowed  to  a  collection  opening 
with  "Virginia  "  from  the  "  Lays  of  Ancient  Rome  "; 
but  on  reading  the  garbled  version  given,  it  is  sufficient 

ly  certain  that  Macaulay  would  not  care  to  own  it. 

Dr.  Benson's  comedy,  Frolicsome  Girls,z  contains  no 
strong  situations,  no  depth  of  plot,  no  telling  hits, 

and  nothing  new  or  attractive. The  translation  by 

Ada  S.  Ballin,  from  the  French  of  Professor  Dar- 
mesteter,  College  of  France,  of  his  book4  on  the 
Mahdi,  will  be  welcome  to  those  who  wish  to  under- 
stand the  Soudan  problem.  The  term  Mahdi,  the 
One  who  is  Led,  is  a  generic  one;  there  have  been 
very  many  of  them  from  a  time  within  fifty  years  of 
the  death  of  Mahomet  till  now.  The  principal 
Mahclis  of  the  past,  and  the  doctrines  and  beliefs 
concerning  the  Mahdi,  form  the  main  part  of  the  pres- 

1  The  Philosophy  of  Art  in  America.     By  Carl   De 
Muldor.     New  York:  William  R.  Jenkins.     1885. 

2  The  Reading  Club.  ,  No.   14.    Edited  by  Geo.  M. 
Baker.     Lee  &  Shepard,  Boston.     For  sale  in  San  Fran- 
cisco by  C.  Beach. 

8  Frolicsome  Girls :  A  Comedy.  By  Dr.  W.  H.  Ben- 
son. New  York:  G.  P.  Putnam's  Sons.  1884. 

4  The  Mahdi.  By  James  Darmesteter.  Harper's 
Handy  Series.  New  York :  Harper  &  Bros.  1885. 


ent  volume.  The  story  of  the  Mahdi  of  '84  is  told 
very  briefly,  and  the  problem  of  keeping  the  Soudan 
open  is  as  briefly  discussed.  The  solution  of  that 
problem  Professor  Darmesteter  finds  in  building  up 
Abyssinia,  a  Christian  power  which  commands  the 
Soudan  from  its  most  vulnerable  quarter.  The  trans- 
lator adds  as  appendices  two  articles;  one,  an  inter- 
esting account  of  the  private  character  of  the  Mahdi, 
with  two  letters  of  his,  and  the  story  of  the  rise  of 
a  rival  Mahdi;  the  other,  a  most  quaint  recital  by 
an  Egyptian  soldier  of  the  events  in  Khartoum  dur- 
ing the  siege. G.  P.  Putnam's  Sons  have  done 

well  in  adding  to  their  Traveler's  Series  a  reprint  of 
Mr.  Clarence  Deming's  letters  to  the  "Evening 
Post,"5  which  they  published  in  more  elaborate  style 
two  years  ago.  These  letters  are  happy  in  the  nov- 
elty of  their  subjects  and  in  the  charm  of  their  style. 
A  re-reading  of  some  of  them  confirms  the  favorable 
opinion  expressed  when  they  first  appeared  in  book 

form. The  Chatauqua  Literary  Society  begins,  as 

it  seems  to  us,  the  department  of  activity  in  which 
it  can  be  most  useful — that  is,  bringing  out,  and  dis- 
tributing through  its  far-reaching  channels,  first-class 
books — by  the  publication  in  a  series,  called  the 
"Garnet  Series,"  of  selected  Readings  from  Ruskin^ 
and  Readings  from  Macaulay1  upon  Italy.  The 
former  has  an  introduction  by  Professor  Beers,  the 
latter  by  Donald  G.  Mitchell.  The  other  two  of  the 
four  volumes  that  make  up  the  series  are  more  or  less 
in  keeping  (one  more  and  the  other  less)  in  subject, 
being  Michel Angela  £tionarotti%  and  Art  and  the  For- 
mation of  Tasted The  Biglow  Papers^  are  the  last 

addition  to  the  Riverside  Aldine  series;  and  it  is  a 
great  deal  to  be  able  to  say  of  any  book-making,  as 
we  must  say  of  this,  that  it  adds  a  new  pleasure  to 
reading  the  Biglow  Papers.  It  was,  of  course,  neces- 
sary to  devote  one  volume  to  the  first  series,  and 
the  other  to  the  second  series;  but  it  makes  a  marked 
discrepancy  in  the  thickness  of  the  two  volumes. 

5  By-ways  of  Nature  and  Life.     By  Clarence  Deming. 
Traveler's  Series.     New  York  :  G.   P.  Putnam's  Son's. 
1885.     For  sale  in  San  Francisco  by  Chilion  Beach. 

6  Readings  from  Ruskin :  Italy.     Boston:  Chatauqua 
Press.     1885. 

7  Readings   from   Macaulay:   Italy.      Boston:    Cha- 
tauqua Press.     1885. 

3  Michel  Angelo  Buonarotti.  By  Charles  C.  Black. 
Boston:  Chatauqua  Press.  1885. 

9  Art  and  the  Formation  of  Taste.  By  Lucy  Crane. 
Boston:  Chatauqua  Press.  1885. 

10  The  Biglo\v  Papers.  By  James  Russell  Lowell.  The 
Riverside  Aldine  Series.  Boston :  Houghton  Mifflin 
&  Co.  1885.  For  sale  in  San  Francisco  by  Chilion 
Beach. 


THE 


OVERLAND  MONTHLY. 


DEVOTED   TO 


THE  DEVELOPMENT  OF  THE   COUNTRY. 


VOL.  VI.  (SECOND  SERIES.)— DECEMBER,   1885.— No.  36. 


THE   LICK   OBSERVATORY.1 


THE  completion  of  the  task  entrusted  to 
the  Lick  Trustees  by  the  provisions  of  Mr. 
Lick's  deed  of  trust  is  now  apparently  near 
at  hand.  This  task  was  to  construct  and  to 
erect  "  a  powerful  telescope,  superior  to  and 
more  powerful  than  any  telescope  ever  yet 
made,  with  all  the  machinery  appertaining 
thereto,  and  appropriately  connected  there- 
with .  .  .  and  also  a  suitable  observatory." 

The  present  Board  of  Trustees  was  ap- 
pointed in  September,  1876,  and  has  there- 
fore had  this  object  continuously  in  view  for 
the  past  nine  years. 

In  the  course  of  this  time  members  of  the 
Board  have  visited  many  of  the  leading  ob- 
servatories of  this  country  and  of  Europe ; 
the  principal  astronomers  of  the  world  have 
been  advised  with  personally  and  by  corres- 
pondence ;  thousands  of  letters  have  been 
written  to  them,  to  architects,  contractors 
and  builders,  and  to  instrument-makers;  and 
every  detail  of  the  construction  and  equip- 

1  The  first  volume  of  the  Publications  of  the  Lick 
Observatory  of  the  University  of  California  is  now  in 
course  of  preparation  under  the  direction  of  the  Lick 
Trustees,  by  Captain  Richard  S.  Floyd  and  Professor 
Holden.  At  the  request  of  the  Editor  of  the  OVER- 
LAND MONTHLY,  Professor  Holden  has  made  an  ab- 
stract of  those  parts  of  it  which  are  of  general  and  pop- 
ular interest,  and  this  is  here  printed  with  additional 
paragraphs. — EDITOR. 


ment  of  a  vast  astronomical  establishment  on 
the  summit  of  a  mountain  four  thousand  feet 
in  height  and  twenty-six  miles  distant  from 
the  nearest  town,  has  been  personally  super- 
intended. It  is  impossible  to  convey  in  a 
few  words  any  adequate  idea  of  the  multi- 
plicity of  separate  interests  which  have  been 
considered — from  those  of  the  practical  as- 
tronomer to  those  of  the  day  laborer — nor 
of  the  distressing  legal  complications  which 
have  arisen,  and  which  are  now  happily  set- 
tled ;  but  it  will  be  interesting  to  those  who 
may  read  the  first  and  the  succeeding  vol- 
umes of  the  publications  of  Mr.  Lick's  Ob- 
servatory, to  remember  the  very  exceptional 
nature  of  the  duties  confided  to  his  Trus- 
tees. 

They  have  been  obliged  to  make  the  sum- 
mit of  Mount  Hamilton  accessible  by  road ; 
to  remove  seventy  thousand  tons  of  rock  in 
order  to  get  mere  standing  room  for  the  in- 
struments ;  to  arrange  a  good  and  sufficient 
water-supply  on  the  top  of  a  barren  moun- 
tain ;  and  to  carry  out  in  the  best  and  most 
economical  way  the  real  object  of  their  trust 
— which  was  to  present  to  the  world  an 
astronomical  observatory  of  the  very  highest 
class,  which  should  be  permanently  useful 
to  science. 


VOL.  VI. — 36.         (Copyright,  1885,  by  OVERLAND  MONTHLY  Co.     All  Rights  Reserved.) 


562 


The  Lick  Observatory. 


[Dec. 


The  difficulties  were  far  from  being  mere- 
ly practical  and  material  in  nature.  At  the 
very  beginning  of  the  work  it  was  a  matter 
for  scientific  determination  whether  the  most 
powerful  telescope  should  be  a  reflector  or  a 
refractor.  The  procuring  of  the  rough  glass 
castings  for  the  object  glass  has  alone  re- 
quired six  years,  and  has  but  just  been  accom- 
plished after  twenty,  unsuccessful  trials,  each 
one  lasting  several  months.  The  plans  of 
the  observatory  buildings  had  to  be  con- 
ceived and  executed  so  as  to  accomplish 
the  ends  in  the  most  efficient  and  at  the 
same  time  in  the  most  economical  manner. 

In  every  one  of  these  tasks,  the  Trustees 
have  been  cordially  aided  by  all  who  have 
been  called  upon.  The  county  of  Santa 
Clara  has  provided  and  now  maintains  a 
magnificent  mountain  road  from  San  Jose 
to  the  summit.  The  State  of  California  has 
assumed  the  charge  of  publishing  the  astro- 
nomical observations  already  made.  The 
United  States  has  liberally  granted  the  site 
for  the  observatory.  Astronomers  all  over 
the  world  have  been  consulted,  and  have 
willingly  given  their  time  and  their  advice. 

The  original  plans  for  the  observatory  were 
fixed  on  in  Washington,  in  1879,  by  Captain 
Floyd,  President  of  the  Trustees,  Mr.  Fraser, 
Superintendent  of  Construction,  and  Pro- 
fessors Newcomb  and  Holden,  of  the  Unit- 
ed States  Naval  Observatory. 

These  plans  have  proved  to  be  entirely 
adequate,  and  have  been  closely  followed. 
Many  other  astronomers  have  been  deeply  in- 
terested in  the  work,  and  have  shown  by  per- 
sonal visits  and  by  correspondence  their  ap- 
preciation of  the  importance  of  the  under- 
taking. Among  these  should  be  especially 
named  the  late  Doctor  Henry  Draper,  of 
New  York ;  Mr.  Burnham,  of  Chicago ; 
Doctor  Johann  Palisa,  of  Vienna ;  Professor 
Krueger,  of  Kiel ;  and  Professor  Auwers,  of 
Berlin. 

It  would  be  of  extreme  interest  if  one  could 
give  a  truly  adequate  view  of  the  character 
of  Mr.  Lick,  and  of  the  motives  which  led 
him  to  dispose  of  his  large  fortune  in  public 
gifts,  and  especially  of  the  motives  which  led 
him  to  found  an  astronomical  observatory. 

Certainly,  no  sufficient  exposition  of  either 


his  character  or  of  his  motives  has  yet  ap- 
peared in  print.  There  is  no  doubt  that  a 
desire  to  be  remembered  by  his  fellow-men 
influenced  him  largely.  He  wished  to  do 
something  which  should  be  important  in  it- 
self, and  which  should  be  done  in  a  way  to 
strike  the  imagination.  He  was  only  re- 
strained from  building  a  marble  pyramid 
larger  than  that  of  Cheops  on  the  shores  of 
San  Francisco  Bay,  by  the  fear  that  in  some 
future  war  the  pyramid  might  perish  in  a 
possible,  bombardment  of  the  place.  The 
observatory  took  the  place  of  the  pyramid. 

The  beauty  of  the  one  was  to  find  a  sub- 
stitute in  the  scientific  use  of  the  other.  The 
instruments  were  to  be  so  large  that  new  and 
striking  discoveries  were  to  follow  inevitably, 
and,  if  possible,  living  beings  on  the  surface 
of  the  moon  were  to  be  descried,  as  a  be- 
ginning. 

It  would,  however,  be  a  gross  error  to  take 
these  wild  imaginings  as  a  complete  index 
of  his  strange  character.  A  very  extensive 
course  of  reading  had  given  him  the  generous 
idea  that  the  future  well-being  of  the  race 
was  the  object  for  a  good  man  to  strive  to 
forward.  Towards  the  end  of  his  life  at 
least,  the  utter  futility  of  his  money  to  give 
any  inner  satisfaction  oppressed  him  more 
and  more.  The  generous  impulses  and  half- 
acknowledged  enthusiasms  of  earlier  days 
began  to  quicken,  and  the  eccentric  and  un- 
symmetrically  developed  mind  gave  strange 
forms  to  these  desires.  If  he  had  lived  to 
carry  out  his  own  plans,  there  is  little  doubt 
that  his  fellow  citizens  would  have  gained 
less  from  his  gifts  than  they  will  now  gain. 
If  his  really  powerful  mind  could  have  re- 
ceived a  symmetric  training,  there  is  no  ques- 
tion but  that  the  present  disposition  of  his 
endowment  would  entirely  satisfy  him. 

He  has  been  most  fortunate  in  having  his 
desires  studied  and  given  an  ultimate  form 
by  successive  sets  of  trustees,  who  had  no 
ends  in  view  but  to  make  this  strangely  ac- 
quired gift  most  useful  to  the  city,  the  State, 
and  the  country.  He  will  be  buried  in  the 
base  of  the  pier  of  the  great  equatorial  on 
Mount  Hamilton,  and  will  have  such  a  tomb 
as  no  old  world  emperor  could  have  com- 
manded or  imagined. 


1885.] 


The  Lick  Observatory. 


563 


MR.  LICK'S  first  deed  of  trust  was  dated 
July  i6th,  1874,  and  provided  for  the  con- 
struction of  his  observatory  at  Lake  Tahoe, 
or  at  some  other  point,  if  this  should  prove 
to  be  unfavorable.  The  first  Board  of  Trus- 
tees ceased  to  hold  office  in  September,  1875, 
and  a  second  board  assumed  its  duties. 

A  further  consideration  of  the  proposed 
site  of  the  observatory  at  Lake  Tahoe  led  to 
the  conclusion  that  whatever  might  be  the 
advantages  of  this  situation,  the  disadvan- 
tages arising  from  the  extremely  severe  win- 
ters would  probably  outweigh  them.  Mr. 
Lick  himself  was  convinced  of  this,  and  was 
advised  to  examine  mountains  further  south. 
During  the  summer  of  1875,  Mr.  Lick  sent 
Mr.  Fraser,  his  agent,  to  report  on  Mount  St. 
Helena,  Monte  Diablo,  Loma  Prieta,  and 
Mount  Hamilton,  with  special  reference  to 
their  accessibility,  and  to  the  convenience  of 
establishing  extensive  buildings  on  their  sum- 
mits. 

Mr.  Eraser's  visit  to  Mount  Hamilton  was 
made  in  August,  1875.  ^n  many  respects, 
this  seemed  to  be  the  best  situated  of  all  the 
mountain  peaks.  Yet  the  possibility  that  a 
complete  astronomical  establishment  might 
one  day  be  planted  on  its  summit  seemed 
more  like  a  fairy  tale  than  like  sober  fact. 
It  was  at  that  time  a  wilderness.  A  few  cat- 
tle ranches  occupied  the  valleys  around  it. 
Its  slopes  were  covered  with  chapparal,  or 
thickets  of  scrub  oak.  Not  even  a  trail  led 
over  it.  The  nearest  house  was  eleven  miles 
away.  There  were  three  sharp  peaks  con- 
nected by  two  saddles  :  the  east  peak  (prop- 
erly northeast  peak),  4,448  feet  high  ;  the 
middle  peak,  4,318  feet;  and  finally  Mount 
Hamilton,  4,302  feet.  The  last  seemed  to 
be  the  most  satisfactory,  but  it  was  obvious 
that  immense  quantities  of  the  hard  grey- 
wacke  rock,  of  which  the  mountain  is  com- 
posed, would  have  to  be  removed  in  order 
to  secure  a  level  platform  for  the  houses  and 
instruments.  In  fact,  over  seventy  thousand 
tons  of  solid  rock  have  been  so  removed,  the 
surface  having  been  lowered  as  much  as 
thirty-two  feet  in  places.  The  expense  of 
constructing  a  practicable  road  to  the  summit 
would  certainly  be  great  (in  fact,  it  has  cost 
about  eighty  thousand  dollars),  and^finally 


the  question  of  water-supply  was  a  serious 
one.  This  latter  difficulty  has  been  sur- 
mounted by  the  discovery  of  springs  300 
feet  below  the  summit  level,  and  only  4,300 
feet  distant  from  the  observatory. 

Mount  Hamilton  presented  immense  ad- 
vantages on  the  score  of  its  nearness  to  San 
Jose",  where  two  railways  meet,  and  especially 
because  it  was  known  that  the  fogs  which 
cover  the  Santa  Clara  Valley  at  nightfall, 
and  which  last  until  the  sun  is  quite  high  the 
next  day,  did  not,  at  least  usually,  extend  to 
the  peak.  On  these  grounds,  chiefly,  Mr. 
Fraser  recommended,  and  Mr.  Lick  practi- 
cally accepted,  Mount  Hamilton  as  the  site 
for  the  future  observatory. 

During  the  summer  of  1876,  the  Trustees 
were  engaged  in  correspondence  with  vari- 
ous astronomers  and  opticians,  and  one  of 
their  number  visited  personally  many  observ- 
atories in  Europe.  In  the  autumn  of  1876, 
the  third  (and  present)  Board  of  Trustees 
was  appointed. 

In  1875,  Mr.  Lick  had  proposed  to  Santa 
Clara  county  to  definitively  place  his  observa- 
tory on  Mount  Hamilton,  if  the  county  would 
construct  a  road  to  the  summit.  This  propo- 
sition was  accepted  in  1875  by  the  super- 
visors and  the  road  was  completed  in  1876. 

No  more  magnificent  mountain  road  exists 
in  the  United  States,  when  all  the  circum- 
stances of  fine  scenery,  excellent  road-bed, 
and  extensive  and  commanding  views  are 
considered. 

The  road  rises  four  thousand  feet  in  twen- 
ty-two miles,  and  the  grade  nowhere  exceeds 
six  and  a  half  feet  in  one  hundred,  or  three 
hundred  and  forty-three  feet  to  the  mile. 
Most  of  the  road  is  materially  less  steep  than 
this. 

The  first  four  miles  (of  the  twenty-six)  is 
a  fine,  nearly  level  avenue,  laid  out  in  a  per- 
fectly straight  line  in  the  Santa  Clara  valley. 
The  ascent  of  the  foot  hills  is  then  com- 
menced, and  the  road  begins  a  series  of  twist- 
ings  and  turnings,  which  are  necessary  in  or- 
der to  keep  the  gradient  low.  Toward  the 
end  of  the  route  the  road  winds  round  and 
round  the  flanks  of  the  mountain  itself  and 
overlooks  one  of  the  most  picturesque  of 
scenes.  The  lovely  valley  of  Santa  Clara 


564 


The  Lick  Observatory. 


[Dec. 


and  the  Santa  Cruz  mountains  to  the  west, 
a  bit  of  the  Pacific  and  the  Bay  of  Monterey 
to  the  southwest,  the  Sierra  Nevada,  with 
countless  ranges  to  the  southeast,  the  San 
Joaquin  valley,  with  the  Sierras  beyond, 
to  the  east,  while  to  the  north  lie  many 
lower  ranges  of  hills,  and  on  the  horizon, 
Lassen's  Butte,  one  hundred  and  seventy-five 
miles  away.  The  Bay  of  San  Francisco  lies 
flat  before  you  like  a  child's  dissecting  map, 
and  beyond  it  is  Mount  Tamalpais,  at  the 
entrance  to  the  Golden  Gate.  Monte  Diablo 
lies  to  the  northeast,  forty-one  miles  distant. 
Mount  St.  Helena  is  not  visible.  Mount 
Hamilton  dominates  all  its  neighbors,  and 
holds  a  singularly  isolated  and  advantageous 
place. 

The  land  for  the  site  (1350  acres)  was 
granted  by  Congress  on  June  7,  1876,  and 
a  purchase  of  191  acres  was  subsequently 
made  by  the  Trustees,  to  enable  them  to 
control  the  access  of  the  reservation. 

Mr.  Lick  died  on  October  i,  1876.  At 
his  death  a  number  of  legal  questions  arose 
which  required  some  years  to  settle.  It  was 
not  until  1879  that  the  financial  affairs  of  the 
trust  were  in  such  a  condition  that  active 
preparations  for  the  observatory  could  be  be- 
gun. 

In  the  summer  of  this  year,  Mr.  Burnham, 
a  most  distinguished  observer  of  double  stars, 
was  asked  by  the  Trustees  to  transport  his 
own  very  perfect  telescope  to  the  summit  of 
Mount  Hamilton,  and  there  to  actually  make 
an  extended  series  of  observations  similar  to 
those  he  was  constantly  making  at  Chicago, 
his  home,  or  at  the  observatories  of  Dart- 
mouth College  and  of  Washington,  where  he 
was  a  frequent  visitor.  In  this  way  a  very 
satisfactory  judgment  of  the  fitness  of  Mount 
Hamilton  for  an  observatory  site  could  behad. 

Mr.  Burnham  spent  the  months  of  August, 
September  and  October  on  the  summit,  in  a 
small  canvas-covered  observatory,  which  was 
perched  on  the  narrow  saddle  of  the  moun- 
tain peak. 

His  report  to  the  Trustees  gives  a  sober 
but  an  enthusiastic  account  of  the  prevailing 
conditions.  Of  sixty  nights,  no  less  than 
forty-two  were  of  the  very  highest  class,  seven 
were  quite  suitable  for  observations,  while 


eleven  were  cloudy  or  foggy.  This  estimate 
of  high  class  nights  does  not  rest  simply  on 
the  observer's  judgment.  He  has  left  an  ex- 
tensive series  of  actual  measures  of  difficult 
double  stars,  and  a  catalogue  of  forty-two 
new  doubles  discovered  by  him  during  this 
short  period.  It  is  to  be  noted  that  in  many 
cases  Mr.  Burnham's  new  double  stars  bear 
peculiar  witness  to  the  excellent  conditions 
of  vision.  He  was  examining  with  his  six- 
inch  telescope  the  stars  which  had  been  de- 
scribed as  double  by  the  elder  Struve,  with 
the  nine-inch  telescope  of  Dorpat.  Struve's 
telescope  collected  two  and  one-fourth  times 
more  light  than  the  other,  and  was  one  and  a 
half  times  more  efficient  in  pure  separating 
power.  Yet  stars  which  Struve  had  cata- 
logued as  double,  were  found  by  Mr.  Burnham 
to  be  triple.  Other  new  stars  of  great  diffi- 
culty were  found. 

Mr.  Burnham  says  :  "  Remembering  that 
these  stars  were  discovered  with  what,  in 
these  days  of  great  refractors,  would  be  con- 
sidered as  a  very  inferior  instrument  in  point 
of  size,  we  may  form  some  conception  of 
what  might  be  done  with  an  instrument  of 
the  power  of  that  at  the  Naval  Observatory 
(twenty-six  inch  aperture),  or  with  the  Pul- 
kowa  glass  (of  thirty  inch  aperture)." 

The  large  telescope  of  the  Lick  Observa- 
tory is  to  have  'an  aperture  of  thirty-six  in- 
ches, and  a  length  of  sixty  feet. 

Another  most  important  point  is  not  spe- 
cially noted  by  Mr.  Burnham.  Not  only  are 
many  nights  of  the  highest  excellence,  but  a 
large  proportion  of  the  remaining  ones  are 
very  suitable  for  work.  There  are  many  as- 
tronomical researches  where  it  is  of  great  im- 
portance that  a  series  of  observations  should 
be  continuous;  and  for  all  such  researches 
Mount  Hamilton  is  an  almost  unrivalled 
site.  This  stay  of  Mr.  Burnham's  was  a  con- 
vincing proof  that  the  site  for  the  future  ob- 
servatory had  been  well  chosen. 

The  Trustees*have  followed  a  wise  policy 
in  inviting  various  astronomers  to  spend 
short  periods  at  Mount  Hamilton,  and  to  ad- 
vise them  upon  the  work  of  construction  and 
equipment.  These  invitations  have  been  so 
timed  as  to  enable  the  visiting  astronomers 
to  render  material  aid  in  the  construction  of 


1885.] 


The  Lick  Observatory. 


565 


the  observatory,  by  setting  up  the  various  in- 
struments in  the  best  manner,  or  so  as  to  per- 
mit these  instruments  to  be  thoroughly  test- 
ed by  actually  making  observations  of  per- 
manent value  by  their  aid.  In  this  way,  the 
Trustees  have  obtained  observations  of  the 
Transit  of  Mercury  (1881)  and  of  the  Tran- 
sit of  Venus  (1883),  in  addition  to  securing 
competent  professional  judgments  on  the 
work  then  completed,  and  valuable  opinions 
on  that  still  remaining  to  be  done. 

The  actual  work  of  construction  was  be- 
gun in  1880,  under  the  personal  supervision 
of  Capt.  R.  S.  Floyd  and  the  superintendent 
of  construction,  Mr.  Fraser.  Their  unceas- 
ing care,  great  practical  knowledge,  and 
ready  comprehension  of  purely  astronomical 
requirements  have  contributed  to  the  excel- 
lence of  the  observatory  in  no  small  degree. 

The  summers  of  1880  and  1881  were 
spent  in  obtaining  a  suitable  platform  for 
the  observatory  buildings,  by  blasting  the 
rock  away  until  a  level  surface  was  obtained 
thirty-two  feet  lower  than  the  original  sum- 
mit. A  sufficient  water  supply  was  obtained 
and  utilized  at  once.  In  later  years  the 
earlier  and  temporary  arrangements  have 
been  replaced  by  permanent  ones. 

All  the  buildings  of  the  observatory  proper 
are  now  completed,  except  the  dome  for  the 
large  equatorial.  A  suitable  dwelling  house 
has  been  erected,  others  will  be  required. 
All  the  principal  instruments  of  the  observ- 
atory but  one  have  been  designed,  ordered, 
constructed,  inspected,  and  are  now  suitably 
mounted  so  that  observations  could  be  at 
once  begun.  Most  of  the  minor  apparatus 
is  also  in  place. 

An  extensive  astronomical  library  is  re- 
quired, which  is  in  course  of  formation.  In 
order  to  do  valuable  and  original  work,  it  is 
necessary  to  know  exactly  what  has  been 
done  by  others.  Hardly  any  gift  to  the 
observatory  would  be  so  useful  as  a  perma- 
nent library  fund. 

The  terms  of  Mr.  Lick's  deed  of  trust 
do  not  allow  the  Lick  Trustees  to  begin 
at  once  to  pay  salaries  to  astronomical  ob- 
servers. Their  duty  is  to  build  and  equip 
an  astronomical  observatory  of  the  most 


perfect  kind,  and  to  transfer  this  to  the 
Regents  of  the  University  of  California,  to- 
gether with  the  unexpended  balance  of  the 
$700,000  originally  given  by  Mr.  Lick.  The 
organization  of  the  astronomical  force  is  en- 
trusted to  the  Regents,  who  appoint  the  di- 
rector of  the  observatory  and  the  various 
astronomers,  and  who  pay  the  salaries  of  the 
latter  from  the  income  of  the  observatory. 
Probably  this  income,  when  it  is  available, 
will  be  sufficient  for  the  purpose.  In  the 
mean  time,  there  are  astronomical  observa- 
tions which  should  be  begun  at  once,  but 
which  cannot  be  unless  the  salaries  of  the 
competent  assistants  can  be  provided  for. 

It  is  of  the  first  importance  to  find  some 
means  of  paying  the  salaries  of  one  or  two 
observers  for  the  years  1886  and  1887,  in 
order  that  the  magnificent  equipment  may 
be  at  once  put  to  its  legitimate  uses.  No 
great  sum  is  required,  but  a  few  thousand 
dollars  at  this  time  would  be  of  real  service. 

In  any  event,  it  will  not  be  very  long 
before  the  observatory  enters  into  activity. 
The  only  questions  yet  remaining  are  the  fab- 
rication of  the  large  object-glass  and  the  prep- 
arations for  its  use.  The  rough  glass  is  now 
in  the  hands  of  the  makers,  Messrs.  Alvan 
Clark  &  Sons.  There  is  no  reason  to  doubt 
their  success  in  an  undertaking  for  which 
they  have  served  a  magnificent  apprentice- 
ship, in  making  the  equatorials  at  Madison, 
Princeton,  Washington,  University  of  Vir- 
ginia and  at  Pulkowa. 

A  dome  of  about  seventy  feet  in  diameter 
and  an  elaborate  mounting  for  the  telescope 
must  be  ready  for  the  objective  when  it 
leaves  the  hands  of  the  makers.  These  con- 
structions must  be  most  carefully  studied, 
but  it  is  certain  that  they  can  be  successfully 
made.  In  a  comparatively  short  time  the 
generous  gift  of  Mr.  Lick  to  his  fellow-citi- 
zens of  California  is  sure  to  bear  fruit. 

The  new  observatory  is  magnificently  built, 
endowed,  and  placed ;  and  it  has  a  field  of 
work  before  it  which  is  in  many  respects 
unique.  Everything  will  depend  upon  the 
faithfulness  of  the  astronomers  who  are 
privileged  to  utilize  these  perfect  instruments 
in  a  perfect  situation. 

Edward  S.  Holden. 


566 


John  McCullough. 


[Dec. 


JOHN  McCULLOUGH. 


PERSONAL  admirers,  friendly  critics,  and 
distinguished  members  of  the  dramatic  pro- 
fession have  paid  their  tribute  to  the  dead 
tragedian,  in  praise  of  his  manly  qualities, 
his  social  nature,  and  his  kindness  of  heart ; 
but  in  noting  the  career  of  the  popular  actor, 
the  great  reason  for  his  success  in  his  pro- 
fession has  been  overlooked.  He  has  been 
spoken  of  as  a  chairmaker,  who,  on  some  al- 
most unremembered  occasion,  appeared  in 
a  small  part  in  a  comedy  played  at  one  of 
the  Philadelphia  theaters  ;  as  a  suddenlypro- 
moted  utility  man,  entrusted  with  the  delivery 
of  a  few  words  in  the  tragedy  of  "Julius 
Caesar."  But  there  must  needs  have  been 
many  months  of  patient  work,  and  of  earnest 
study  of  authors  and  of  the  dramatic  art,  to 
have  enabled  the  hitherto  uncultured  chair- 
maker  to  appear  as  a  leading  tragedian  before 
very  large  audiences  in  nearly  every  city  in 
the  United  States,  and  even  to  win  unstinted 
praise  from  the  London  critics,  who  are 
usually  cynical  when  called  upon  to  admit 
that  an  actor  from  America  is  the  possessor 
of  a  spark  of  dramatic  talent.  In  the  coun- 
try where  Edwin  Forrest  had  been  chilled  by 
cold  reviews  of  his  performances,  McCul- 
lough won  recognition  on  his  merits  as  an 
actor,  and  made  many  warm  friends  among 
the  patrons  of  the  drama.  Dion  Boucicault 
had  predicted  a  great  London  success  for 
his  impersonation  of  Virginius,  and  the  pre- 
diction was  fully  verified. 

John  McCullough  did  not  pose  as  a  stu- 
dent, did  not  wear  a  preoccupied  air  when 
brought  in  contact  with  people  off  the  stage, 
nor  wrinkle  his  brow,  as  if  in  deep  thought; 
he  laid  no  plans  to  be  pointed  out  as  "  one 
of  the  most  diligent  students  in  the  profes- 
sion": and  thus  the  man  who  did  not  act 
when  out  of  the  theater,  who  could  find 
time  to  exchange  salutations  with  his  friends, 
iudulge  in  a  chop  at  a  rotisserie,  or  play  a 
game  of  billiards  at  a  hotel,  was  rated  as  a 
"genial  gentleman  and  a  delightful  compan- 


ion ;  a  pretty  good  actor  in  some  parts  ;  but 
he  doesn't  study — he  will  never  rank  with 
Doleful  Lugubrious  as  a  star."  Occasionally, 
however,  it  would  be  noted  that  the  man 
with  the  unaffected  manner  and  cheerful  dis- 
position had,  in  his  early  career,  always 
"  understudied  "  the  other  parts  in  the  plays 
in  which  he  appeared,  and  that  the  precau- 
tion thus  taken  at  such  great  pains,  had  fre- 
quently made  his  services  available  in  the 
case  of  sudden  illness  of  the  person  whose 
lines  had  been  understudied.  It  is  also  re- 
lated that  on  one  occasion,  when  the  indis- 
position of  the  great  star  necessitated  the 
substitution  of  another  play  or  the  closing  of 
the  theater,  and  subsequent  great  loss  to  the 
manager,  the  warm-blooded  young  actor  vol- 
unteered to  give  a  performance  and  accept 
any  play  that  the  company  had  recently 
played  in,  or  that  the  members  were  most 
familiar  with — and  did  appear  in  one  of  the 
most  difficult  of  the  legitimate  tragedies  that 
evening,  to  the  great  delight  of  those  who 
composed  the  audience.  It  seems  to  have 
never  occurred  to  some  of  the  writers  whose 
utterances  go  to  make  up  public  opinion, 
that  a  man  may  be  a  diligent  student,  and 
yet  have  time  to  mingle  with  the  world  as 
they  themselves  mingle  ;  and  the  fact  has  ap- 
parently been  overlooked  that  John  McCul- 
lough was  earnestly  devoted  to  his  profession 
with  rare  unselfishness,  and  that  too  much 
study  probably  caused  the  breaking  down 
that  resulted  in  his  untimely  death. 

.Long  before  the  time  when  Mr.  Forrest 
engaged  him  as  leading  man,  the  young  actor 
had  eagerly  read  such  works  on  the  drama 
as  were  accessible  to  him ;  and  on  being  en- 
couraged to  make  use  of  the  extensive  library 
collected  by  the  great  tragedian,  the  student 
spent  every  available  minute  of  his  time  in 
devouring  the  contents  of  the  many  valuable 
works  which  had  been  thus  placed  at  his 
command.  Mr.  Forrest  took  frequent  occa- 
sion to  satisfy  himself  that  the  young  actor 


1885.] 


John  McCullough. 


567 


was  profiting  by  his  study,  and  would  fre- 
quently question  him  as  to  his  understand- 
ing of  the  plays  he  had  read,  or  as  to  the 
meaning  of  passages  that  are  regarded  as 
obscure.  In  these  questionings  the  young 
man  frequently  responded  with  whole  pages 
of  the  text  from  memory;  but  mere  repeti- 
tion of  the  words  would  not  suffice  the  tutor ; 
an  answer  was  required  that  would  show  a 
knowledge  of  the  meaning  of  the  author.  It 
was  before  the  time  when  the  phrase  was  in- 
vented that  permits  the  popular  actor  to 
claim  that  he  has  "created  the  character" 
in  the  play  which  has  for  the  time  struck  the 
fancy  of  the  public.  The  tutor  held  that 
the  province  of  the  actor  was  not  only  to 
conscientiously  deliver  the  language  of  the 
playwright,  but  to  faithfully  portray  the  char- 
acter created  by  the  author,  and  this  could 
only  be  accomplished  by  diligent  study  of 
the  whole  play.  As  the  student  turned  over 
the  leaves  of  a  volume  of  Shakespeare,  and 
his  eye  rested  on  the  tragedy  of  "  Hamlet," 
he  inquired  why  that  tragedy  was  no  longer 
included  in  the  list  of  plays  to  be  presented 
in  the  engagements  made  by  the  great  trage- 
dian. This  opportunity  to  test  the  young 
man's  memory  and  understanding  could  not 
be  overlooked  : 

"  Don't  you  know  that  the  Prince  of  Den- 
mark, according  to  popular  idea,  should  be 
played  by  an  actor  of  juvenile  appearance — 
a  stripling  not  yet  of  sufficient  age  to  succeed 
to  the  throne  left  vacant  by  the  death  of  his 
father?  And  yet  the  author  does  not  fur- 
nish the  basis  for  the  popular  idea.  How 
does  Shakespeare  describe  Hamlet  physi- 
cally ?  " 

The  reply  was  instant :  "As  a  man  of 
thirty  years  of  age,  an  athlete,  and  of  full 
habit." 

"  Quote  the  lines  that  warrant  that  descrip- 
tion." 

"  They  are  to  be  found  in  the  fifth  act, 
in  the  scene  with  the  grave-digger;  in  the 
acceptance  of  the  challenge  delivered  by 
young  Osric ;  and  in  the  fencing  scene.  I 
will  read  the  colloquy  between  Hamlet  and 
the  First  Clown,  as  he  is  called  in  the 
volume : 


"  H 'am let. — How  absolute  the  knave  is  !  we  must 
speak  by  the  card,  or  equivocation  will  undo  us.  .  .  . 
How  long  hast  thou  been  a  grave-maker? 

ist  Clown. — Of  all  the  days  'i  the  year,  I  cameto't 
that  day  that  our  last  king  Hamlet  overcame  Fortin- 
bras. 

Hamlet.  —How  long  is  that  since  ? 

ist  Clown. — Cannot  you  tell  that?  every  fool  can 
tell  that.  It  was  the  very  day  that  young  Hamlet 
was  born  ;  he  that  was  mad,  and  sent  into  England. 

Hamlet. — Ay,  marry,  why  was  he  sent  into  Eng- 
land ? 

ist  Clown. — Why,  because  he  was  mad  :  he  shall 
recover  his  wits  there,  or,  if  he  do  not,  it 's  no  great 
matter  there. 

Hamlet. — Why? 

ist  Clown. — 'T  will  not  be  seen  in  him;  there  the 
men  are  as  mad  as  he. 

Hamlet. — How  came  he  mad? 

ist  Clown. — Very  strangely,  they  say. 

Hamlet. —  How  strangely  ? 

ist  Clown. — 'Faith,  e'en  with  losing  his  wits. 

Hamlet.  — Upon  what  ground  ? 

ist  Clown. — Why,  here,  in  Denmark.  I  have  been 
sexton  here,  man  and  boy,  thirty  years. 

ist  Clown. — .  .  .  Here's  a  skull  now  ;  this  skull 
has  lain  in  the  earth  three  and  twenty  years. 

Hamlet. — Whose  was  it? 

isl  Clo~(.un. — -  .  .  .  This  same  skull,  sir,  was  Yor- 
ick's  skull,  the  King's  jester. 

Ham  let.  —This? 

ist  Clown. — E'en  that. 

Hamlet. — Let  me  see.  Alas,  poor  Yorick  ! — I 
knew  him,  Horatio:  a  fellow  of  infinite  jest,  of  most 
excellent  fancy:  he  hath  borne  me  on  his  back  a 
thousand  times.' 

"  After  the  acceptance  of  the  challenge, 
Horatio  expresses  his  fear  that  Hamlet  will 
lose  the  wager  with  Laertes,  and  Hamlet  re- 
plies :  '  I  do  not  think  so  :  since  he  went  in- 
to France  I  have  been  in  constant  practice ; 
I  shall  win  at  the  odds  ! 

"  And  during  the  fencing  bout,  in  the  pres- 
ence of  the  court,  the  Queen  completes  the 
description,  while  expressing  her  fears  at  the 
result : 

"  '  King. — Our  son  shall  win. 
Queen. —  He's  fat  and  scant  of  breath. 

Here,  Hamlet,  take  my  napkin,  rub  thy 
9  brows: 

The  Queen  carouses  to  thy  fortune,  Ham- 
let. 


It,  let  me  wipe  thy  face.'  " 
Many  years  after  his  conversations  with 
Mr.  Forrest,  McCullough  expressed  his  grat- 


568 


John  McCullough. 


[Dec. 


itude  to  his  patron  for  the  benefit  derived 
from  his  association  with  him,  and  even  for 
the  hard  work  that  fell  to  his  lot,  in  relieving 
the  star  of  the  drudgery  of  rehearsal  at  the 
different  theaters  where  he  played.  McCul- 
lough rehearsed  the  part  to  be  taken  by  Mr. 
Forrest,  and  instructed  the  members  of  the 
company  in  the  "  business  "  of  each  scene. 
Even  in  the  play  of  "  The  Gladiator,"  the 
single  manuscript  copy  of  which  was  jeal- 
ously guarded  by  its  owner,  McCullough  was 
able  to  give  the  cues  by  repeating  the 
speeches  of  Spartacus,  which  he  had  memor- 
ized by  hearing  them  delivered  during  the 
play. 

After  accepting  an  engagement  at  Ma- 
guire's  Opera  House,  when  Mr.  Forrest  had 
practically  retired  from  the  stage  because  of  his 
sciatica,  McCullough's  contract  required  him 
to  support  such  actresses  as  Mrs.  Bowers, 
but  he  could  decline  to  support  any  male 
star,  unless  one  of  the  first  magnitude.  In 
the  intervals  occasioned  by  the  appearance  of 
such  performers  as  Dan  Bryant,  McCul- 
lough had  the  privilege  of  making  a  venture 
in  Virginia  City  on  his  own  account,  and  at 
once  captured  the  impulsive  citizens  of  that 
then  prosperous  place.  On  the  day  of  his 
benefit  the  men  about  town  inaugurated  a 
plan  for  insuring  the  greatest  receipts  for  any 
single  performance  ever  given  in  that  place  : 
at  each  cigar-stand  where  tickets  for  the 
benefit  were  on  sale,  a  dozen  men  were  en- 
gaged in  shaking  dice  to  determine  which 
one  of  the  number  should  pay  for  twenty 
tickets  of  admission  ;  and  after  the  tickets 
were  delivered  to  the  winner,  they  would  be 
instantly  destroyed,  and  another  "  shake  " 
entered  upon.  The  benefit  yielded  over 
two  thousand  dollars,  though  the  theater 
would  hold  only  six  hundred.  It  was  not 
the  money  that  gratified  him,  so  much  as  the 
fact  that  he  found  a  community  so  friendly 
that  they  would  tolerate  any  kind  of  perform- 
ance, as  he  expressed  it,  and  he  "  trespassed 
on  their  good  nature  by  appearing  as  Riche- 
lieu." He  continued  :  "  It  has  been  my  am- 
bition for  some  time  past  to  appear  as  the 
Cardinal,  but  I  could  not  have  mustered  up 
courage  to  try  it  with  any  less  friendly  audi- 


ence ;  but  they  have  asked  me   to  play   it 
again  on  my  next  visit !  " 

After  four  presentations  of  the  play,  he 
said  :  "  Now  I  feel  that  I  may  put  the  char- 
acter on  my  list,  but  it  was  an  awful  trial  to 
give  it  for  the  first  time." 

Love  for  his  art  predominated — no  sacri- 
fice was  too  great  where  any  good  could  be 
accomplished  by  surrender  of  rights,  or  dig- 
nity, or  profit.  When  Mrs.  Lander  played  an 
engagement  at  the  Metropolitan  Theater  to 
empty  benches,  she  was  very  much  embit- 
tered against  the  people  of  California  for 
their  lack  of  appreciation.  Mr.  McCullough 
persuaded  her  to  play  two  weeks  at  the  Cal- 
ifornia Theater,  not  only  setting  aside  an  at- 
traction that  was  bringing  in  good  returns, 
but  volunteering  to  take  any  part  in  any  of 
the  plays  in  her  repertoire ;  and  more  than 
that,  he  visited  his  personal  friends,  and 
asked  them  to  attend  the  performances  as  a 
tribute  to  the  great  actress.  McCullough 
appeared  with  her  in  the  plays  "Marie  Antoi- 
nette," "Queen  Elizabeth,"  and  "Marie  Stu- 
art," but  his  courtesy  was  severely  tested 
when  he  was  asked  to  appear  in  "  Masks 
and  Faces"  (the  play  selected  for  her  bene- 
fit). It  was  easy  for  the  beneficiary  to  step 
down  from  her  throne  to  play  the  part  of 
Peg  Woffington,  because  old-time  custom 
had  sanctioned  the  presentation  of  a  comedy 
by  a  tragedienne  on  a  benefit  night ;  but  there 
was  scarcely  anything  to  justify  the  appear- 
ance of  so  ponderous  an  actor  as  McCul- 
lough in  the  part  of  Triplet.  But  the  audi- 
ence accepted  the  performance,  without 
knowing  the  reason  for  the  odd  cast. 

Walter  Montgomery's  appearance  at  the 
Metropolitan  Theater  had  been  equally  un- 
fortunate, and  Mr.  McCullough  gave  him  an 
opening  at  the  California  Theater  at  the  sac- 
rifice of  good  business.  It  was  during  this 
engagement  that  Mr.  Montgomery  made 
his  hit  in  "  Louis  XI."  Before  the  close  of 
the  engagement,  Mr.  McCullough  treated  the 
San  Franciscans  to  another  Shakesperian 
revival — "Julius  Caesar" — with  a  cast  of 
characters  surpassing  any  previous  presenta- 
tion, and  that  will  not  be  equaled  for  many 
years  —  Walter  Montgomery  as  Mark  An- 


1885.] 


A  Suggestion  on  the  Indian  Question. 


tony,  John  McCullough  as  Brutus,  Lawrence 
Barrett  as  Cassius,  Harry  Edwards  as  Julius 
Caesar.  The  characters  were  alternated  on 
four  successive  nights. 

His  modesty  as  to  his  merits  was  remark- 
able. After  playing  Othello  for  the  first 
time,  he,  called  on  a  journalist  whose  duties 
kept  him  late  in  the  office,  and  apologized 
for  his  intrusion. 

"  When  you  are  quite  through  with  your 
work,  I  wish  to  talk  about  my  performance — 
I  saw  you  in  the  audience — and  I  cannot 
rest  until  I  know  whether  I  have  disappoint- 
ed you.  Some  of  the  blemishes  that  I  know 
of  I  can  remedy  at  the  next  performance,  but 
I  want  to  learn  whether  there  are  too  many 
to  justify  me  in  keeping  the  character  on 
my  list." 

He  afterwards  had  the  satisfaction  of  being 
warmly  complimented  by  Walter  Montgom- 


ery and  Edwin  Booth,  as  the  very  best  Othello 
on  the  English-speaking  stage. 

After  the  death  of  Ralston,  his  backer  in 
the  California  Theater,  McCullough  found 
that  $60,000  paid  in  by  him  to  the  bank  had 
not  been  placed  to  his  credit.  Before  pro- 
ducing the  receipts  for  the  payments,  he 
said: 

"If  this  transaction  will  reflect  on  Ralston's 
memory,  I  will  tear  up  the  papers." 

The  matter  was  never  satisfactorily  adjust- 
ed, and  McCullough  found  it  necessary  to 
continue  his  tour  as  a  star,  to  make  money 
enough  to  meet  his  debts.  The  remainder 
of  his  career  is  fresh  before  us — a  series  of 
brilliant  successes,  a  sudden  collapse  of  the 
power  that  had  been  overtaxed,  and  a  bright 
light  dimmed  forever. 

"O,  ruined  piece  of  nature!     This  great  world 
Shall  so  wear  out  to  nought." 


A   SUGGESTION   ON   THE   INDIAN  QUESTION. 


IN  addition  to  the  flood  of  ill-considered 
matter  which  has  been  published  on  the  In- 
dian question,  some  of  it  colored  by  narrow 
prejudice,  and  a  still  greater  portion  by  false 
sentiment,  able  papers  have  been  written  by 
men  of  practical  views  and  of  long  experi- 
ence in  Indian  affairs.  It  is  not  the  object 
of  this  paper  to  criticise  what  has  been  writ- 
ten, or  to  enter  into  any  general  discussion  of 
the  subject,  but  simply  to  call  attention  to 
one  vicious  feature  of  the  policy  hitherto 
pursued,  and  which  seems  likely  to  be  con- 
tinued in  the  future. 

The  actual  number  of  Indians  within  the 
limits  of  the  United  States  is  something  over 
two  hundred  and  sixty  thousand.  This  is  ex- 
clusive of  those  in  Alaska,  but  includes  the 
semi-civilized  tribes,  or  "  Nations"  of  the  In- 
dian Territory,  and  also  about  six  thousand  ne- 
groes, ex-slaves,  and  runaways,  and  their  de- 
scendants, who  have  been  adopted  into  the 
tribes,  and  may  to  all  intents  and  purposes 
be  considered  Indians.  This  number  seems 
insignificant  when  compared  with  our  large 


and  rapidly-increasing  population.  It  is 
only  the  anomalous  civil  status  of  the  In- 
dian, the  obstacles  in  the  way  of  his  civiliza- 
tion, and  the  uneasy  consciousness  that  he 
has  suffered  wrongs  at  our  hands  which  re- 
quire atonement,  that  make  the  problem  a 
perplexing  one. 

With  few  exceptions,  those  who  may  be 
supposed  best  qualified  to  fix  our  Indian 
policy  seem  to  have  arrived  at  the  same  gen- 
eral conclusions.  These  may  be  briefly  stated 
as  follows:  Tribal  relation  should  be  broken 
up  as  far  as  possible.  Land  should  be  al- 
lotted to  the  heads  of  families  in  severally, 
said  land  to  be  exempt  for  a  term  of  years 
from  all  taxation,  sale,  mortgage,  or  judg- 
ment of  any  court.  All  Indian  children 
should  be  educated  (by  Compulsion,  where 
necessary)  in  industrial  and  other  schools. 
In  the  meantime,  government  aid  should  be 
gradually  withdrawn,  as  the  Indian  progresses 
in  his  knowledge  of  agriculture  and  other 
civilized  pursuits,  until  he  becomes  able  to 
stand  alone  and  assume  the  duties  and  priv- 


570 


A  Suggestion  on  the  Indian  Question. 


[Dec. 


ileges  of  an  American  citizen.  Compara- 
tively little  has  as  yet  been  done  toward  car- 
rying out  the  practical  common-sense  policy 
thus  outlined,  though  at  first  glance  it  might 
seem  an  easy  matter  for  a  nation  so  wealthy 
and  powerful  as  ours. 

We  have  shown  as  a  people  an  honest  de- 
sire to  deal  justly  with  our  wards;  but,  in 
spite  of  our  good  intentions,  vacillation,  un- 
certainty, and  too  often  injustice,  still  mark 
the  course  of  our  Indian  policy. 

The  reasons  for  this  may  be  found  in  fre- 
quently changing  administrations  and  con- 
gresses, party  exigencies,  and,  above  all,  pri- 
vate and  local  interests,  intrigues,  and  preju- 
dices. Cattlemen  and  others  on  the  skirts 
of  almost  every  reservation  anxiously  await 
the  time  when  the  reservation  will  be  thrown 
open  for  settlement,  or  greatly  reduced  in 
size,  and  to  accomplish  this  object  bring  to 
bear  every  engine  known  to  our  politics. 

The  prevailing  sentiment  in  the  vicinity  of 
an  Indian  reservation  is,  that  "  It  is  a  shame 
for  the  Indians  to  have  such  a  fine  body  of 
land,"  and  that  they  "  ought  to  be  removed," 
no  matter  where  to,  so  that  they  are  removed. 
The  daily  view  of  large  bodies  of  unoccupied 
land,  near  the  railroads  and  towns  it  may  be, 
produces  a  feeling  of  irritation  in  the  white 
man,  and,  aided  by  a  touch  of  race  preju- 
dice, would  of  itself  cause  him  finally  to 
hate  the  Indian,  who  is  innocent  of  the  abuse, 
if  there  be  one,  and  is  simply  living  where 
he  has  been  placed  by  the  government.  Set- 
tlers from  the  East,  even  Christians,  and  those 
of  high  intelligence,  who  have  always  re- 
garded the  Indian  (at  a  distance)  with  kind- 
ness, soon  fall  in  with  the  prevailing  senti- 
ment. The  settler  knows  that  missionaries 
have  been  among  the  Indians  for  many  years, 
yet  he  sees  them  passing  to  and  fro  in  sav- 
age garb,  ignorant,  idle,  filthy,  and,  as  he 
soon  comes  to  view  it,  paupers  upon  the 
bounty  of  the  government ;  and  the  feeling 
of  rather  benevolent  curiosity  with  which  he 
at  first  regarded  him  is  changed  to  disgust. 
Near  the  larger  reservations,  also,  even  at  the 
present  day,  a  sense  of  constant  insecurity 
fills  the  very  air,  which  can  only  be  under- 
stood by  those  who  have  felt  it.  The  settler 
witnesses  the  frantic  orgies  of  the  Indian, 


listens  to  the  weird  music  of  his  midnight 
incantations,  and  remembers  the  tales  of  In- 
dian massacres  which  fill  so  many  pages  of 
our  history.  He  soon  looks  upon  the  In- 
dian as  an  uncanny  and  dangerous  creature, 
possessing  few  human  attributes  ;  and  be- 
comes as  unscrupulous  as  any  "  old-timer  " 
as  to  the  means  for  getting  rid  of  him.  Let 
an  "  Indian  scare  "  arise,  and  the  thin  veneer 
of  civilization  gives  way.  He  becomes  as 
savage  as  any  Indian.  No  other  hatred  is 
so  bitter  and  unreasoning  as  that  prompted 
by  fear.  It  is  no  use  to  tell  the  settler  that 
the  Indian  will  remain  peaceable  if  justly 
treated,  for  he  ^knows  that  injustice  is  very 
likely  to  be  committed,  and  hates  the  Indian 
in  anticipation  of  the  revenge  he  fears.  If 
his  family  is  to  be  slain,  it  will  console  him 
not  a  whit  that  they  have  fallen  as  an  expia- 
tory sacrifice  for  the  sins  of  his  own  race. 
He  prefers,  at  any  sacrifice  of  justice  or  sol- 
emn obligations,  to  have  the  Indian  removed 
at  once. 

It  would  be  asking  too  much  of  human 
nature  to  expect  just  views  on  the-  Indian 
question  from  settlers  in  the  vicinity  of  res- 
ervations ;  yet,  in  the  long  run,  they  have 
more  influence  than  any  other  class  in  the 
decision  of  questions  pertaining  to  the  re- 
moval or  location  of  Indians. 

There  are  but  two  possible  final  solutions 
of  the  Indian  question.  The  Indians  may 
be  exterminated  by  war,  famine,  whisky,  and 
disease,  or  they  may  undergo  the  euthanasy 
of  merging  into  and  being  absorbed  by  the 
"superior  race."  At  one  time  the  former 
solution  seemed  the  more  probable  one.  It 
was  a  generally  accepted  theory  that  the  race 
was  inherently  incapable  of  civilization,  and 
was  doomed  by  some  mysterious  law  to 
wither  away  and  become  extinct  when  placed 
in  contact  with  the  white  race.  This  theory 
is  not  entirely  abandoned  yet,  and  the  story 
is  still  told  and  believed  by  some,  that  no 
matter  what  degree  of  education  and  train- 
ing may  be  bestowed  upon  an  Indian,  he 
will,  sooner  or  later,  resume  his  blanket  and 
breech-clout.  The  uniform  testimony,  how- 
ever, of  the  unselfish  men  who  have  devoted 
their  lives  to  the  spiritual  and  material  up- 
lifting of  the  Indian,  refutes  the  revolting 


1885.] 


A  Suggestion  on  the  Indian  Question. 


571 


belief  that  the  failures  of  the  past  are  due  to 
any  fatal  defect  in  the  character  of  the  In- 
dian ;  while  the  results  attained  in  some  in- 
stances during  recent  years  justify  the  hope 
that  with  judicious  management  the  Indians 
still  remaining  may  yet  become  homogene- 
ous members  of  our  body  social  and  politic. 
Looking  back  over  the  last  decade,  it  will  be 
seen  that  many  tribes  have  made  decided  ad- 
vancement. Let  us  not  forget,  in  the  pride 
of  our  strength  and  knowledge,  that  it  has  re- 
quired many  hundreds,  perhaps  many  thous- 
ands, of  years  for  us  to  struggle  up  to  the 
plane  (not  such  a  lofty  one  as  could  be  de- 
sired) which  we  now  occupy. 

If  we  may  trust  the  figures  of  the  Indian 
Bureau,  the  Indians  are  at  present  slowly 
increasing  in  numbers,  the  decrease  in  cer- 
tain tribes  being  rather  more  than  compen- 
sated for  by  the  increase  in  others.  The 
complete  change  of  diet  and  habits  which 
they  are  obliged  to  undergo  during  the  civil- 
izing process  is  fatal  to  many,  but  as  the  In- 
dian becomes  accustomed  to  his  new  modes 
of  life,  the  natural  laws  of  increase  again  as- 
sert themselves.  The  final  absorption  of  the 
Indian  by  the  white  race  is  inevitable;  is, 
from  every  point  of  view,  desirable  for  both 
races ;  and  anything  which  delays  the  final 
result  is  to  that  extent  mischievous  and  ex- 
pensive. There  will'  be  an  Indian  problem 
so  long  as  any  considerable  numbers  of  In- 
dians live  together  on  a  reservation  or  other 
body  of  land  (whether  owned  in  severalty  or 
otherwise)  constituting  a  separate  class,  with 
special  interests  differing  from  and  sometimes 
incompatible  with  those  of  the  people  around 
them.  The  policy  of  gathering  the  Indians 
together  in  large  numbers  on  extensive  reser- 
vations, has  been  a  most  pernicious  one.  It 
isolates  them  to  a  great  extent  from  civilizing 
examples  and  influences,  and  has  the  direct 
effect  of  fostering  their  pride  of  race,  keeping 
alive  their  traditions  of  ancient  glory,  and 
allowing  full  scope  to  the  practice  of  savage 
rites  and  customs.  The  expiring  embers  of 
savagery  and  heathenism  should  be  scattered, 
not  heaped  together. 

The  work  of  civilizing  a  large  mass  of  sav- 
ages by  means  of  the  small  handful  of  leaven 
contained  in  an  agency  and  mission  station 


is  painfully  slow.  This  is  the  case,  no  mat- 
ter how  able  and  earnest  the  agent  may  be. 
The  Indian  agent  is  the  popular  scapegoat 
for  all  our  sins  and  shortcomings  toward  the 
Indian.  Much  of  this  denunciation  is  un- 
just, for  some  agents  labor  zealously  and 
intelligently,  in  the  face  of  obstacles  and  trials 
which  must  be  seen  to  be  appreciated.  Many 
of  them,  however,  are  selected  for  reasons 
other  than  fitness,  and  .although  their  tenure 
of  office  is  nominally  for  four  years,  they 
practically  have  no  fixed  tenure  whatever, 
and  the  most  efficient  and  honest  agent  is 
sooner  or  later  removed.  Under  these  cir- 
cumstances, a  majority,  perhaps,  of  the  agents, 
even  if  fairly  honest  as  agents  go,  perform 
their  duties  in  a  merely  perfunctory  manner. 

The  education  of  Indian  children  at  Car- 
lisle, Hampton,  and  other  schools  in  the 
East,  is  in  the  right  direction,  and  ought  to 
be  undertaken  much  more  extensively  than 
it  is.  The  farther  such  schools  are  removed 
from  the  tribes  to  which  the  pupils  belong, 
the  better  for  obvious  reasons.  The  good 
effect  of  such  education,  however,  is  in  great 
measure  counteracted  by  returning  the  chil- 
dren so  educated  to  a  large  reservation,  where 
they  will  be  deprived  of  all  civilized  example 
and  support,  except  such  as  may  be  found 
among  the  agency  employes. 

The  true  policy  is  to  segregate  and  isolate 
the  small  tribes  from  each  other  as  far  as 
possible,  instead  of  herding  them  together. 
It  is  probably  impracticable  to  undo  what 
has  been  done  in  this  respect,  but  our  west- 
ern States  and  Territories  are  still  dotted  with 
comparatively  small  reservations  occupied  by 
Indians  too  few  in  number  to  excite  the  se- 
rious apprehensions  of  their  white  neighbors. 
If  these  reservations  are  too  large,  let  the 
surplus  land  be  sold,  with  due  precautions 
against  the  schemes  of  land-grabbers,  whose 
plans  are  always  laid;  and  the  remainder 
(under  proper  restrictions)  be  allotted  to  the 
Indians  in  severalty:  but  it  would  neither 
be  wise  nor  just  to  break  up  these  smaller 
reservations  and  concentrate  the  Indians  on 
larger  ones,  as  seems  likely  to  be  done,  in 
the  supposed  interest  of  economy.  The  In- 
dians on  these  smaller  reservations  have,  in 
nearly  every  instance,  already  made  consid- 


572 


A  Suggestion  on  the  Indian  Question. 


[Dec. 


erable  advancement  in  civilized  modes  of 
life.  Owing  to  their  small  numbers,  and  the 
close  proximity  around  them  of  the  whites, 
they  are  constantly  exposed  to  civilizing  in- 
fluences of  every  kind.  Their  children  learn 
to  speak  our  language,  in  some  instances  at- 
tend the  same  schools  with  white  children, 
and  the  traditions  of  their  race  are  constantly 
weakened  in  a  thousand  ways.  With  judi- 
cious encouragement,  the  assistance  of  the 
government  may  be  gradually  withdrawn  ; 
they  will  rapidly  merge  into  the  population 
around  them,  and  their  existence  as  a  sepa- 
rate race  will  soon  be  only  a  fading  tradition. 
Some  of  the  removals  carried  out  in  pursu- 
ance of  the  policy  of  concentration  have 
been  with  the  consent  of  the  Indians,  partic- 
ularly that  class  who  cling  most  tenaciously 
to  their  savage  mode  of  life,  and  who  resist 
most  strenuously  all  efforts  to  civilize  them. 
They  prefer  to  live  on  a  large  and  populous 
Indian  reservation,  as  far  as  possible  from  the 
sight  of  white  people.  Almost  without  ex- 
ception, those  who  realize  that  the  old  order 
of  things  is  passing  away,  who  manfully  ac- 
cept the  inevitable,  and  are  doing  what  they 
can  to  adapt  themselves  to  new  and  higher 
conditions,  are  strongly,  sometimes  agoniz- 
ingly, opposed  to  these  removals.  The  most 
pathetic  chapters  of  Indian  history  are  those 
that  relate  to  the  uprooting  of  Indian  com- 
munities which  had  painfully  acquired  the 
first  rudiments  of  civilization,  and  their  re- 
moval, in  spite  of  tears  and  protests,  to  some 
strange  and  perhaps  unhealthy  locality,  there 
to  recommence  under  new  and  unfamiliar 
conditions,  and  in  the  face  of  opposition 
from  still  savage  tribes — for  the  Indian  who 
is  not  yet  ready  to  accept  civilization  for 
himself  always  opposes  covertly  or  openly 
every  attempt  at  advancement  by  members 
of  his  race.  Instances  of  such  removals  will 
readily  occur  to  all  who  are  familiar  with 
the  history  of  our  dealings  with  the  Indians. 
The  remembrance  of  these  things  rankles 
keenly  in  the  breast  of  the  Indian,  and,  in 
many  cases,  greatly  discourages  him  in  his 
efforts  to  improve  his  land,  and  to  acquire 
property.  It  cannot  be  otherwise,  when  it 
is  remembered  that  by  a  simple  executive 
order  he  may  be  required  to  abandon  his 


improvements  and  move  on.  In  recent  years 
compensation  has  generally,  perhaps  always, 
been  offered  for  the  property  abandoned, 
but  the  wound  is  one  that  cannot  be  healed 
by  dollars  and  cents. 

A  committee  of  distinguished  gentlemen 
have  recently  been  visiting  our  Indian  reser- 
vations, with  a  view  to  ascertaining  their  con- 
dition and  necessities,  and  recommending  to 
our  next  Congress  such  legislation  as  they 
may  judge  wise.  If  these  gentlemen  are 
correctly  reported  by  interviewers,  it  is  their 
intention  to  recommend  that  "  most  of  the 
smaller  reservations  be  abandoned,  and  the 
Indians  removed  to  some  of  the  larger  reser- 
vations." However  this  may  be,  should  the 
policy  of  the  past  few  years  be  continued, 
we  may  expect  before  many  years  to  see  three 
or  four  new  Indian  Territories,  the  effect  of 
which  will  simply  be  to  prolong  the  existence 
of  the  Indians  as  a  separate  race  for  a  few 
generations  longer  than  would  otherwise  be 
the  case,  and  thus  to  hand  down  to  our  pos- 
terity a  problem  which,  whatever  new  phases 
it  may  assume,  will  be  an  annoying  one. 
The  policy  of  concentration  delays  instead 
of  hastening  the  final  solution  of  this  ques- 
tion, and  is  therefore  a  vicious  one,  though 
an  immediate  economy  might  obviously  be 
effected  by  reducing  the  present  number  of 
Agencies,  about  seventy,  to  seven,  thereby 
rendering  unnecessary  a  large  number  of 
employe's  now  in  the  Indian  service.  The 
saving  in  land  would  be  inconsiderable,  as 
the  surplus  land  ought  to  be  thrown  open  to 
settlers  in  any  event,  and  doubtless  will  be 
disposed  of  in  some  way  before  very  long. 
While  unnecessary  expenditure  should  be 
guarded  against  in  all  branches  of  the  gov- 
ernment service,  there  is  danger  in  questions 
of  this  kind,  that  ideas  of  economy  may  be 
carried  so  far  as  to  blind  the  vision  to  far 
weightier  and  higher  considerations.  While 
practicing  a  wise  economy,  and  generously 
dispensing  our  broad  domain  (inherited  from 
the  Indian)  to  the  oppressed  -peasantry  of 
Europe  who  seek  our  shores,  let  us  also 
deal  generously,  justly,  and  mercifully  toward 
the  remnants  of  a  proud  and  sensitive  race 
who  have  suffered  unspeakable  wrongs  at 
our  hands. 

E.  L.  Huggins. 


1885.] 


"The  Wyoming  Anti- Chinese  Riot." — Another  View, 


573 


"THE  WYOMING  ANTI-CHINESE  RIOT."— ANOTHER  VIEW. 


A  FEW  years  before  the  war  which  resulted 
in  Emancipation,  a  murder  occurred  in  an 
Eastern  county  seat.  The  hostler  in  a  hotel 
stable  was  a  drunkard  and  unreliable.  The 
landlord  dismissed  him,  and  employed  a  so- 
ber and  honest  colored  man.  The  dismissed 
white  man,  carrying  out  his  threat,  borrowed 
a  gun,  went  to  the  stable,  and  shot  the  col- 
ored man,  who  died  instantly.  The  mur- 
derer was  arrested,  and  lodged  in  jail.  Many 
of  the  people  said  :  "  Served  him  right.  It 
was  only  a  nigger.  He  had  no  right  to  un- 
derbid or  supplant  a  white  man.  The  land- 
lord had  no  right  to  give  preference  to  one 
of  another  race."  The  murderer  was  tried, 
and  found  guilty  of  manslaughter,  or  of  mur- 
der in  the  second  degree,  and  sent  to  prison. 
The  people  soon  petitioned  for  his  pardon 
or  for  commutation,  and  ere  long  the  man 
was  at  large. 

At  that  time  most  of  the  people  of  color 
were  slaves.  The  free  were  shut  out  from 
the  public  schools,  and  they  were  not  per- 
mitted to  exercise  the  elective  franchise.  In 
almost  every  way  they  were  an  ostracized 
people.  They  were  not  of  "  the  Caucasian 
race."  Then  "  on  the  side  of  their  oppres- 
sors, there  was  power " ;  and  even  the  su- 
preme Federal  judge  declared  that  "  colored 
men  had  no  rights  that  white  men  were  bound 
to  respect." 

Everybody  has  heard  that  "history  re- 
peats itself."  The  Eastern  senators  and  other 
friends  of  humanity,  against  whose  opinions 
the  able  article  of  A.  A.  Sargent  in  the  last 
OVERLAND  is  intended  as  a  defense  of  the 
California  sentiment  on  the  Chinese  ques- 
tion, were  always  opposed  to  the  then  popu- 
lar sentiment  in  our  country  that  justified 
slavery  or  apologized  for  the  wrongs  done 
to  the  people  of  color.  Right  on  the  ques- 
tion of  human  freedom  then,  when  millions 
were  arrayed  with  the  slave-holder  against 
the  oppressed,  these  same  Eastern  senators 
and  people  are  now  on  the  side  of  the 


wronged  Chinese,  and  opposed  to  Senator 
Sargent's  theories.  Thus  far,  the  presum'p- 
tion  is  in  their  favor. 

From  the  well-known  character  of  the  ex- 
senator,  and  from  the  high  positions  he  has 
filled  so  honorably,  we  should  have  expected 
that  after  the  infamous  massacre  of  so  many 
unoffending  men  at  Rock  Springs,  he  would 
use  his  vigorous  pen  in  rebuke  of  the  spirit 
that  led  to  the  slaughter  of  unarmed  and  al- 
most friendless  foreigners — in  rebuke  of  the 
murderers,  and  to  prevent  similar  riot  and 
bloodshed  elsewhere.  But  we  are  disap- 
pointed. The  main  tenor  of  his  article  is 
rather  to  apologize  for  feelings  that  led  to  the 
riot,  than  to  rebuke  the  bloody  rioters.  And 
like  nearly  all  that  is  written  in  California 
against  anti-Chinese  riots,  or  any  wrongs 
done  to  the  Chinese,  the  violence  is  depre- 
cated mostly  because  it  does  harm  to  our 
anti-Chinese  cause,  and  strengthens  the  East- 
ern opposition  to  our  restriction  law,  rather 
than  because  of  wrongs  done  to  humanity, 
or  of  the  infamy  which  attaches  itself  to  our 
commonwealth,  when  wholesale  murder  goes 
unrebuked.  Is  it  not  to  be  feared  that  the 
public  heart  may  be  or  may  become  so  cal- 
lous as  to  be  insensible  to  the  wrongs  done 
to  a  weak  and  despised  people  ?  Some  of 
us  have  not  forgotten  that  before  emancipa- 
tion, and  before  the  ballot  was  given  to  the 
people  of  color,  they  were  the  victims  of  all 
manner  of  wrongs  and  violence  against  which 
they  had  no  redress.  Then  there  was  a  sad 
truth  in  the  words  of  the  wise  man  :  "  I  con- 
sidered all  the  oppressions  that  are  done  un- 
der the  sun  :  and  beheld  the  tears  of  such  as 
were  oppressed,  and  they  had  no  comforter; 
and  on  the  side  of  their  oppressors  there  was 
power;  but  they  had  no  comforter."  And 
it  may  be  that  even  in  a  Christian  republic, 
the  memorable  words : 

"  Right  forever  on  the  scaffold, 
Wrong  forever  on  the  throne," 

have  not  lost  their  significance. 


574 


"The  Wyoming  Anti-Chinese  Riot." — Another  View. 


[Dec. 


But  this  Chinese  question  is  not  to  be  set- 
tled by  articles,  however  able,  in  the  maga- 
zines. Nor  should  it  be  viewed  only  from 
the  standpoint  of  the  California  workshop. 
It  involves  the  interests  of  humanity,  and 
rises  high  above  all  local  questions  of  labor 
and  capital.  Nor  is  it  a  question  of  today 
only,  but  it  involves  interests  as  future  as  the 
ages.  We  should  look  at  it  from  other  and 
better  standpoints,  and  not  shrink  from  the 
investigation.  But  before  doing  this  directly, 
it  is  due  to  the  excellent  article  under  review 
that  some  of  its  doubtful  positions  have  re- 
spectful notice.  It  must  be  brief. 

"  The  presence  of  Chinese  in  the  work- 
shops, in  the  mines,  in  all  agricultural  pur- 
suits, leads  to  more  or  less  frequent  riots,  in 
which  they  are  killed  or  their  houses  burned, 
and  is  a  reason  why  they  should  not  be  al- 
lowed to  come  in  numbers." 

Their  presence  in  those  places  may  be  the 
occasion  of  the  riots ;  it  is  not  the  cause, 
This  lies  in  the  unwillingness  of  the  rioters 
to  permit  other  laborers  to  work  where  they 
are  wanted,  and  where  they  have  a  right  to 
work  if  they  can  find  a  lawful  employer. 
The  logic  of  the  senator  is  lame.  It  de- 
prives unoffending  people  on  the  other  side 
of  the  Pacific  of  the  exercise  of  their  natural 
rights,  because  outlaw  rioters  massacre  the 
unoffending  on  this  side.  The  unwillingness 
of  the  colonists  to  pay  taxes  without  repre- 
sentation was  not  the  cause  of  the  war  of  the 
Revolution.  The  cause  was  the  oppression 
of  the  British  government — the  wrong  done 
to  the  people  who  knew  their  rights.  The 
Chinese  are  not  blameworthy  in  seeking  em- 
ployment and  giving  labor  for  wages  voluntari- 
ly offered.  The  wrong  is  done  by  the  rioters, 
who  forcibly  interfere  with  industrious  and 
honest  men  exercising  their  God-given  rights. 
Government  should  stop  the  riot  and  punish 
the  rioters,  the  wrong-doers,  and  not  do  injus- 
tice to  the  innocent. 

"The  Caucasian  race  will  not  allow  itself 
to  be  expelled  from  this  country,  or  totally 
impoverished,  without  a  bloody  struggle  to 
prevent  it.  If  the  law  does  not  measure  the 
difficulty  and  obviate  it,  the  laboring  masses 
will."  Our  senator  says  this  is  not  a  threat, 


only  a  prophecy.  Can  the  wish  be  the  father 
to  the  prophecy?  By  just  such  sentiments, 
expressed  by  senators  and  others,  and  echo- 
ed by  the  secular  press  so  freely,  rioters  and 
murderers  are  incensed.  With  such  ex- 
pressed sentiments  by  men  of  influence  as 
a  wall  of  protection  behind,  the  Kearneys 
and  O'Donnells  are  emboldened  in  their 
incendiary  harangues. 

Says  the  senator  :  "  The  alternative  "  (of 
riot,  because  of  their  presence)  "  is  exclusion 
by  law."  Before  this  a  consideration  arises 
— have  we  a  right  to  exclude  by  law  ?  And 
the  assumed  right  includes  power  to  enforce 
the  law.  And  this  power  exercised  leads  to 
violence  and  injustice  to  the  weak  and  un- 
offending. But  whence  is  the  right  derived  ? 
Not  from  the  consent  of  the  excluded,  who, 
as  men — as  children  of  a  common  Creator 
and  Father — have  the  natural  right  to  seek 
labor  and  bread  wherever  they  choose  to  go, 
provided  always  they  do  not  trespass  upon 
the  rights  of  others.  Not  from  the  consent 
of  the  government  from  which  the  immi- 
grants come,  for  the  government  has  not  the 
right  to  grant  power  to  others  to  prevent  its 
own  people  from  exercising  their  own  inhe- 
rent and  inalienable  rights.  Not  from  the 
divine  Author  of  all  rights,  for  he  is  no  re- 
specter of  persons ;  and  geographical  or 
political  lines  are  of  no  consequence  to  the 
all  merciful  Father. 

But  we  must  distinguish  between  the  Chi- 
nese on  the  two  sides  of  the  Pacific.  "  Right 
comes  by  occupation,"  says  Mr.  Sargent. 
Therefore,  he  argues,  those  already  here  have 
the  right  to  remain,  and  we  must  not  exclude 
them  ;  only  keep  out  those  not  yet  in.  But 
a  restriction  law,  or  any  statute,  does  not 
give  rights.  Governmental  laws  only  declare 
what  is  right.  If  the  Chinese  had  no  right 
to  come,  they  have  no  right  to  stay.  If  they 
have  the  right  to  remain,  they  had  the  right 
to  immigrate.  And  if  these  had  the  right  to 
immigrate,  others  yet  in  China  have  a  similar 
right.  For  the  right  of  expatriation  is  not 
derived  from  the  government  left,  nor  is 
the  right  of  immigration  derived  from  the 
government  of  the  country  entered.  Both 
are  inalienable,  inherent  in  man.  God,  the 


1885.] 


The  Wyoming  Anti-Chinese  Riot." — Another  View. 


575 


Creator,  who  bestows  this  right  upon  his 
creatures — the  right  to  choose  their  own 
place  of  abode— in  that  bestowal  knows  no 
political  lines.  "Right  comes  by  occu- 
pancy ?  "  The  assumption  is  a  fallacy.  Then 
would  the  thief  have  a  just  claim  upon  the 
horse  he  has  mounted  !  Then  had  the  mas- 
ter a  right  to  the  possessed  slave  bought  with 
his  money,  and  to  which  purchase  the  en- 
slaved had  given  his  consent  !  Then  the 
man  who  had  taken  his  neighbor's  wife  as  his 
own  is  her  lawful  owner,  if  her  former  hus- 
band and  she  consent  to  the  new  husband  ! 
No  !  Right  comes  not  by  occupancy.  Nev- 
ertheless it  is  true,  as  our  good  senator  prob- 
ably holds,  that  as  the  Chinese  now  here 
came  by  our  legal  consent,  we  should  not 
drive  them  out.  This  is  far  more  generous 
and  honorable  than  the  doctrine  and  deter- 
mination of  the  old  sandlot,  "The  Chinese 
must  go."  But  the  fallacy  lies  in  the  false 
assumption  that  the  right  to  come  or  go — 
the  right  of  expatriation  or  of  immigration 
— is  derived  from  government.  If  Senator 
Sargent  should  wish  to  travel  or  live  in  Ger- 
many, or  Italy,  or  China,  to  compel  him  to 
ask  permission  of  any  government,  or  to 
forcibly  prevent  him  from  so  traveling  or 
living,  would  be  a  gross  act  of  injustice  to 
him.  No  right  is  more  inherent  or  more 
claimed  by  the  lover  of  liberty,  than  that  of 
locomotion  and  of  choosing  his  own  place 
of  residence.  And  right  is  of  no  color  or 
race. 

In  the  article  under  review,  two  things  are 
everywhere  assumed — that  because  of  "  the 
incompatibility  of  the  two  races,"  the  indi- 
viduals of  the  foreign  race  must  be  excluded 
perforce  ;  and  that  Eastern  people,  such  as 
Senator  Hoar  and  Henry  Ward  Beecher,  de- 
sire the  wholesale  influx  of  Mongolians. 

The  incompatibility  of  the  two  races  is  un- 
deniable. They  are  very  dissimilar.  In  the 
present  state  of  society  and  in  the  condition 
of  both  races,  they  are  not  likely  to  assimi- 
late. They  should  not.  And  yet  time  and 
Christianity  are  great  levelers.  The  people 
of  the  two  nations  are  very  wide  apart,  not 
because  they  are  of  different  races,  but  be- 
cause of  the  great  difference  in  their  civiliza- 


tions and  their  religions.  The  present  great 
incompatibility  might  almost  disappear,  under 
favorable  circumstances,  if  the  pagan  race 
were  thoroughly  molded  by  Christian  influ- 
ences and  Christian  graces.  Besides,  the 
incompatibility  of  some  of  the  classes  of  our 
own  race  in  the  United  States  is  almost  as 
great.  What  concord,  what  association,  is 
there  between  Italians  in  Boston  and  the  Pu- 
ritans of  that  city  ?  What  affiliation  is  there 
in  San  Francisco  between  the  Portuguese 
and  New  Englanders  or  native  Americans  ? 
Even  between  Irish,  or  French,  or  Spanish 
Catholics  or  American  Protestants  there  is  al- 
most no  affiliation.  It  is  not  because  either 
is  in  the  fault;  but  the  religions,  or  the  lan- 
guage, or  the  national  customs,  of  the  two 
are  so  different.  The  incompatibility  is  so 
great  we  cannot  expect  association.  Does 
it  follow  that  we  American-born  citizens  may 
enact  restriction  laws,  and  close  our  ports 
against  the  people  of  any  land — pagan,  Jew, 
Catholic,  or  freethinker  ?  If  serious  evils  are 
occasioned  by  the  excessive  influx  of  foreign- 
ers from  either  Europe  or  Asia,  let  those  evils 
be  met,  resisted  and  overcome  by  the  intel- 
ligence and  religion  of  the  people  of  a  Protes- 
tant nation.  The  first,  the  most  essential 
thing  is,  to  do  right.  Doing  this,  we  may  ex- 
pect the  blessing  of  Him  whose  divine  aid 
Christian  patriots  have  ever  invoked. 

The  other  assumption  is  certainly  a  mis- 
take. It  is  not  probable  that  any,  whether  in 
the  East  or  on  this  Coast,  whether  as  Chris- 
tians or  humanitarians,  desire  the  influxof  Chi- 
nese. It  is  more  probable  that  Eastern  sena- 
tors and  Eastern  clergymen,  and  the  whole 
class,  east  or  west,  to  which  they  belong,  only 
ask  that  no  wrong  be  done  to  humanity,  and 
that  the  reciprocity  of  nations  be  respected. 
The  writer  of  this  is  probably  a  fair  specimen 
of  the  class  to  which  Mr.  Sargent  alludes;  and 
he  (the  writer),  as  a  Californian,  wishes  to 
say  here,  that  he  does  not  favor  the  influx  of 
Chinese,  or  indeed  of  any  foreigners.  Espe- 
cially does  he  fear  the  constantly  incoming  tide 
of  foreigners  who  are  not  capable  of  soon  be- 
coming such  citizens  as  are  needed  to  build 
up  a  great  and  permanent  Christian  common- 
wealth. Senator  Sargent  must  know  that 


576 


Violets  and  Daffodils. 


[Dec. 


in  the  tides  of  immigration  from  some  Euro- 
pean States  there  are  elements  far  more  threat- 
ening to  the  well-being  of  our  country,  and 
to  Christian  and  civil  institutions,  than  any 
that  are  borne  to  us  by  the  western  waves. 
These  are  foreboding  :  those  are  fearfully 
threatening.  No  :  we  do  not  desire,  from 
either  Asia  or  Europe,  any  overflow  of  peo- 
ples who,  for  want  of  those  influences  that 
led  to  the  founding  of  our  Christian  nation, 
are  incompatible  with  the  children  of  the 
founders.  But  there  is  another  and  better 
way  of  solving  the  great  problem  before  the 
American  people.  And  the  evils  that  are 
feared  as  consequences  of  unrestricted  immi- 
gration must  be  met  and  overcome  by  other 
means.  They  are  within  our  reach,  if  we 
choose  to  use  them.  It  is  only  asked  that 
in  all  our  acts  of  legislation,  State  or  federal, 
right  be  done — that  the  law  of  the  God  of 
Heaven  and  the  Arbiter  of  Justice  be  accept- 
ed as  supreme,  higher  than  all  human  stat- 
utes. In  this  voluntary  acceptance  lies  our 
strength,  our  highest  good. 

There  is  no  force  in  the  supposed  parallel 
of  "  European  States  emptying  their  prisons 
and  lunatic  asylums  upon  us."  One  nation 


and  government  should  prevent  attempted 
wrong  by  another.  European  States  should 
be  made  to  punish  their  own  criminals  and 
feed  their  own  paupers.  And  so  should  we 
do,  if  the  Chinese  people  or  government 
should  send  to  us  their  prisoners  or  their  lu- 
natics. But  the  immigrants  from  China  are 
laborers,  and  come  voluntarily,  and  only  in 
the  exercise  of  their  own  rights.  Besides, 
if  England's  poor  miners,  or  Ireland's  poor 
farmers,  or  Germany's  poor  and  lovers  of 
freedom  come  voluntarily  to  us  to  seek  la- 
bor and  food,  for  mercy's  sake  don't  say, 
You  can't  come.  Let  God  and  the  poor  of 
any  land  be  the  judge.  You  may  do  well  to 
persuade  them  to  stay  at  home,  but  the  earth 
is  the  Lord's,  and  he  has  given  it  to  the 
children  of  men — not  to  Protestants  or  Cath- 
olics, not  to  Christians  or  to  Jews,  or  to  un- 
believers, not  to  pagans  or  to  Yankees,  but 
to  men.  If  evils,  great  or  small,  flow  from  or 
accompany  excessive  immigration,  battle  with 
them,  repress  them,  overcome  them  as  oth- 
er evils,  but  never  by  wrong.  Certainly,  the 
descendants  of  the  Puritans  of  England  and 
of  the  Covenanters  of  Scotland  may  dare  to 
do  right. 


VIOLETS  AND  DAFFODILS. 
To . 

Right  royal  are  the  gifts,  my  friend, 

That  pass  'tween  you  and  me ; 
For  richer  hue  than  that  I  send 
Sidonian  purple  could  not  lend, 
That  monarchs  loved  to  see. 

Nor  did  the  hoard  of  Midas  hold, 

In  all  its  shining  store, 
A  deeper  shade  of  yellow  gold, 
Than  your  gay  daffodils  unfold, 

In  burnished  cups,  a  score. 

Better  than  gold  or  purple  dye, 
And  far  more  precious  still, — 
The  gifts  we  send,  both  you  and  I, 
Possess  a  charm  no  wealth  can  buy, 
The  fragrance  of  good-will. 


Charles  S.   Greene. 


1885.] 


A  Celestial  Tragedy. 


577 


A  CELESTIAL  TRAGEDY. 


FOR  a  long  time  prior  to  1839,  the  Chinese 
Government  had  made  efforts  to  prevent  the 
importation  of  opium  into  the  Central  King- 
dom, as  the  Chinese  call  their  country.  As 
early  as  1821,  the  foreign  opium  vessels  at 
Whampoa  were  subjected  to  such  serious  an- 
noyances from  the  authorities,  that  they  were 
removed  to  the  island  of  Lintin,  in  Macao 
Roads,  at  the  mouth  of  the  Canton  River, 
where  permanent  storeships  were  established. 
But  though  they  were  removed  so  far  from 
Canton,  the  trade  suffered  hardly  any  dim- 
inution. The  Chinese  dealers  paid  for  the 
opium  at  Canton,  and  received  orders  by 
which  they  obtained  the  drug  at  the  fleet  in 
their  own  boats, — the  silence  and  inaction 
of  the  mandarins  being  secured  by  bribes. 
It  is  evident  that  the  universal  corruption 
among  the  Chinese  officials  rendered  the 
efforts  of  the  emperor  to  check  the  use  and 
abuse  of  opium  among  his  people  almost 
nugatory,  however  sincere  they  may  have 
been. 

Early  in  1839,  more  vigorous  measures 
were  taken  by  the  emperor  for  the  enforce- 
ment of  his  prohibitory  orders.  Lin,  a  di- 
rector of  the  Ping-Poo,  or  Board  of  War, 
and  governor-general  of  the  ancient  provin- 
ces of  Tso,  was  invested  with  the  red  seals 
of  a  High  Imperial  Commissioner,  and  sent 
to  Canton  to  bring  the  traffic  in  opium  to 
an  end.  He  arrived  in  that  city  on  the  roth 
of  March,  1839,  and  at  once  took  the  most 
rigorous  measures  to  execute  his  imperial 
master's  commands.  It  is  hardly  necessary 
to  say  that  his  acts,  although  vigorous,  were 
characterized  by  all.  the  arrogance,  conceit, 
and  ignorance  of  the  power  of  the  Western 
nations,  which  then  marked  the  conduct  of 
Chinese  officials.  The  selection  of  Lin  for 
this  task  was  a  wise  one,  however,  as  the 
earnestness  of  that  officer  was  undoubted  ; — 
•  he  having  sworn  not  to  return  until  all 
opium  was  banished  from  the  Central  King- 
dom. He  not  only  exerted  all  his  power  to 
VOL  VI.— 37. 


prevent  the  importation  of  the  drug,  but  also 
endeavored  to  accomplish  a  thorough  reform 
among  the  Chinese  who  were  in  the  habit  of 
using  it. 

On  the  1 8th  of  March,  Lin  issued  his  first 
proclamation  to  the  foreigners,  demanding 
the  absolute  surrender  of  all  opium  then  in 
their  possession  ;  and  on  the  next  day,  the 
Chinese  superintendent  of  maritime  customs 
issued  an  order,  forbidding  all  foreigners  to 
leave  Canton.  There  were  about  three  hun- 
dred foreigners  in  the  city  at  this  time,  and 
they  at  once  became  close  prisoners  in  the 
foreign  hongs  (factories  or  commercial  estab- 
lishments) which  fronted  on  the  river.  All 
streets  communicating  with  the  city  were 
closed  with  bricks  and  mortar ;  soldiers 
were  posted  on  the  adjacent  buildings,  and 
triple  rows  of  boats  were  stationed  on  the 
river  to  prevent  any  escape  in  that  direction. 
All  Chinese  compradors  and  servants  were 
commanded  to  leave  the  buildings,  and  no 
one  was  permitted  to  furnish  provisions  of 
any  kind  to  the  imprisoned  foreigners,  who 
thus  saw  themselves  threatened  with  starva- 
tion. 

On  the  26th  of  March,  Lin  issued  his  sec- 
ond proclamation  to  the  foreigners,  giving 
four  reasons  why  they  should  surrender  their 
opium  at  once.  The  next  day,  Captain  El- 
liot, the  British  superintendent  of  trade, 
made  a  public  declaration  that  he  was  forci- 
bly detained  by  the  provincial  government, 
and  commanded  the  British  merchants  and 
shipmasters  to  surrender  all  opium  in  their 
possession  on  behalf  of  the  British  Govern- 
ment. This  order  was  complied  with,  and 
20,283  chests  of  opium,  valued  at  over  $12,- 
000,000,  were  delivered  up  to  the  Chinese ; 
the  surrender  taking  place  at  Chunhow,  near 
the  Bogue  forts.  This  immense  amount  was 
destroyed  during  the  following  June  by  im- 
mersing the  drug  in  huge  vats  filled  with 
lime,  salt,  and  water. 

These  events  precipitated  a  collision  be- 


578 


A  Celestial  Tragedy. 


[Dec. 


tween  England  and  China,  in  which,  as  is 
well  known,  the  latter  was  worsted,  and 
obliged  to  concede  greater  privileges  than 
were  ever  before  granted  by  the  Chinese 
Government  to  "  outside  barbarians." 

ON  a  cool  afternoon,  in  the  month  of 
March,  1839,  a  sedan  chair,  borne  by  two 
tall  Chinese,  entered  the  Golden  Flowery 
Street  of  Canton.  The  bearers  were  neatly 
attired  in  trousers  and  blouses  of  blue  silk, 
and  wore  on  their  heads  felt  caps  of  peculiar 
shape.  In  spite  of  the  coolness  of  the  day, 
the  sweat  stood  in  great  drops  on  their  faces, 
showing  that  they  bore  no  trifling  burden. 
With  a  queer,  swinging  gait,  they  made  their 
way  along  the  narrow,  noisy,  crowded  thor- 
oughfare, and  presently  stopped  before  the 
large  doors  of  a  fine  house.  With  consider- 
able exertion,  a  portly  Chinese  gentleman 
extricated  himself  from  the  confined  limits 
of  the  vehicle,  and  alighted  in  the  narrow 
street.  He  was  the  picture  of  an  epicure 
and  a  lover  of  luxurious  ease.  His  face  was 
round  and  full,  and  wore  a  continual  smile 
of  happiness  and  good  nature,  which  was 
confirmed  by  his  merry,  twinkling  eyes.  His 
rotund  form  would  have  served  as  a  model 
for  the  famous  god  of  Longevity,  so  popular 
with  the  natives  of  the  flowery  land.  His 
attire  was  rich  and  almost  foppish.  A  robe 
of  costly  brocaded  silk  of  delicate  color 
reached  nearly  to  his  feet,  but  was  short 
enough  to  display  elegant  silk  hose,  and 
shoes  of  black  embroidered  satin.  Over  his 
robe,  he  wore  a  short,  large-sleeved  coat  of 
fgiest  broadcloth,  lined  with  fur,  fastened  on 
the  right  breast  with  superb  buttons  and 
loops.  Upon  his  head  was  an  exquisite 
skull-cap,  bearing  the  button  of  his  rank. 
He  carried  a  magnificent  fan,  which  he  held 
gracefully  above  his  head  as  he  gave  some 
directions  to  his  servants  before  entering  the 
house. 

This  complacent  personage  was  Chu,  one 
of  the  officials  who  had  accompanied  His 
Excellency,  Lin,  to  Canton.  The  house  he 
entered  belonged  to  his  friend  Yuen,  who, 
with  the  brilliant  young  poet,  Thayshing,  had 
also  come  from  Pekin  in  the  train  of  Lin. 


Upon  entering,  Chu,  conducted  by  a  ser- 
vant, passed  through  a  long  hall,  which  was 
decorated  with  curious  paintings  and  inscrip- 
tions, and  wood  carvings  gorgeously  gilded, 
and  Chinese  lamps  hanging  from  the  ceiling. 
Here  and  there  were  seen  tables  and  other 
furniture  of  the  rich  inlaid  work  of  Ningpo. 
Leaving  this  hall,  he  emerged  into  a  large 
garden  filled  with  trees  and  shrubs,  marvel- 
ously  trimmed,  and  intersected  with  ponds 
and  reservoirs  of  water.  Around  the  edges 
of  these  miniature  lakes  were  rows  of  porce- 
lain flower-pots,  holding  the  magnificent 
lotus  in  all  its  loveliness  of  pink  bloom,  and 
a  profusion  of  pure  white  lilies. 

Chu  gazed  luxuriously  about  him  through 
the  leafy  vistas,  and  soon  discovered  Yuen 
and  Thayshing  seated  at  a  table  on  an  ele- 
vated terrace  shaded  by  trees.  As  he  ap- 
proached, his  friends  arose,  and  each  one, 
clasping  his  hands  together,  made  the  usual 
salutation.  They  then  engaged  in  a  pleas- 
ant and  friendly  dispute — each  desiring  the 
other  to  take  the  best  seat.  After  continu- 
ing this  for  a  proper  length  of  time,  they  all 
took  their  seats  according  to  a  rigid  rule  of 
etiquette. 

Yuen,  the  host,  was  a  striking  personage. 
He  was  a  Tartar,  and  had  a  fierce,  unyield- 
ing, vindictive  temper.  He  was  six  feet 
tall  and  his  strength  was  prodigious.  His 
face  was  dark  and  marked  with  small-pox, 
and  his  eyes  were  habitually  half-closed,  so 
that  they  were  but  dark  lines,  which  gave 
forth  an  occasional  gleam  of  fire.  Only 
when  he  was  excited  or  enraged  did  his  eyes 
open  fully,  and  then  their  flaming  glare  was 
something  appalling.  His  fierce,  impatient 
temper  had  made  him  feared  and  disliked 
at  Court,  and  therefore  his  advancement  had 
not  been  as  rapid  as  his  abilities  warranted. 
Only  a  short  time  before,  a  rival  official  by 
the  name  of  Tsin  had  been  promoted  over 
his  head,  and  he  was  now  chafing  under  this 
injustice. 

Thayshing  was  younger  than  either  of  the 
others,  and  was  an  accomplished  poet.     He 
was  of  slender  figure ;  his  features  were  re-  * 
fined  and  handsome,  and  his  complexion  a 
clear,  pale  olive.    He  had  attained  high  honor 


1885.] 


A   Celestial   Tragedy. 


579 


in  the  literary  examinations,  and  was  on  the 
sure  road  to  distinction.  His  father  was  a 
wealthy  Canton  merchant.  Although  very 
few  knew  it,  Thayshing  was  engaged  to  marry 
Le  Awoo,  the  only  daughter  of  His  Excel- 
lency, Lin.  Even  Yuen  and  Chu  were  un- 
aware of  this. 

"  My  venerable  elder  brother,"  said  Chu, 
addressing  Yuen,  "  I  have  just  returned  from 
the  house  of  the  Great  Minister." 

"  He  who  is  so  successful  in  fighting  the 
smoke  of  opium,"  said  Yuen. 

"  He  is,  indeed,"  said  Chu.  "  The  foreign 
barbarians  are  in  a  rage.  They  have  trem- 
blingly begged  permission  to  deliver  up  their 
opium.  They  humbly  acknowledge  the 
truth  of  the  Great  Minister's  four  reasons,  as 
set  forth  in  his  second  proclamation." 

"One  reason,  my  venerable  younger 
brother,  outweighs  all  the  four,"  said  Yuen. 

"What  is  it?"  asked  Chu. 

"  The  fear  of  death  by  violence  or  starva- 
tion," replied  Yuen. 

"  Be  that  as  it  may,"  said  Chu,  "  he  has 
convinced  the  barbarians,  and  now  he  will 
turn  his  attention  to  the  flowery  natives. 
All  opium  and  all  smoking  implements  must 
be  delivered  up.  The  Great  Minister  will 
not  rest  until  the  drug  is  cast  out  and  the 
Central  Kingdom  purified." 

"  He  is  a  fanatic,"  said  Yuen,  with  a  flash 
of  his  fierce  eye.  "  Is  it  not  customary  of 
old  to  smoke  opium  ?  My  venerable  young- 
er brother,  will  you  deliver  up  your  pipe  to 
the  local  mandarin  like  an  ostracized  bar- 
ber?" 

"We  should  do  whatever  the  Great  Min- 
ister commands,"  said  Thayshing,  gently. 

"  Let  us  first  peruse  the  proclamation  ad- 
dressed to  the  natives  of  the  flowery  land," 
said  Chu.  "  I  have  a  copy  with  me." 

"  Yes,  let  us  hear  it,"  said  Thayshing. 

Chu  drew  forth  a  neat  book,  and  proceed- 
ed to  read  parts  of  the  proclamation  to  his 
attentive  friends.  "This  proclamation," 
said  he,  "  is  issued  in  the  nineteenth  year  of 
Taou-Kwang,  second  moon,  and  first  day. 
Listen  : 

"  '  Lin,  High  Imperial  Commissioner,  a 
Director  of  the  Board  of  War,  and  Governor 


of  the  Provinces  of  Hoo-Kwang,  makes  fully 
known  his  commands  for  the  speedy  cutting 
off  of  the  opium,  in  order  that  life  may  be 
preserved  and  the  punishment  of  death 
avoided.  It  appears  that  Quangtung  has  be- 
come a  territory  highly  conspicuous  for  lit- 
erature, and  from  days  of  yore  until  the 
present  time  there  have  been,  in  every  suc- 
cessive generation,  men  of  highest  eminence, 
famed  for  letters  and  renowned  for  their 
statesmanlike  character.  Those  who  heard 
this  could  not  suppress  their  esteem,  and 
none  would  have  thought  that  within  these 
late  years,  so  great  a  number  would  have 
been  submerged  in  the  fumes  of  opium. 

"  '  How  can  this  be  but  lamentable  ?  For- 
merly punishment  was  not  severe,  but  now 
the  thundering  wrath  of  the  Celestial  Majesty 
has  been  aroused,  and  existing  laws  must  be 
enforced  to  their  extremity,  awarding  death 
to  all  the  guilty. 

" '  I,  the  Great  Minister,  having,  with 
trembling  obedience,  received  the  stern  im- 
perial decree,  have  now  only  to  point  to  the 
heavens,  and  swear  by  the  sun  that  I  shall 
exterminate  the  evil.'" 

"  Let  him  swear  by  the  evil  to  exterminate 
the  sun,"  sneered  Yuen. 

"  Your  words  give  me  pain,  venerable  elder 
brother,"  said  Thayshing. 

Chu  continued  : 

"  'Although  opium  exists  among  the  out- 
side barbarians,  there  is  not  a  man  of. them 
who  is  willing  to  smoke  it  himself;  but  the 
natives  of  the  flowery  land  are,  on  the  con- 
trary, with  willing  hearts,  led  astray  by  them 
— purchasing  a  commodity  which  inflicts  in- 
jury upon  their  own  vitals.  To  such  an  ex- 
tent has  the  stupidity  of  our  people  reached  ! 
It  is  like  the  smelling  stuffs  of  thieves  and 
robbers,  used  by  them  to  seize  upon  prop- 
erty and  destroy  the  lives  of  individuals. 

" '  Now,  your  property  is  the  means  by 
which  you  support  life,  and  your  specie,  which 
is  by  no  means  easily  to  be  obtained,  you 
take,  and  exchange  for  dirt.  Is  not  this  su- 
premely ridiculous  ?  And  that  you  part  with 
your  money  to  poison  your  own  selves — is  it 
not  deeply  lamentable  ? 

"'Thus  the  fish  covets  the  bait  and  forgets 


580 


A   Celestial   Tragedy. 


[Dec. 


the  hook ;  the  miller  fly  covets  the  candle- 
light, but  forgets  the  fire;  and  the  ape,  in 
his  inordinate  desire  for  the  wine,  thinks  not 
of  the  desire  of  men  for  his  blood.  These 
creatures  bring  misfortunes  upon  themselves. 

" '  Habits  which  are  thus  disastrous  are 
like  the  successive  rolling  of  the  waves  of 
the  sea. 

"  'I  hereby  address  myself  to  the  literati, 
merchants,  military,  and  common  people 
throughout  these  provinces,  that  they  may 
thoroughly  understand.  All  of  you  who, 
formerly,  were  unwittingly  betrayed  into  the 
use  of  opium,  should  immediately  and  ener- 
getically seek  to  break  it  off,  and,  with  deep 
feelings  of  repentance,  alter  your  former  evil 
course.  The  term  assigned  those  of  you  at 
the  provincial  city  shall  begin  with  the  sec- 
ond moon,  and  terminate  with  the  end  of  the 
third  ;  and  to  those  in  the  various  Foos, 
Chows,  and  Heens  [divisions  of  a  province], 
the  limit  shall  be  two  months  from  the  day 
of  the  reception  of  this  dispatch.  It  is  there- 
fore requisite  that  you  take  the  several  opium 
pipes,  with  the  smoking  bowls,  which  you 
have  in  your  possession,  every  description  of 
smoking  implement,  no  matter  how  many, 
and  your  remaining  drug,  no  matter  how 
much,  and  deliver  them  up  to  the  local  offi- 
cers. 

" '  You  should  consider  that  it  is  of  the 
first  importance  in  cutting  off  this  base  habit 
that  you  have  a  heart  to  do  it. 

" '  Verily,  you  must  skin  your  faces  and 
wash  your  hearts. 

"  '  What  difficulty  would  you  find  in  put- 
ting a  stop  to  your  nightly  smoking  revel- 
ings? 

"  '  The  literary  and  military  officers,  both 
high  and  subordinate,  have  together  the 
charge  of  the  whole  population,  to  act  as 
their  ensamples.  But  are  those  who  have 
not  yet  corrected  themselves  able,  indeed,  to 
correct  others  ?  The  sacred  Son  of  heaven 
has  distinctly  decreed  the  laws  of  punish- 
ment according  to  the  principles  of  extreme 
justice. 

"  '  All  individuals  who  smoke  opium,  al- 
though they  may  be  honored  with  the  titles 
of  kings  and  of  dukes,  will  nevertheless  not, 


under  any  circumstances  whatever,  be  re- 
garded with  leniency  and  forbearance.'  " 

"It  is  evident,"  said  Thaysing,  "that  the 
Great  Minister  addresses  the  literati  as  well 
as  the  other  three  classes  of  the  people." 

"You  are  entirely  correct,  venerable  young- 
er brother,"  said  Chu.  "  I  had  the  felicity 
of  listening  to  the  Great  Minister  today, 
while  he  uttered  indiscriminate  denuncia- 
tions against  both  mandarins  and  merchants, 
interspersed  liberally  with  his  favorite  quota- 
tions from  the  classic  odes." 

"  The  King  River  rendering  muddy  the 
waters  of  the  Wei  ?  "  asked  Thayshing. 

"Yes,  truly." 

"  Of  course,  you  will  both  obey  the  Great 
Minister's  commands,"  said  Thayshing. 

"  Of  course  we  shall,"  said  Chu,  with  a 
shrewd  glance,  which  said  that  if  he  smoked 
more  opium,  no  one  would  be  the  wiser. 

"I  shall  not"  said  Yuen.  "I  will  obey 
no  silly,  fanatical  dictates.  I  shall  smoke 
the  drug  here  in  my  own  house." 

"  I  pray  you  to  abandon  it,"  said  Thay- 
shing. 

"Have  you  ever  smoked  opium?"  asked 
Yuen,  turning  his  blazing  eyes  full  on  Thay- 
shing. 

"  Never,  my  venerable  elder  brother,"  re- 
pled  Thayshing. 

"  And  you  a  poet ! "  said  Yuen,  vehement- 
ly. "  You  sing  of  the  water-pond,  the  lotus, 
the  lily,  the  shaddock  tree,  the  stork,  and  the 
kingfisher.  Would  you  chant  the  gods  and 
the  sages,  flaming  dragons,  and  bats  that  eat 
the  sun  ?  Would  you  sing  strange  and  won- 
drous songs  that  will  make  your  name  immor- 
tal ?  Smoke  the  opium  pipe  !  Smoke,  and 
sneer  at  dotards  who  are  content  to  grovel 
on  the  earth  in  ignoble  security,  and  who 
would  keep  the  brave  from  soaring  to  the 
stars." 

Thayshing's  breath  came  fast,  and  his 
cheek  paled,  for  he  ardently  desired  to 
write  a  great  poem  which  should  immortalize 
him. 

Yuen  saw  the  effect  he  had  produced,  and 
continued,  eagerly : 

"  Try  it  now.  You  will  never  regret  it." 
And  turning,  he  ordered  a  servant  to  bring 


1885.] 


A   Celestial   Tragedy. 


581 


opium  pipes,  and  place  them  in  a  little  tower 
in  the  depths  of  the  garden.  But  Thayshing 
rose  hastily,  saying  :  "No,  my  venerable  eld- 
er brother.  Remember  the  commands  of 
the  Great  Minister." 

"And  do  you  remember  what  I  have  told 
you,"  said  Yuen.  "  If  you  would  win  eter- 
nal fame  at  a  single  stroke,  smoke  the  opium 
pipe." 

Thayshing  took  his  departure,  leaving  Yu- 
en and  Chu  together.  He  felt  very  certain 
that  they  intended  to  smoke  opium,  regard- 
less of  the  Great  Minister's  proclamation. 
He  entered  a  sedan  chair,  and  ordered  the 
bearers  to  take  him  to  his  father's  store  in 
Old  China  street.  Yuen's  words  were  yet 
sounding  in  his  ears,  and  as  he  was  borne 
along,  his  mind  was  filled  with  fascinating 
speculations  regarding  the  possibilities  of  an 
ascent  into  regions  of  enchantment,  through 
the  medium  of  the  opium  pipe,  and  the 
chances  of  a  safe  return  to  earth  again, 
with  ability  to  describe  the  scenes  of  his 
voyage. 

At  length  he  alighted  on  the  granite  pave- 
ment and  entered  his  father's  store.  Tall 
red  signs  appeared  on  every  side,  containing 
greetings  to  customers,  or  descriptions  of 
goods  for  sale.  The  store  was  one  of  the 
largest  on  the  street,  and  contained  a  won- 
derful display  of  rich  goods.  A  strange 
mingling  of  perfumes  burdened  the  air — car- 
damon  and  cassia,  musk  and  myrrh,  frankin- 
cense and  sandalwood.  Costly  silks,  crapes, 
shawls,  nankeens,  and  grasscloth ;  caskets 
fans,  handkerchiefs,  trinkets  of  silver  and 
mother  of  pearl,  and  a  thousand  other  things, 
filled  the  dusky  place.  In  a  retired  room, 
Thayshing  reverently  greeted  his  father,  who 
was  a  thorough  merchant,  grave,  polite,  and 
shrewd.  Two  little  boys,  brothers  of  Thay- 
shing, were  merrily  playing  te-Kien,  or  Chi- 
nese shuttlecock,  near  by,  leaping  about  in  the 
most  nimble  manner,  and  kicking  the  feath- 
ered plaything  high  in  the  air  with  their 
thick-soled  slippers. 

After  conversing  for  a  time,  the  merchant 
said  to  Thayshing  :  "  The  proclamation  of 
the  Great  Minister  may  cause  some  mer- 
chants to  lose  many  taels.  I  have  many  pi- 


culs  of  opium  in  my  house,  but  my  heart  is 
tranquil.  I  will  visit  the  mandarins  and  pay 
them  certain  sums,  and  my  house  will  be  ex- 
empt from  search.  But  yet  my  rivals  are 
jealous  and  have  sharp  eyes,  and  I  must  de- 
ceive them.  So  I  have  set  out  this  chest  of 
opium,  and  say  to  any  who  visit  me  :  '  Take 
freely  what  you  desire,  for  all  must  soon  be 
given  up.'" 

A  sudden  daring  resolve  took  possession 
of  Thayshing.  "  Venerable  father,"  he  said, 
smiling,  "will  you  not  say  to  me,  also,  'Take 
what  you  desire?'" 

The  merchant  gazed  at  his  son  for  a  mo- 
ment in  surprise,  and  then  said  : 

"It  was  my  belie'f  that  you  abhorred  the 
drug;  but  you  shall  have  all  you  wish.  Do 
not  take  this,  however.  Of  course  I  would 
not  give  away  the  best  quality.  I  will  give  you 
some  delicious  and  precious  opium  of  Patna." 
He  stepped  aside,  and  soon  returned  wiih  a 
little  casket  of  dark  wood,  which  he  gave  to 
his -son.  Thayshing  soon  after  took  his  de- 
parture, and  that  night,  for  the  first  time  in 
his  life,  but  not  the  last,  he  ascended,  or, 
rather,  descended,  into  the  heaven  of  the 
opium  smoker. 

When  he  emerged  from  that  fantastic  re- 
gion, he  seized  his  writing  implements  and 
endeavored  to  set  down  his  visions  ;  but  al- 
though he  had  experienced  ecstasy,  and  seen 
magnificent  sights,  and  heard  enchanting 
sounds,  he  found  the  Chinese  language  en- 
tirely too  meager  to  express  even  the  prelude 
.of  the  bewitching  entertainment.  Worse 
than  all,  he  found  himself  weak,  tremulous, 
plunged  in  despondency,  and  hardly  able  to 
hold  his  pencil. 

It  is  needless  to  say  that,  during  the  two 
months  allowed  the  opium  smokers  to  aban- 
don the  habit,  Thayshing  resorted  more  and 
more  frequently  to  the  intoxicating  pipe, 
until  even  Yuen  warned  him  of  the  fatal 
effects  of  excess  ;  but  the  delicate  and  ethe- 
real fabric  of  the  poet's  mind  had  become 
clouded  with  the  fumes  of  the  drug.  He 
wildly  planned  a  poem,  more  sublime  and 
beautiful  than  man  had  ever  dreamed  of  be- 
fore ;  but  when  he  seated  himself  to  write,  a 
few  feeble  characters  mocked  him  on  the 


582 


A  Celestial  Tragedy. 


[Dec. 


page.  His  sweet  songs  of  the  lotus  and  the 
lily  were  heard  no  more.  They  had  vanished 
like  morning  dewdrops  beneath  a  scorching 
sun. 

Since  his  engagement  with  Le  Awoo,  the 
daughter  of  Lin,  Thayshing,  in  accordance 
with  the  customs  of  the  country,  had  not 
been  permitted  to  see  his  betrothed  ;  but 
before  his  unfortunate  journey  to  Canton,  he 
had  twice  secretly  visited  Lin's  residence  on 
the  sea-coast  of  the  territory  of  Min,  and, 
concealed  in  the  garden,  had  conversed  with 
Le  Awoo  on  her  balcony — quite  like  a  Celes- 
tial Romeo  and  Juliet.  In  the  month  of 
June  the  family  of  Lin  came  to  Canton,  and 
Thayshing,  rousing  himself  from  his  foolish 
intoxication,  made  exertion  to  obtain  an  in- 
terview with  his  future  wife.  He  succeeded 
without  much  difficulty,  for  the  surveillance 
was  really  little  more  than  a  matter  of  form. 
The  quick  eyes  of  Le  Awoo  detected  a 
change  in  Thayshing — a  melancholy  wasting 
and  decay;  but  she  was  fully  reassured  by 
his  assertion  that  it  was  only  absence  from 
her  that  had  affected  him  so  deplorably. 

The  days  of  grace  allowed  the  opium 
smokers  had  passed,  and  the  Great  Minister 
was  ferreting  out  and  punishing  with  great 
severity  all  who  dared  to  evade  his  regula- 
tions and  disobey  his  commands.  Many 
Chinese  had  already  suffered  death.  The 
unyielding  Yuen,  with  imperturbable  audac- 
ity, continued  his  indulgence  in  the  drug, 
and  the  unfortunate  Thayshing  often  kept 
him  company.  The  fat  and  crafty  Chu  had 
ostensibly  abandoned  the  pipe. 

One  unhappy  afternoon,  Yuen  and  Thay- 
shing entered  the  tower  in  Yuen's  garden, 
and  a  servant  presently  brought  them  the 
opium  pipes.  For  some  reason  Yuen's  pipe 
was  not  satisfactory  to  him,  and  springing  up, 
he  seized  the  servant  and  beat  him  unmer- 
cifully. The  man  submissively  brought  an- 
other pipe,  and  the  two  smokers  were  soon 
lost  in  noxious  dreams. 

Lin,  in  his  proclamation  to  the  Chinese, 
had  offered  rewards  and  promotion  to  in- 
feriors who  gave  truthful  information  against 
their  superiors  who  were  guilty  of  using  opi- 


um, and  the  apparently  submissive  servant 
now  saw  an  opportunity  of  satisfying  his  de- 
sire for  revenge  upon  his  cruel  master — whose 
ferocious  temper  grew  more  unbearable  ev- 
ery day — and  of  advancing  himself  at  one 
stroke. 

With  this  idea  he  set  out  immediately  for 
the  official  residence  of  Lin.  Here  it  so 
happened  that  he  fell  into  the  hands  of  Tsin, 
the  enemy  of  Yuen,  to  whom  he  told  his 
story.  Tsin  listened  with  well-concealed  ex- 
ultation, and  after  learning  that  the  two  guilty 
officials  were  at  that  moment  indulging  in 
the  forbidden  intoxication,  he  dismissed  the 
servant  with  a  handsome  reward  and  many 
promises.  He  then  hastened  at  once  to  Lin, 
whom  he  found,  clothed  in  his  robes  of  vio- 
let silk,  seated  in  his  room  of  justice,  where 
he  had  just  sentenced  a  few  beggarly  culprits 
to  be  strangled.  Tsin  made  the  requisite 
profound  obeisance  before  the  Great  Minis- 
ter, and  then  imparted  to  him  the  astounding 
intelligence  he  had  received.  Lin's  anger 
was  unbounded,  when  he  learned  that  two 
officials  of  his  own  suite  were  guilty  of  such 
flagrant  disobedience.  He  at  once  called 
his  sedan  chair,  and,  bidding  Tsin  accom- 
pany him,  set  out  for  the  house  of  Yuen,  to 
verify  with  his  own  eyes  the  disgraceful  re- 
port. They  entered  amid  the  consternation 
of  the  servants,  who  prostrated  themselves 
before  the  representatives  of  the  Celestial 
Majesty.  Traversing  the  garden,  they  en- 
tered the  little  tower,  and  found  Yuen  and 
Thayshing  stupefied  with  opium.  The  rage 
of  Lin  was  terrible  to  witness,  and  he  hast- 
ened away  to  provide  for  the  arrest  and  pun- 
ishment of  the  two  criminals. 

When  Yuen  and  Thayshing  awoke  from 
their  drunken  sleep,  they  still  reclined  on 
their  couches  in  a  dreamy,  listless  state.  A 
servant  found  them  in  this  condition  when 
he  entered,  and  handed  Yuen  a  sealed  note. 
Yuen  opened  it  slowly  and  dreamily,  but  an 
electric  shock  seemed  to  pass  through  him 
as  he  read. 

"  Awake,  my  venerable  younger  brother," 
he  said  to  Thayshing.  "  We  have  slept  too 
long.  Listen  to  this  letter  : 


1885.] 


A  Celestial  Tragedy. 


583 


' ' '  My  Venerable  Elder  Brother : 

This  will  inform  you  that  the  smoking  of  opium 
has  become  known  to  the  Great,  Minister,  and  that  it 
is  no  longer  possible  to  cover  up  men's  ears  and  eyes. 
The  venerable  Tsin  has  betrayed  you.  A  military 
mandarin  and  many  soldiers  have  been  sent  to  arrest 
you. 

I  wish  you  tranquillity  and  promotion. 


"  It  is  the  writing  of  Chu,"  said  Yuen, 
"but  he  is  too  wise  to  set  his  name  to  it." 

At  this  momenta  loud  knocking  was  heard 
at  the  front  door  of  the  house — so  loud  and 
heavy  that  it  reached  their  ears  across  the 
wide  expanse  of  the  garden. 

"  It  is  the  mandarin  with  his  dogs  of  sol- 
diers," said  Yuen. 

"  We  are  lost,  my  venerable  elder  brother," 
said  Thayshing,  stoically.  "  We  must  pre- 
pare to  die." 

"You  speak  as  a  child,"  said  Yuen,  as  he 
arose  and  adjusted  his  dress.  "  Come,"  he 
continued,  "  and  see  me  make  these  dogs 
grovel  in  the  dirt." 

He  walked  rapidly  across  the  garden,  and 
entered  his  hall,  followed  by  Thayshing. 
Without  hesitation,  he  went  to  the  large  door, 
flung  it  open,  and  appeared  before  the  aston- 
ished soldiery  outside.  The  military  manda- 
rin stood  in  front,  with  a  large  band  of  shabby 
men  about  him,  dressed  in  blue  quilted  blous- 
es and  flat  helmets  of  bamboo  or  paper. 
They  were  armed  with  swords,  shields,  and 
match-locks,  and  each  one  was  labeled  with 
the  word  VALOR,  inscribed  on  his  back. 
They  crowded  forward,  anxious  to  enter  such 
a  richly  furnished  dwelling,  where  they  could 
gratify  their  well-known  plundering  proclivi- 
ties (a  visit  from  Chinese  soldiers  was  a  ca- 
lamity second  only  to  a  conflagration)  but 
they  shrank  back  as  quickly  before  the  terri- 
ble eye  of  Yuen. 

"Down,  you  rats  !"  thundered  the  Tartar. 
"  Down,  and  salute." 

So  fierce  was  his  appearance,  and  so  com- 
manding his  voice,  that  the  soldiers  simulta- 
neously tumbled  down  on  their  knees,  and 
knocked  their  heads  against  the  ground, 
amidst  a  ridiculous  clatter  of  arms.  As  the 
soldiers  were  performing  their  salute,  Yuen 
dropped  some  little  ingots  of  gold  into  the 


mandarin's  hand,  muttering  at  the  same  time 
a  few  words,  and  immediately  retired  into 
his  house.  In  a  few  moments  the  officer  and 
his  soldiers  went  away. 

Thayshing  gazed  at  Yuen  with  admiration 
and  sudden  confidence. 

"  How  strong  you  are,"  he  said.  "  This 
trouble  may  yet  pass  and  leave  us  unharmed." 

"  You  still  speak  as  a  child,"  said  Yuen. 
"  We  are  in  mortal  danger;  but  I  may  yet 
turn  the  tempest,  and  make  it  overwhelm 
our  enemies.  Obey  me  implicitly,  or  your 
head,  adorned  with  a  label,  shall  fall  into  the 
rack  at  the  southeastern  gate.  Stay  here 
quietly  till  I  come  again.  If  other  soldiers 
come,  do  as  you  have  seen  me  do." 

After  making  some  changes  in  his  dress, 
Yuen  went  away.  Thayshing  sank  into  a  seat 
and  waited,  suffering  great  apprehensions. 
In  about  two  hours  Yuen  came  back,  his 
eyes  blazing  with  excitement  and  triumph. 

"Where  have  you  been?"  asked  Thay- 
shing. 

"  I  have  been  to  visit  the  venerable  Tsin," 
replied  Yuen,  laughing  hideously.  "I  found 
him  at  home,  and  we  discussed  our  differ- 
ences. I  left  him  sunk  in  one  of  his  own 
fish-ponds,  strangled  with  his  own  girdle." 

"  You  are  playing  with  sharp  weapons," 
said  Thayshing,  with  emotion. 

"  Be  not  afraid  ;  I  shall  grasp  the  handle," 
said  Yuen,  grimly.  "  Now.  listen.  Take  a 
sedan  chair,  and  leave  the  provincial  city  at 
once,  by  the  gate  of  the  Five  Genii.  If  you 
are  detained,  use  silver  or  gold.  When  well 
outside  the  city,  dismiss  the  vehicle,  and 
sternly  command  the  bearers  to  be  silent. 
Then  go  on  foot  directly  down  the  river. 
You  will  find  hills,  ravines,  and  paddy  fields, 
but  nothing  difficult  to  traverse.  Within  fif- 
teen te,  you  will  find  a  pagoda  near  the  bank 
of  the  river.  Wait  there  till  I  join  you." 

"  What  will  you  do  here,  venerable  Both- 
er ?  "  asked  Thayshing. 

"That  you  will  know  when  I  join  you," 
replied  Yuen. 

Without  waiting  to  go  to  his  own  house, 
Thayshing  obtained  a  sedan  chair,  and  set 
out  on  the  route  laid  down  for  him  by  Yuen. 
He  passed  through  the  crowded  streets  un- 


584 


A  Celestial  Tragedy. 


[Dec. 


disturbed,  with  the  shrill  sound  of  thousands 
of  voices  and  the  shuffling  of  myriad  feet  fill- 
ing his  ears.  At  the  gate  of  the  Five  Genii, 
the  guards  saluted  profoundly,  as  they  per- 
ceived the  robes  of  an  official  in  the  vehicle. 
Upon  reaching  a  ravine  shaded  by  trees, 
Thayshing  alighted,  and  dismissed  his  bear- 
ers, with  a  liberal  reward  and  an  injunction 
to  preserve  silence.  By  this  time  it  was  dusk. 
He  crossed  the  ravine  by  a  foot-bridge,  and 
took  a  path  down  the  river.  There  was  noth- 
ing wild  or  uncultivated  about  the  country 
he  was  traversing.  There  were  extensive 
rice  fields  intersected  with  creeks  and  canals, 
on  the  banks  of  which  were  many  ingenious 
contrivances  in  the  shape  of  water-wheels, 
levers,  and  swinging  buckets,  used  for  the 
purposes  of  irrigation.  On  higher  ground 
he  passed  through  little  groves  of  trees, 
among  which  he  distinguished  the  pome- 
granate and  banana,  the  mango  and  mul- 
berry. Once  he  was  startled  by  a  flock  of 
brown  doves  that  fluttered  from  their  leafy 
resting  places.  Throughout  the  country 
were  narrow  paths,  trodden  hard  by  count- 
less generations  of  peasants.  In  the  fading 
light  he  could  see  many  little  villages  in  the 
distance,  and,  beyond,  purple  hills  and  peaks 
sharply  outlined  against  the  sky. 

Darkness  came  down,  but  the  faint  star- 
light enable  him  to  pursue  his  way  easily.  A 
strong  wind  began  to  blow,  and  black  clouds 
swept  across  the  sky.  He  reflected  that  the 
southwest  monsoon  was  at  hand,  and  a  sort 
of  terror  seized  him  at  the  thought  of  expos- 
ure during  the  lightning  and  rain  that  accom- 
pany its  advent.  Presently  a  tall  pagoda  tow- 
ered darkly  before  him  on  a  slight  elevation. 
He  passed  between  two  ponds  of  water  cov- 
ered with  green  watercress,  and  ascended  the 
slope.  The  wind  had  increased  in  violence, 
and  he  was  glad  to  gain  the  shelter  of  the 
massive  stone  walls,  where  he  crouched, 
weary  and  apprehensive.  There  seemed  to 
be  no  human  beings  near. 

Soon  he  was  conscious  of  a  strange,  wild 
melody  filling  the  air.  It  was  sweet,  plain- 
tive, and  ethereal,  and  inspired  him  with  su- 
perstitious awe.  He  was  convinced  that  it 
was  the  music  of  disembodied  souls  on  their 


way  to  enter  other  earthly  forms.  So  en- 
tranced was  he  with  this  mystic  music,  that 
he  forgot  cold  and  hunger  and  the  passing  of 
time,  and  was  startled  when  the  tall  form  of 
Yuen  appeared  at  his  side.  The  Tartar 
held  a  drawn  sword  in  his  hand. 

"  Venerable  elder  brother,"  said  Thay- 
shing, eagerly,  "  here  we  can  penetrate  deep- 
ly into  the  mysteries  of  Nature.  Listen,  and 
you  will  hear  the  music  of  the  dead. 

They  listened  breathlessly. 

"  Venerable  younger  brother,"  said  Yuen 
half  contemptuously,  "at  the  top  of  this  pa- 
goda are  hung  a  number  of  silver  bells, 
which,  when  agitated  by  the  wind,  make  the 
sound  that  has  deceived  you." 

At  this  moment  Thayshing  discovered  be- 
hind Yuen  two  Chinese  bearing  a  sedan 
chair. 

"  Whom  have  you  there  ?  "  he  asked. 

"A  hostage,"  muttered  Yuen,  "who  will 
either  gain  us  immunity  and  pardon,  or  suf- 
fer death  at  our  hands.  Let  him  beware 
who  attempts  to  cope  with  Yuen.  Having 
made  my  preparations,  I  took  this  vehicle 
and  repaired  to  the  residence  of  the  Great 
Minister,  who  was  giving  a  reception  to  the 
dignitaries  of  the  provincial  city.  All  were 
fat  and  merry,  for  they  had  reached  the  fif- 
tieth course  at  table.  I  bribed  a  Tartar, 
whom  I  could  trust,  to  decoy  the  little  son 
of  the  Great  Minister  into  the  garden.  I 
wore  a  powerful  talisman  and  it  brought  me 
abundant  success.  But  there  came  with 
the  boy  a  young  damsel,  and  as  I  have  a 
prejudice  against  slaying  any  but  men,  I  was 
obliged  to  take  her  too.  She  is  Le  Awoo, 
the  daughter  of  Lin.  I  took  them  out  by 
an  unfrequented  path,  and  placed  them  in 
my  sedan  chair.  I  have  overcome  fifty  dan- 
gers, and  I  am  here.  Now  we  must  reach 
a  place  of  safety,  from  whence  we  can  nego- 
tiate with  the  Great  Minister." 

"  Venerable  elder  brother,"  said  Thay- 
shing, "  Le  Awoo  is  my  betrothed.  Our 
wedding  day  was  set  for  a  month  hence." 

"I  was  not  aware  of  that,"  said  Yuen, 
calmly,  "  but  I  deliver  the  damsel  up  to  you. 
The  boy  I  shall  retain.  We  will  offer  to 
return  the  hostage  alive  and  well,  on  condi- 


1885.] 


A   Celestial  Tragedy. 


585 


tion  of  a  full  and  free  pardon  for  ourselves. 
If  that  fails,  there  is  yet  another  way  to 
bring  the  fanatical  Great  Minister  to  terms. 
We  will  bribe  one  of  the  hwae-heae,  the 
smuggling  boats  that  are  called  '  fast  crabs,' 
and  join  the  pirates  on  the  coast.  I  will 
obtain  command  over  them,  organize  a  fleet, 
and  commit  such  terrible  depredations,  that 
the  sacred  Son  of  heaven  himself  will  have 
to  treat  with  me.  It  has  been  done  before, 
my  venerable  younger  brother,  and  may  be 
done  again.  Many  years  ago  the  pirate  fleet 
off  the  coast  of  Canron  numbered  six  hun- 
dred junks,  and  struck  such  terror  into  the 
hearts  of  the  sacred  emperor  and  his  minis- 
ters that  they  were  forced  to  proclaim  a  gen- 
eral pardon ;  and  the  commander  of  the 
fleet  was  granted  a  high  rank  in  the  service 
of  the  Celestial  Majesty.  He  was  my  sa- 
cred ancestor,  whom  I  worship." 

"Your  plans  are  like  the  rushing  of  the 
typhoon,"  said  Thayshing.  "But  I  have  a 
gentler  plan  which  may  save  us,"  he  con- 
tinued. "  Le  Awoo  is  dearly  beloved  by  the 
Great  Minister.  We  will  go  on  until  we 
reach  a  temple  where  there  are  priests,  and 
I  will  marry  her.  Then  in  deep  repentance 
we  will  return,  with  the  little  boy,  and  the 
Great  Minister  will  be  moved  with  compas- 
sion toward  us,  and  we  shall  be  forgiven.  I 
will  then  intercede  for  you,  and  you,  too, 
will  be  forgiven,  on  account  of  your  great 
abilities." 

"  You  would  try  to  turn  back  this  south- 
west monsoon  with  your  fan,"  said  Yuen. 
"  Let  us  hasten  forward,  before  the  pursuers 
are  upon  us. " 

Thayshing  stepped  up  to  the  sedan  chair 
and  spoke  to  Le  Awoo,  assuring  her  of  her 
safety,  and  telling  her  what  he  proposed  to 
do  in  regard  to  the  marriage,  to  which  the 
frightened  girl  acquiesced. 

They  now  set  out  again  down  the  river, 
and  traveled  for  a  long  time  in  silence. 
The  wind  howled  across  the  low  rice  fields, 
and  swept  in  wild  gusts  around  the  rocky 
hills.  The  clouds  had  been  rolling  up,  black 
and  frowning,  and  presently  fierce  lightning 
flashes  began  to  dart  across  the  sky,  fol- 
lowed by  stunning  detonations.  The  storm 


was  approaching,  and  would  soon  burst  up- 
upon  them.  Cries  of  terror  and  woe  were 
heard  from  the  sedan  chair. 

"  I  hope  there  is  shelter  near,"  said  Thay- 
shing. "The  fury  of  the  storm  will  soon 
burst  upon  us." 

Hardly  had  he  spoken  when  they  began 
crossing  a  bridge  over  a  small  river;  and  as 
they  reached  the  other  side  a  vivid  flash  re- 
vealed a  small  temple  near  by. 

"It  is  the  temple  belonging  to  some  infe- 
rior town  not  far  away,"  said  Yuen.  "  Here 
we  can  obtain  shelter." 

As  they  approached,  they  saw  a  dim  light 
streaming  from  the  doorway  into  the  dark- 
ness, and  heard  the  low,  monotonous  chant 
of  the  priests  at  their  morning  devotions, 
mingled  with  the  fitful  and  mournful  clang 
of  a  bell.  They  hastened  forward,  and  en- 
.tered  just  as  a  furious  shower  of  rain  came 
rushing  down.  The  yellow-robed  priests, 
many  of  whom  presented  a  very  shabby  ap- 
pearance, gazed  at  the  strangers  with  great 
astonishment ;  but  continued  their  slow  per- 
ambulations about  the  altar  of  Buddha,  and 
their  dreary,  monotonous  chant,  while  one 
of  their  number  struck  a  melancholy  bell. 
Around  the  walls  of  the  temple  were  many 
hideous  statues  of  gods  or  of  sages.  One 
of  these  had  a  window  in  the  breast,  indi- 
cating, presumably,  purity  of  heart.  Gor- 
geous decorations  were  everywhere  visible  ; 
and  on  the  altars  were  incense-urns,  flower- 
vases,  and  taper-stands. 

When  the  chant  was  finished,  the  head 
priest  came  forward  to  greet  the  strangers, 
perceiving  by  their  dress  that  they  were  no- 
table persons.  Thayshing  at  once  expressed 
his  desire  that  the  priest  should  assist  them 
in  performing  the  marriage  ceremony.  Al- 
though expressing  surprise  in  his  looks,  the 
priest  signified  his  entire  willingness  to  offici- 
ate ;  and  his  alacrity  was  redoubled  by  a 
handsome  fee. 

Le  Awoo  and  her  brother,  a  boy  of  six  or 
seven  years,  now  emerged  from  the  sedan 
chair.  The  girl  was  dressed  in  richly  em- 
broidered silks  of  pink  and  green,  adorned 
with  strings  of  pearls.  The  long  sleeves  of 
her  robe  concealed  her  hands  with  their  cost- 


586 


A   Celestial  Tragedy. 


[Dec. 


ly  bracelets.  Her  pinched  feet  were  encased 
in  beautiful  shoes  of  minute  proportions. 
Her  long  hair  hung  in  tresses.  Her  pallid 
cheeks  were  daubed  with  red  pigment.  The 
boy  was  padded  with  multitudinous  garments 
of  costly  materials  and  of  gaudy  colors. 

Amid  appalling  crashes  of  thunder  they 
now  prepared  to  perform  the  marriage  cere- 
mony, urged  on  by  Yuen,  who  declared,  how- 
ever, that  all  hopes  of  safety  and  pardon 
based  on  the  marriage  were  vain.  He  as- 
sured Thayshing  that  pursuers  were  on  their 
track,  and  that  it  was  necessary  to  resume 
their  journey  the  instant  the  rain  ceased. 

When  the  preparations  were  completed, 
Thayshing  and  Le  Awoo  offered  sacrifices 
at  the  altar,  and  knelt,  touching  their 'fore- 
heads many  times  to  the  pavement.  Then 
each  took  a  cup  of  wine,  and  they  stood  to- 
gether before  the  priest,  who  proceeded  to 
burn  a  paper  containing  the  marriage  agree- 
ment, and  mingle  the  ashes  with  the  wine  in 
the  cups.  They  then  bowed  thrice  to  the 
East,  which  was  already  illumined  by  a  pale 
light,  and  as  they  bowed  they  spilled  a  little 
of  the  wine  upon  the  floor.  The  next  cere- 
.mony  was  the  burning  of  incense,  and  sacri- 
fices to  their  ancestors,  after  which  they 
drank  the  remaining  wine. 

These  rites  occupied  a  great  deal  of  time, 
but  even  the  impatient  Yuen  seemed  soothed 
by  them,  and  remained  till  the  close  a  silent 
and  absorbed  spectator.  The  little  boy  had 
crept  close  to  him,  and  clung  to  his  robe, 
frightened  and  awed.  At  the  conclusion  of 
the  ceremony,  all  were  surprised,  on  looking 
out,  to  find  that  the  lightning  and  rain  had 
ceased,  and  the  gray  light  of  morning  had 
overspread  the  earth. 

As  they  prepared  to  depart,  they  discov- 
ered that  the  chairmen  had  disappeared. 
Almost  immediately  they  heard  a  loud  mur- 
mur of  voices,  and  saw,  to  their  horror,  a 
large  band  of  soldiers,  led  by  three  manda- 
rins, approaching  the  temple  at  a  rapid  pace. 
With  his  usual  promptness,  Yuen  hurled  the 
great  outer  door  shut,  and  secured  it  with  a 
huge  beam  which  he  found  in  the  temple. 
The  frightened  priests  disappeared  through  a 
passage  in  the  rear.  A  loud  voice  was  heard 


commanding  them  to  come  forth  and  sur- 
render. 

"  My  venerable  elder  brother,"  said  Thay- 
shing, "let  us  go  forth  and  trust  to  the  mercy 
of  the  Great  Minister.  Do  you  not  realize 
that  in  thus  resisting  you  are  engaging  in  re- 
bellion against  the  celestial  majesty  ?" 

"To  surrender  is  to  die,"  said  Yuen.  I 
shall  obtain  terms,  or,  in  my  fall,  carry  many 
down  with  me  in  frightful  ruin." 

Then  he  called  in  stentorian  tones  to  the 
mandarins  outside,  and  a  profound  silence 
ensued. 

"Venerable  brothers,"  he  said,  "I  hold 
the  son  of  the  Great  Minister  my  prisoner. 
Go,  therefore,  and  bring  us  assurance  of  full 
pardon,  and  I  will  deliver  up  the  boy  in  safe- 
ty. If  it  is  not  granted,  I  will  behead  him 
without  mercy." 

Yuen  stood  with  his  sword  in  one  hand, 
alert,  ferocious,  inexorable,  awaiting  the  re- 
sult of  his  ultimatum.  With  his  other  hand 
he  grasped  the  arm  of  the  child,  who  now  be- 
gan to  utter  piteous  cries. 

After  a  consultation,  the  mandarins  gave 
orders  in  a  low  tone  to  the  soldiers,  several 
of  whom  were  seen  directing  their  match- 
locks toward  the  temple.  They  did  not  fire, 
however,  but  in  a  few  moments  a  terrific  rush 
was  made  at  the  door,  and  thundering  blows 
were  struck  upon  it  that  threatened  every  in- 
stant to  hurl  it  inward.  Yuen,  thoroughly 
aroused,  seemed  to  dilate,  to  tower  like  a 
giant.  His  eyes  were  like  blazing  furnaces. 
He  thundered  forth  warnings  and  threats, 
but  the  assault  went  on  with  increased  fierce- 
ness. The  imploring  voices  of  Thayshing 
and  Le  Awoo  were  drowned  in  the  dismal 
clamor. 

Seeing  the  door  give  way,  Yuen,  with  a 
frightful  imprecation,  seized  the  boy  and 
raised  his  sword.  The  innocent,  frightened 
face  and  pleading  eyes  of  the  child  were  up- 
lifted to  him.  A  potent  thrill  of  compassion 
stayed  his  arm.  He  threw  the  boy  into  Le 
Awoo's  arms  and  turned  away ;  and,  as  the 
door  crashed  down  in  fragments,  sprang  out 
into  the  crowd  like  a  tiger,  and  in  an  instant 
had  stretched  four  or  five  men  bleeding  on 
the  ground.  Amid  the  confusion  and  terror 


1885.] 


A   Celestial  Tragedy. 


587 


caused  by  his  appearance,  he  dashed  away 
and  escaped,  followed  by  a  wild  volley  of  iron 
shot  from  the  matchlocks  of  the  soldiers. 

Thayshing  and  Le  Awoo  made  no  resist- 
ance, and  were  captured  at  once.  To  his 
astonishment,  Thayshing  saw  the  fat  Chu 
among  the  assailants.  That  shrewd  official 
had  taken  this  method  of  securing  the  favor 
of  Lin,  since  it  was%  well  known  that  he  had 
been  a  friend  of  Yuen  and  Thayshing,  and 
therefore,  liable  to  suspicion.  The  troops 
returned  to  Canton  with  their  prisoners, 
reaching  the  city  in  the  evening.  On  the 
way  to  the  justice  room  of  Lin,  through  ex- 
cited crowds,  they  passed  the  residence  of 
the  unfortunate  Tsin,  before  the  doors  of 
which  the  great  blue  lanterns  of  mourning 
were  already  hung. 

The  trial  did  not  occupy  much  time. 
There  were  no  exceptions,  appeals,  or  mo- 
tions for  a  new  trial.  The  Great  Minister, 
himself,  acted  as  judge  in  the  case.  He 
showed  that  Thayshing,  in  addition  to  the 
crime  of  opium  smoking,  had  been  acces- 
sory to  four  murders,  namely  :  the  official, 
Tsin,  and  three  soldiers  who  had  died  of 
wounds  inflicted  by  Yuen.  Also,  in  fleeing 
from  the  law,  and  resisting  the  Imperial 
troops,  he  had  been  guilty  of  rebellion 
against  the  Celestial  Majesty,  which  was 
punishable  by  the  extreme  penalty  of  the 
law. 

However,  by  some  extraordinary  favor, 
Thayshing  did  not  die  by  lingering  torture, 
but  was  simply  beheaded.  His  father,  his 
two  little  brothers,  his  grandfather,  who  had 
just  taken  his  degree  at  the  Imperial  exam- 
inations after  a  lifetime  of  assiduous  study 
of  Confucius,  his  uncles,  and  his  male  cous- 
ins were  likewise  all  beheaded,  according  to 
the  law  relating  to  the  crime  of  treason. 
The  females  of  the  family  were  sold  into 
slavery.  As  Le  Awoo,  by  marrying  Thay- 
shing, had  become  a  member  of  his  family, 


she,    too,   was   sold   into   slavery   with   the 
others. 

After  the  escape  of  Yuen,  a  great  increase 
in  the  number  of  pirates  on  the  coast  was 
noticed,  and  their  depredations  became 
alarming ;  but  the  many  foreign  war  vessels 
that  arrived  soon  after  gave  a  severe  check 
to  their  plundering  operations. 

About  the  year  1848,  the  British  sloop-of- 
war  "  Scout,"  while  cruising  in  the  Straits  of 
Formosa,  discovered  several  pirate  junks  off 
Chimmo  Bay,  and  at  once  gave  chase.  She 
soon  overtook  the  pirates,  and  sailing  abreast 
of  the  largest  junk,  ordered  those  on  board 
to  lower  their  sails  and  surrender.  One  of 
the  Chinese,  becoming  frightened,  ran  to 
obey  the  order.  The  pirate  captain,  a  tall, 
powerful  man,  perceived  him,  and,  with  a 
ferocious  yell,  leaped  forward,  and  cleft  the 
man's  head  to  the  neck  with  a  blow  of  his 
scimetar.  Amidst  a  fire  of  muskets  and  gin- 
gals,  the  "  Scout "  then  attempted  to  close 
with  the  pirate  in  order  to  board,  but  was 
obliged  to  haul  off  on  account  of  a  shower 
of  flaming  missiles  of  horrible  odor,  called 
"stinkpots,"  thrown  by  the  Chinese,  which 
set  the  ship  on  fire.  After  the  flames  were 
extinguished,  the  ''Scout"  opened  fire  with 
her  broadside,  and  in  a  few  minutes  had  re- 
duced the  junk  to  a  wreck,  killed  or  wounded 
many  of  the  pirates,  and  driven  nearly  all 
the  rest  into  the  water,  where  they  were 
picked  up  by  the  ship's  boats.  The  other 
junks  soon  surrendered. 

When  the  British  took  possession,  they 
found  the  Chinese  captain  with  both  legs 
shot  off.  He  was  taken  aboard  the  "  Scout," 
and  his  injuries  dressed  by  the  surgeon  ;  but 
the  fierce  pirate,  with  a  last  desperate  effort, 
tore  the  bandages  off,  and  soon  bled  to 
death. 

This  was,  undoubtedly,  Yuen  himself, 
who  thus  ended  his  life  in  a  characteristic 


manner. 


C.  E.  B. 


588 


Travels  in  South  America. 


[Dec. 


TRAVELS   IN    SOUTH    AMERICA. 


IT  was  on  a  fine  March  morning  that  I  en- 
tered the  beautiful  bay  of  Rio  de  Janeiro, 
after  a  very  pleasant  passage  of  twenty-four 
days  from  Southampton,  during  which  I  had 
touched  at  Lisbon,  St.  Vincent,  Pernambuco, 
and  Bahia.  I  remained  only  a  few  days  in 
the  metropolis  of  the  Brazilian  Empire, 
whose  description  is  too  well  known  to  need 
repetition,  and  then  started  thence  on  my 
excursions  to  the  province  of  Rio. 

I  crossed  the  island-studded  bay  on  a 
commodious  ferry-steamer,  and  took  rail  to 
the  fashionable  city  Petropolis,  situated  in  a 
beautiful  valley  two  thousand  feet  above  the 
sea  level,  surrounded  by  thickly-wooded 
hills,  abounding  in  all  the  noble  trees  and 
luxurious  plants  of  the  tropical  forest.  Pe- 
tropolis is  a  health  resort,  and  also  the  sum- 
mer resort  of  the  imperial  family  and  the 
foreign  diplomatic  corps,  as  well  as  of  the 
notables  of  Rio.  The  railroad  from  the 
base  of  the  mountain  ridge  to  Petropolis  is 
constructed  on  the  rack  or  Rhigi  principle,  in 
order  to  overcome  the  very  steep  gradings, 
which  amount  to  as  much  as  one  foot  in  five. 

After  a  short  stay  here,  I  descended  the 
celebrated  macadamized  road  to  Entro  Rios 
by  stage,  and  thence  I  went  by  rail  to  Bar- 
bacina,  passing  all  the  way  through  the  finest 
coffee  and  sugar  lands.  From  Barba- 
cina  I  made  a  short  excursion  to  the  rich 
mining  districts  of  Ouro-preta  (which  means 
"  dark  gold ")  and  then  I  traveled  on  the 
great  Petro  Secundo  railroad  up  the  fertile 
valley  of  Para-hyva-do-sul,  a  fine,  broad 
stream,  but  unfortunately  not  navigable,  on 
account  of  its  many  rapids.  To  the  right 
are  the  mountains  of  the  Mantiqueira  range, 
with  the  peak  Ytataia  towering  ten  thousand 
feet  in  the  clouds,  the  highest  elevation  of 
the  Brazilian  Empire.  These  mountains 
are  the  sources  of  the  river  Parana,  com- 
monly known  as  the  river  Plate  (Buenos 
Ayres). 

Crossing  into  the  province  of  San  Pablo, 


I  passed  an  extensive  high  plain,  the  rich 
lands  of  which  produce  excellent  crops  of 
coffee,  sugar,  tobacco,  rice,  tapioca,  and 
beans,  besides  fine  pasturage  for  cattle.  The 
city  of  San  Pablo,  the  capital  of  the  province, 
lies  two  thousand  four  hundred  and  sixty 
feet  above  the  level  of  the  sea,  and  is  a  fine, 
thriving  place;  it  has  a  State  University,  and 
is  the  center  and  starting  point  of  five  differ- 
ent railroads,  two  of  which  are  being  pushed 
on  to  the  very  frontier  of  Uruguay. 

I  made  several  visits  to  the  extensive 
coffee  districts  of  Rio  Clara  and  Campinos, 
which  produce  the  fine,  mild  Santos  coffees 
so  much  appreciated  in  Europe.  I  spent 
several  days  under  the  hospitable  roofs  of 
some  of  the  owners  of  the  largest  plantations. 
One  of  these  is  named  San  Gertrudis.  Its 
proprietor,  the  Conde  de  Tres  Rios,  has 
two  hundred  and  eighty-five  slaves.  There 
are  six  hundred  and  fifteen  thousand  fruit- 
bearing  coffee  trees,  which  have  yielded  in 
two  successive  years — 1882  and  1883 — a 
crop  of  sixty  thousand  arobas  (fifteen  kilo- 
grams or  thirty-three  pounds  being  a  Brazil- 
ian aroba). 

Ybicaba,  another  of  these  plantations,  is 
the  property  of  Colonel  Jos£  de  Vergueira. 
Both  the  plantation  and  its  amiable  host  are 
well  known  abroad,  in  consequence  of  the 
Colonel's  unbounded  liberality  and  cordial 
hospitality.  He  served  for  several  years  in 
a  Prussian  crack  regiment  of  artillery,  and, 
in  addition  to  being  a  jovial  and  highly  edu- 
cated gentleman,  he  is  a  great  linguist. 
The  plantation,  with  its  four  hundred  and 
eighty  slaves  all  told,  has  some  of  the  richest 
soil  under  plough  for  sugar-cane,  and  one 
million  fruit-bearing  coffee  trees,  which  pro- 
duced last  year  eighty  thousand  arobas. 
Some  years  have  produced  extra  rich  crops, 
amounting  to  as  much  as  two  hundred  aro- 
bas to  every  one  thousand  trees.  The  Col- 
onel is  one  of  the  first  great  land-owners  who 
tried  the  system  of  importing  free  laborers 


1885.] 


Travels  in  South  America. 


589 


from  Europe,  paying  their  passage  and  giv- 
ing them  house,  garden,  ground,  cattle,  and 
agricultural  implements  free ;  in  return  for 
which  they  have  to  work  his  plantations 
from  six  to  eight  hours  a  day.  This  small 
colony,  consisting  chiefly  of  northern  Ital- 
ians from  Piedmont  and  Lombardy,  and 
some  families  from  Southern  Tyrol,  were 
thriving  well,  and  wherever  I  went  I  saw 
happy  and  contented  faces  looking  out  from 
the  windows  of  their  neat  cottages,  and  peep- 
ing over  the  fences  of  the  gardens  and  pad- 
docks. 

I  also  passed  some  very  pleasant  days  on 
the  plantations  of  Baron  I  tap  lira,  near  Cam- 
pinas. His  four  rich  estates  are  spread 
around  that  lovely  city  ;  they  are  worked  by 
seven  hundred  slaves,  and  produce  100,000 
arobas  of  the  very  best  coffee.  Speaking  of 
happy  faces,  I  think  it  my  duty  to  mention 
that,  on  all  the  plantations  I  visited,  I  found 
the  poor,  maltreated  blacks  (as  the  Exeter 
Hall  people  and  others  call  them)  leading  a 
very  contented  life,  and  all  whom  I  ques- 
tioned about  their  condition  assured  me  that 
they  were  more  than  satisfied  with  their  lot. 
They  were  never  overworked  by  their  mas- 
ters, and  they  were  all  cared  for  in  every 
way.  All  the  married  slaves  have  separate 
cottages,  and  paddocks  for  live  stock,  which 
consists  of  chickens,  turkeys,  ducks,  pigs, 
and  occasionally  a  cow  ;  the  whole  well  fed 
and  plump — of  course  from  the  granaries 
of  their  master. 

Every  morning  at  six  o'clock  the  gates  of 
the  dwelling  yards  are  opened,  and  out 
marches  a  gay  crowd  of  darkies — men,  wom- 
en and  children — singing  and  laughing  be- 
fore they  begin  the  day's  work  in  the  fields. 
They  are  closely  followed  by  heavily  laden  ox- 
carts, carrying  an  ample  supply  of  provisions 
for  the  day.  At  five  o'clock  in  the  after- 
noon work  ceases,  and  on  their  return  to 
the  cottages,  each  can  employ  the  remaining 
hours  of  the  day  in  amusement,  or  in  the 
cultivation  of  his  own  land. 

The  proprietors  of  these  large  estates  keep 
good  bands  of  music,  nearly  all  of  the  in- 
struments being  imported  from  Paris.  The 
musicians  are  instructed  by  able  professors. 


It  was  a  pleasant  surprise  to  me  after  dinner, 
to  hear  the  tones  of  a  martial  air,  slowly 
nearing  the  verandah  of  Count  Tres  Rios's 
handsome  villa,  then  bursting  forth  into  the 
Austrian  national  anthem,  and  executing 
this  stirring  piece  without  a  fault.  At  Col- 
onel Vergueira's,  I  was  treated  by  his  musi- 
cal slaves  to  the  "  Watch  on  the  Rhine." 

At  Ypanema,  on  the  Sorrocaba  railroad, 
one  hundred  miles  from  San  Pablo,  I  visited 
the  far-famed  Imperial  Iron  Works.  The  ex- 
ceedingly rich  ores  (magnetic  and  mangan- 
ite,  yielding  up  to  60  per  cent.)  are  taken 
in  different  sized  boulders  from  the  surface 
of  a  neighboring  hill,  in  apparently  inex- 
haustible quantities.  In  the  process  of  roast- 
ing, grayish  limestone,  which  is  found  adja- 
cent to  the  mines,  is  mixed  with  the  iron  to 
free  it  from  sulphur.  The  melting  furnaces 
are  heated  by  charcoal,  of  which  the  sur- 
rounding forest  woods  produce  abundance, 
the  iron  product  being  of  such  an  excellent 
and  pure  quality  that  all  the  casting  is  done 
directly  from  the  furnace,  instead  of  going 
through  the  second  process  of  cupolaing.  I 
saw  fine  castings  of  fences,  crosses,  railings, 
grates,  and  slabs,  with  inscriptions  thereon, 
executed  in  the  most  perfect  way.  A  large 
proportion  of  the  yield  is  converted  into 
wrought  iron  by  the  old  Styrian  process,  and 
this  material,  which  is  of  a  very  superior 
quality,  is  all  used  in  the  extensive  navy 
yards  of  the  Brazilian  Empire,  in  Rio.  The 
Ypanema  Iron  Works  were  started  many 
years  ago  for  the  Government  by  Baron 
Varnhagen,  a  general  in  the  Brazilian  army, 
under  Dom  Pedro  I.,  and  were  brought  to 
their  present  perfection  principally  by  the 
efforts  of  his  son,  the  late  Conde  de  Porto- 
Segura,  who,  in  1873,  was  the  Imperial  Min- 
ister to  the  Court  of  Vienna.  A  large  cast- 
iron  cross  on  an  immense  white  sand  stone 
rock,  shining  through  the  dark  foliage  of  a 
tropical  forest,  about  seven  hundred  feet 
above  the  works,  is  erected  in  memory  of 
this  great  industrial  benefactor  and  able 
statesman. 

San  Pablo  is  connected  with  the  busy  port 
of  Santos  by  the  Coast  Range  railroad — a 
surface  wire  line  leading  for  2,600  feet  down 


590 


Travels  in  South  America. 


[Dec. 


an  inclined  plane,  at  a  grade  of  one  in  ten, 
and  even  one  in  four  feet.  There  are  7,000 
metres  of  wire  ropes,  divided  into  four  sec- 
tions each,  which  are  separately  worked  by 
stationary  engines.  Only  three  carriages,  ca- 
pable of  carrying  six  tons  each,  form  a  train. 
I  was  much  interested  in  an  iron  trestle-work 
bridge,  168  feet  in  height  and  about  1,000 
feet  long,  which  spans  a  ravine,  and  not  only 
forms  a  sharp  curve,  but  is  also  constructed 
at  a  grading  of  one  in  ten  feet,  so  that  there 
is  a  difference  of  100  feet  between  one  end 
of  the  bridge  and  the  other.  This  railroad 
is  kept  in  splendid  working  condition,  and 
by  its  enormous  coffee  traffic  is  able  to  pay 
a  remunerative  dividend  to  its  shareholders. 

I  left  the  Brazilian  Empire  on  board  the 
royal  mail  steamship  "  La  Plata,"  en  route 
for  Monte  Video,  the  capital  of  Uruguay; 
but  instead  of  landing  there  directly,  I  had 
the  ill-fortune  to  be  condemned  to  pass  three 
days  of  the  strictest  quarantine  on  a  miser- 
able rock  called  Flores  Island,  which  is  twenty 
miles  from  Monte  Vide"o.  I  was  much  sur- 
prised that  we  all  escaped  the  cholera,  for 
the  quarantine  quarters  were  most  wretched 
and  unclean,  the  food  poor,  and  the  wine 
very  sour — and  this  at  a  charge  of  $2.50  per 
diem  for  each  first-class  passenger. 

When  we  did  reach  Monte  Vide"o  I  was 
pleased  by  its  fine  harbor,  its  handsome 
buildings,  forming  broad,  clean  streets,  and 
its  extensive  system  of  street  cars.  As  soon 
as  the  immense  projected  works  of  docks 
and  jetties  (only  a  few  months  ago  begun  by 
English  and  home  capital)  shall  be  finished, 
the  port  of  Monte  Video  will  rank  as  the 
first  on  the  eastern  coast  of  South  America, 
and  will  enable  this  city  not  only  to  hold  its 
own  again  against  Buenos  Ayres,  but  to 
draw  back  a  large  proportion  of  the  latter's 
extensive  commerce. 

The  country  back  of  Monte  Video  consists 
of  the  finest  grazing  lands,  well  watered,  and 
particularly  suitable  for  grain  ;  the  only  want 
is  railroads  to  open  the  interior.  A  few 
years  ago  several  railroads  were  started  from 
Monte  Vide'o,  and  were  pushed  on  with  en- 
ergy for  some  time,  until  suddenly  they  all 
came  to  a  dead  stop,  after  having  been  run 


some  fifteen  miles,  some  twenty  miles,  and 
one  fifty  miles.  The  reason  of  this  stoppage 
I  could  not  learn. 

My  next  excursion  was  to  the  celebrated 
works  of  Fray-Centos  (the  Liebig  Extract  of 
Meat  Company),  situated  on  a  bold  bluff 
overlooking  the  noble  Uruguay  river,  here 
miles  broad,  and  deep  enough  for  the  largest 
sea-going  vessels.  During  the  season  (which 
lasts  about  six  months)  the  establishment 
slaughters  about  150,000  head  of  cattle,  at 
the  rate  of  800  to  1 100  a  day.  All  is  done 
in  a  quiet  business  way,  without  much  outcry 
and  hard  words.  The  victim  is  lassoed,  and 
drawn  by  a  small  winch  to  a  gate  with  strong 
iron  cross-bars,  where  one  stroke  with  a 
broad,  sharp  pointed  knife,  inserted  in  the 
spinal  column,  causes  instantaneous  death. 
.  The  quivering  carcass  is  then  placed  upon 
a  truck  and  passed  to  the  second  operator,  and 
so  on,  passing  from  hand  to  hand,  until  it  ap- 
pears as  a  dark  brown,  syrup-like  substance 
under  the  name  of  Liebig's  extract  of  meat. 
Every  particle  of  the  carcass  is  utilized,  noth- 
ing is  wasted,  and  in  this  way,  by  the  splendid 
management  of  its  able  director,  Charles  H. 
Crocker,  it  is  the  best  paying  enterprise  in 
this  line  of  any  in  the  world,  yielding  to 
shareholders,  annually,  a  big  dividend.  All 
this,  notwithstanding  the  high  prices  of  cattle, 
ranging  up  to  fifteen  dollars  gold  per  head  ; 
prices  so  high  and  out  of  proportion  that  va- 
rious large  saladeros  (cattle-killing  establish- 
ments) were  compelled  to  reduce  their  work- 
ing, some  even  to  close  entirely,  waiting  for 
more  favorable  times. 

At  Punto  Cerro,  opposite  to  Monte  Video, 
is  situated  the  great  dry  dock  belonging  to 
Cibils  Brothers.  It  is  four  hundred  and  six- 
ty feet  long  by  forty-five  feet  wide  at  the  bot- 
tom, and  cut  out  of  solid  rock — an  excellent 
piece  of  engineering. 

In  a  luxuriously  appointed  steamer,  I 
crossed  the  river  Plate  (here  ninety  miles 
wide),  to  Buenos  Ayres,  a  very  pleasant  trip, 
occupying  from  five  P.  M.  to  seven  o'clock  A. 
M.  All  the  latest  improvements  are  to  be 
found  on  this  floating  palace — electric  lights 
not  only  in  the  saloon,  but  also  in  the  state- 
rooms ;  the  gorgeous  dining  saloons  are  fit- 


1885.] 


Travels  in  South  America. 


591 


ted  up  d  la  Delmonico,  and  here  passengers 
can  regale  themselves  with  a  sumptuous  re- 
past fully  equal  to  that  of  the  celebrated  New 
York  restaurant.  The  passage  money,  six 
dollars,  includes  dinner,  supper,  breakfast, 
and  wine  ad  libitum. 

From  Buenos  Ayres  (where  every  one  was 
complaining  of  dull  times),  five  hours  by  rail 
brought  me  to  La  Campana,  on  the  right 
bank  of  the  Parana  river,  where  a  steamer 
was  in  waiting  to  carry  us  to  Rosario.  Here 
a  very  thriving  business  is  carried  on,  con- 
sisting in  forwarding  all  kinds  of  goods  and 
agricultural  implements  by  rail  to  the  upper 
provinces  of  the  Argentine  Republic.  The 
railroad  company  is  doing  a  roaring  business. 
I  saw  piles  upon  piles  of  merchandise  on  the 
long  wharves  waiting  to  be  transported,  for 
want  of  sufficient  rolling  stock. 

From  Rosario,  I  went  to  Cordova  by  way 
of  Villa  Mercedes,  the  starting  point  of  the 
recently  opened  Mendoza  railroad.  The 
line  passes  through  level  lands,  all  under 
plow.  The  soil  is  mostly'adapted  for  wheat, 
returning  crops  that  before  long  will  equal 
in  quantity  those  of  California.  Indeed,  I 
heard  several  large  landowners  and  fanners 
question  rather  despondently  how  they  would 
be  able  to  dispose  of  their  enormous  yield  in 
coming  years.  1  passed  through  various  fair 
sized  settlements  of  Italian  and  German  im- 
migrants, all  apparently  in  a  very  thriving 
condition.  Cordova,  one  of  the  first  cities 
built  by  the  old  Spaniards,  is  rather  a  dull 
place  as  regards  commerce.  Besides  the 
State  observatory  and  university,  the  place  is 
full  of  churches  and  monasteries,  with  a  pre- 
vailing number  of  priests  and  devotees  of  the 
fair  sex.  All  the  surrounding  country  shows 
a  barren  aspect.  There  is  very  little  vegeta- 
tion, for  want  of  a  system  of  irrigation,  which 
might  very  easily  be  introduced,  were  it  not 
for  the  apathy  of  the  people.  The  Argentine 
North  Central  Railroad  has  here  very  exten- 
sive machine  shops,  giving  employment  to 
fifteen  hundred  people.  Over  this  line  I 
went  to  Tucaman,  a  distance  of  five  hundred 
and  forty-six  kilometers,  nearly  all  on  a  dead 
level.  The  trip  was  made  in  two  days,  as 
we  had  to  lie  over  at  night  at  a  station  called 


Recreo,  which — being  in  a  howling  desert, 
with  a  very  scanty  supply  of  water — means 
Recreation. 

Leaving  Cordova,  we  passed  over  exten- 
sive barren  plains.  In  the  distance  on  our 
left  were  the  Cordova  hills,  still  rich  in  good 
timber,  especially  the  Guebrache  (hatchet- 
breaker)  wood,  so  well  appreciated  by  the  rail- 
road company  for  sleepers  that  millions  of  the 
trees  are  sent  all  over  the  Argentine  Republic. 
Further  on  we  crossed  vast  alkaline  deserts 
( salinas),  and  running  through  the  western 
end  of  the  Grand  Chaco,  we  came  into  the  fer- 
tile plains  of  the  Province  of  Tucuman,  wa- 
tered by  numerous  streams  rushing  down  from 
a  spur  of  the  main  range  of  the  Cordilleras, 
the  perpetually  snow-capped  peaks  of  which 
rise  to  the  height  of  seventeen  thousand  feet. 
The  city  of  Tucuman  has  a  large  trade,  not 
only  with  the  adjoining  province  of  Salta, 
but  also  in  transit  to  the  main  business  parts 
of  Bolivia ;  whence  in  return  large  conductas 
(mule  trains)  of  silver,  the  product  of  the  rich 
mines  of  Potosi,  Sucre,  and  Cochabamba, 
are  sent  down  for  shipment  to  Europe.  The 
railroad  from  Tucuman  is  in  construction 
through  the  province  of  Salta  to  the  very 
foot  of  the  Andes,  and  it  is  hoped  that  some 
day  it  will  here  be  joined  by  a  Bolivian  rail- 
road down  through  the  rich  center  lands  of 
that  Republic. 

Tucuman  is  an  excellent  sugar-producing 
country.  The  soil  and  semi-tropical  climate 
are  well  adapted  for  the  cane.  I  visited  sev- 
eral large  estates,  where  from  six  hundred  to 
eight  hundred  hands  were  employed,  and  I 
found,  in  large  modern  buildings,  the  very 
best  machinery  with  the  latest  improve- 
ments ;  nearly  all  of  it  was  manufactured  in 
Paris.  Messrs.  Posse  Brothers  are  the  own- 
ers of  the  large  plantation  San  Felipe.  I 
saw  here  a  complete  set  of  machinery,  includ- 
ing a  distillery  for  high  grade  alcohol,  for 
which  the  owners  paid  the  round  sum  of 
$100,000  in  Europe.  The  estate  produced 
last  year  about  one  hundred  and  forty  thou- 
sand arobas  of  fine  centrifugal  sugar  of  No. 
1 8  Dutch  standard,  and  will  yield  a  larger 
number  of  arobas  this  year.  The  fine  work- 
ing centrifugas,  of  which  my  friends  have 


592 


Travels  in  South  America. 


[Dec. 


twelve  running,  are  from  a  New  York  estab- 
lishment. The  plantation  has  under  plough 
about  two  hundred  quadras  (a  quadra  is 
1 66  X 1 66  varas),  each  quadra  yielding  about 
ten  thousand  pounds  of  sugar  cane,  render- 
ing from  six  to  eight  per  cent,  of  pure  saccha- 
rine matter.  They  estimate  this  year's  crop 
of  Tucuman  sugar  at  about  four  million 
arobas,  and  it  is  firmly  believed  that  all  for- 
eign sugar  will  be  forced  out  of  the  Argen- 
tine market. 


II. 


ON  the  3rd  of  June,  at  four  p.  M.,  I  left 
Monte  Vide"o  on  board  the  fine  Pacific  Steam 
Navigation  Company's  Steamer  "Valparaiso." 
A  heavy  haze  and  a  drizzling  rain  prevented 
me  from  taking  a  farewell  view  of  the  beau- 
tiful city.  We  went  right  into  the  teeth  of 
a  roaring  southwest  pampero,  and  had  very 
rough  times  for  four  days,  until  we  reached 
Cape  Virgin,  and,  by  rounding  it,  ran  into 
the  comparatively  smooth  waters  of  the 
Straits  of  Magellan,  which  we  reached  on 
the  eighth,  at  about  one  P.  M.  It  is  here  miles 
broad,  but  very  little  of  that  bold  scenery*  is 
to  be  seen  of  which  so  much  has  been  writ- 
ten. At  midnight  we  came  to  anchor  off 
Punta  Arenas,  but  unfortunately  there  was 
no  chance  of  landing  and  looking  over  the 
small  but  rather  stirring  place,  which  was 
occasionally  dimly  lighted  up  by  the  moon, 
whenever  she  chose  to  show  her  face  out 
of  the  surrounding  heavy  clouds.  Several 
sailing  vessels  and  an  American  and  English 
gunboat  were  lying  at  anchor.  We  left  the 
settlement  at  about  four  o'clock  next  morn- 
ing in  a  heavy  snow  gale,  which  lasted  sev- 
eral hours,  rind  then,  disappearing  as  sud- 
denly as  it  came,  revealed  a  beautiful  clear 
sky. 

Favored  by  the  finest  weather,  we  soon 
entered  into  the  most  interesting  parts  of 
the  Straits,  which  for  grand,  wild  scenery, 
can  only  be  compared  to  the  splendid 
fjords  of  Northern  Norway.  To  our  left, 
towering  high  above  the  snow-capped  moun- 
tains, rose  the  beautiful  imposing  peak  of 
Mount  Sarmiento,  nearly  seven  thousand 


feet  high,  a  perfect,  sharp  cone,  with  numer- 
ous glaciers  shining  and  glittering  in  dark 
blue  under  the  rays  of  the  sun.  Further  on 
we  steamed  along  Brunswick  Peninsula  and 
King  Williams'  Land  to  our  right,  through 
the  narrows  of  a  crooked  passage,  leaving 
Saint  Inez  Island  on  our  port  bows.  The 
mountains  nearly  all,  and  most  particularly 
those  on  the  mainland  side,  rise  right  out 
of  the  water,  and  attain,  in  various  terraces, 
heights  up  to  five  thousand  feet ;  large, 
beautiful,  blue  glaciers  coming  down  their 
southern  slopes.  All  the  lower  parts  of 
these  mountains,  up  to  abont  fifteen  thous- 
and feet,  are  thickly  stocked  with  timber 
and  clothed  with  brushwood ;  above  this 
point  wide  stretches  of  peat-bogs  follow  up 
to  the  line  of  perpetual  snow,  which  ranges 
from  three  to  four  thousand  feet. 

Just  after  nightfall  we  passed  bold  Cape 
Pillar,  and  steamed  out  into  the  Pacific, 
which  instead  of  doing  honor  to  its  name, 
received  us  with  a  howling  gale  and  a  dread- 
fully rough  cross-beam  sea,  which  shook 
and  rolled  the  good  vessel  nearly  on  her 
beams.  Three  days  after  this,  we  got  into 
a  better  and  warmer  climate,  and  reached 
the  lively  port  of  Lota — a  place  very  well 
known  through  its  rich  coal  mines,  its  ex- 
tensive copper  melting  works,  and  last  but 
not  least,  by  its  hospitable  proprietress, 
"  Lady  Causino."  '  The  park,  covering  very 
extensive  grounds  on  the  fine,  woodland 
bluffs,  which  rise  abruptly  out  of  the  sea,  is 
one  of  the  finest  in  America,  and  certainly 
one  of  the  best  kept.  The  enormous  melt- 
ing furnaces  are  all  in  activity,  and  are  turn- 
ing out  day  after  day  large  quantities  of  bar- 
copper.  All  the  shipments  of  this  metal,  how- 
ever, are  unfortunately,  since  some  time  ago, 
making  only  a  dead  loss  ;  but  the  noble-heart- 
ed lady  suffers  this  continuous  heavy  strain 
on  her  purse  (and  they  say  it  amounts  to  a 
good  many  thousand  pounds),  rather  than  to 
stop  the  works  and  leave  about  fifteen  hun- 
dred people  without  the  means  of  earning 
their  bread.  There  are  large  earthenware 
works  here  (they  dry  all  kinds  of  very  good 
clay  right  in  the  neighborhood),  which  turn 
out  pots,  pipes,  excellent  fire-bricks,  and  very 


1885.] 


Travels  in  South  America. 


593 


pretty  ornamental  work,  such  as  large  flower 
pots,  fancy  railings,  busts,  statues,  and  the 
like. 

Late  during  the  afternoon  we  left  Lota, 
steaming  slowly  for  Talcahuanna.  This  place 
we  reached  at  9  A.  M.  A  very  busy  town  it 
is,  being  the  terminus  of  the  great  Chilean 
railroad,  that  leads  from  here  via  Concep- 
cion,  Chilian,  Talo,  and  Curico,  to  Santiago, 
and  further  to  Valparaiso  and  Talo,  a  ship- 
ping port  of  large  quantities  of  wheat  of  a 
very  fair  quality.  Next  morning  brought  us 
to  our  anchorage  in  the  glorious  bay  of  Val- 
paraiso. 

After  a  few  days'  rest  in  the  large,  pleasant 
city,  the  business  metropolis  of  the  whole 
west  coast  of  South  America,  I  started  by 
train  to  Santiago.  The  line,  a  very  well 
managed  one,  leads  by  Vina  del  Mar,  a  fash- 
ionable summer  resort  of  Valparaisans,  via 
Limache,  into  the  Quillota  Valley,  and  then 
through  deep  gorges  and  over  high  plains 
(affording  now  and  then  most  splendid  views 
of  the  snow-capped  giants  of  the  main  Cor- 
dillera), down  into  the  fertile,  broad  valley 
of  Santiago.  I  reached  this  after  a  very 
pleasant  ride  of  about  five  hours  in  a  com- 
fortable carriage,  and  over  a  smooth  and 
pretty  well-kept  road. 

Too  much  has  already  been  said  and  writ- 
ten about  the  Chilean  capital — the  really  fine, 
large  city ;  its  well-paved  and  lighted  streets; 
its  cheap  and  good  system  of  tramways,  and 
all  its  palaces,  churches,  and  other  splendid 
buildings.  I  will  only  mention  once  more 
a  few  of  its  finest  attractions  and  places  of 
public  resort,  for  the  preservation  and  em- 
bellishment of  which  large  sums  are  contin- 
ually spent  in  a  most  liberal  way. 

The  Sarro  Santa  Lucia  is  a  blackish 
porphyry  rock,  rising  abruptly  from  the  very 
heart  of  the  city,  and  converted  by  art  into 
one  of  the  most  beautiful  of  promenades  and 
parks.  From  its  highest  point  (seventy-two 
meters  above  the  Plaza  de  las  Angostineo,  and 
six  hundred  and  thirty-seven  meters  above 
the  sea  level),  there  is  a  magnificent  pano- 
ramic view  over  the  town,  the  fertile  valley 
studded  with  numerous  hamlets,  and  the 
great  snowy  range  of  the  Andes.  The  hill 
VOL  VI.— 38. 


on  its  several  terraces  contains  some  pretty 
good  restaurants,  a  fair  summer  theater  and 
arena,  a  large  library  building,  a  chapel,  va- 
rious monuments,  and  an  open  swimming 
bath. 

The  wide  grounds  of  the  Quinta  Normal 
(in  this  country  called  a  model  farm)  con- 
tain fine  botanical  and  zoological  gardens, 
with  a  good  collection  of  animals,  everything 
managed  and  kept  in  a  neat  way.  In  the 
center  of  the  park  is  situated  the  magnificent 
building  of  the  former  exhibition,  now  con- 
verted into  a  national  museum. 

The  great  alameda  is  over  a  mile  long  and 
nearly  one  hundred  yards  wide,  with  its  quad- 
ruple rows  of  trees,  its  running  waters  (border- 
ing, in  two  neat  channels,  the  center  part  of 
this  fine  promenade),  its  well  executed  statues, 
and,  as  a  background,  the  gigantic  walls  of 
the  Cordillera. 

The  "  Theater  Municipal  "  is  one  of  the 
finest  buildings  I  ever  visited.  Its  outside 
does  not  look  very  promising,  but  the  inte- 
rior is  fitted  up  with  such  a  refined  elegance, 
and  in  such  excellent  good  taste,  as  I  never 
saw  before.  All  the  sitting  accommodations 
are  spacious  and  very  comfortable,  and  the 
very  latest  improvements  are  everywhere  ap- 
plied to  warrant  a  speedy  exit  in  case  of  any 
accident. 

The  magnificent  new  church  of  "  Reco- 
leta,"  belonging  to  the  convent  of  the  Domin- 
icans, is  built  in  Basilica  style,  after  the  cele- 
brated Roman  church  of  San  Palo  Fuori  la 
Moora.  The  immense  columns  of  white 
marble  that  support  the  great  portal,  as  well 
as  the  roof  of  the  aisle  and  transept,  were 
brought  over  from  Carrara,  together  with 
thousands  of  square  blocks  and  slabs  of  Ital- 
ian marble,  lavished  in  the  construction  of 
this  temple. 

On  the  23d  of  June,  I  started  for  the  Baiios 
de  Cauquinas.  I  took  the  train  of  the  Great 
Central  railroad  to  a  small  way  station  near 
Rancagua,  and  proceeded  then  in  a  carriage 
up  the  wild,  romantic  valley  of  the  Cacha- 
pool  river,  which  rushes  its  turbulent,  foam- 
ing waters  right  down  from  the  very  crest  ot 
the  Cordillera.  A  very  agreeable  four  hours' 
drive,  in  full  sight  of  the  snowy  range,  and 


594 


Travels  in  South  America. 


[Dec. 


catching,  every  now  and  then  glimpses  of  the 
mighty  volcano  of  Maypu,  eighteen  thousand 
feet  high,  brought  me  to  the  bathing  establish- 
ment. This  lovely  health  resort,  celebrated 
for  its  hot  sulphur  springs,  consists  of  various 
modern-built  lodging  houses,  with  all  the 
latest  improvements,  containing  luxuriously 
fitted  up  saloons  and  rooms  for  about  three 
hundred  guests.  All  the  houses  are  hover- 
ing on  the  edge  of  a  high  precipice,  at  the 
bottom  of  which,  in  a  dark  ravine,  comes 
thundering  ^own  over  immense  boulders  the 
Cachapool  river,  and  from  every  place  the 
searching  eye  meets  the  snow-capped  peaks 
of  the  Andes.  Three  very  pleasant  days  I 
spent  here,  as  the  guest  of  the  amiable  pro- 
prietors of  the  baths,  who  also  own  a  great 
many  miles  of  the  surrounding  lands ;  and  of 
the  new  lessee — all  hospitable  gentlemen, 
who  tried  their  best  to  make  my  stay  as  agree- 
able as  possible.  I  made  a .  very  interesting 
excursion  on  horseback  to  one  of  the  Messrs. 
Soto's  haciendas,  situated  high  up  in  the 
Cauquinas  pass,  and  having  in  its  vicinity 
some  very  rich  iron  mines.  From  this  place 
I  enjoyed  a  splendid  panorama  of  the  wild 
scenery  of  the  main  Cordillera. 

Shortly  after  my  return  to  Santiago  I  went 
by  railroad  via  San  Fillipe  to  Santa  Rosa  de 
los  Andes,  the  terminus  of  the  line,  and 
starting  point  of  the  main  highway  (or  rather, 
trail)  over  the  Uspallata  Pass  to  Mendoza. 
This  is  the  only  pass  practicable  all  the  year 
around — though  travel  across  it  during  win- 
ter time  is  considered  very  dangerous,  and 
only  to  be  ventured  on  foot,  occupying  at 
least  eight  days,  while  in  summer  time  one 
performs  the  trip  from  Santa  Rosa  to  Men- 
doza easily  in  three  days.  At  Las  Vegas  sta- 
tion, the  switching-off  point  for  trains  to  Los 
Andes,  I  had  a  magnificent  view  of  the  gigan- 
tic masses  of  Mount  Aconcagua,  23,600  feet, 
the  highest  elevation  on  the  American  conti- 
nent, lifting  its  broad,  table-like  summit  high 
above  all  the  snowy  ranges  of  the  Cordilleras. 
Up  to  a  not  very  remote  time,  this  mountain 
has  been  taken  for  a  volcano,  and  still  in 
the  mouth  of  the  country  people  all  around, 
it  goes  under  the  name  of  "El  Volcano  ": 
they  know  all  about  a  river  Aconcagua,  but 


nothing  of  a  mountain  bearing  the  same 
name.  Only  lately,  by  dint  of  careful  inves- 
tigations, the  contrary  has  been  proved:  on 
no  place  of  this  giant  signs  of  volcanic  erup- 
tions could  be  traced.  The  main  rock  of  it 
is  variegate'd  porphyry  (the  chief  backbone 
of  the  Andes  everywhere),  and  towards  the 
top,  chalk  formations. 

A  very  charming  place  Santa  Rosa  is 
picturesquely  nestled  in  the  fine,  fertile  val- 
ley of  the  Aconcagua  river,  surrounded  by 
orchards  and  rich  vineyards,  which  produce 
a  very  fine  quality  of  grapes,  among  them 
the  well-famed  "  Vino  de  los  Andes."  From 
this  place  I  made  a  trip  up  the  pass  to  the 
Resguardia  of  Rio  Colorado  (Chilean  Custom 
Guards),  where  I  found  very  good  quarters 
in  the  hospitable  house  of  the  amiable  Com- 
mandante,  Colonel  Don  M.  Manuel.  Next 
morning  I  made  an  excursion  on  horseback, 
accompanied  by  a  trustworthy  guide,  high 
up  the  pass.  I  visited  the,  interesting  Salto 
Soldado,  an  immense  fissure  in  the  porphyry 
rock,  about  two  hundred  feet  deep,  nearly 
one  half  a  mile  long,  by  only  ten  to  fifteen 
feet  wide,  the  spurs  of  two  gigantic  mountains 
having  closed  in  a  small  valley  bolsa  torn 
asunder  by  one  of  those  tremendous  volcanic 
convulsions  of  the  earth.  Through  this  in- 
fernal ravine  is  rushing  the  Rio  Blanco,  one 
of  the  main  branches  of  the  Aconcagua, 
whose  turbulent  waters  are  running  down 
from  the  snow  and  ice  fields  of  mighty  Yun- 
cal.  The  story  goes  that  years  ago,  during 
one  of  the  frequent  revolutions,  a  soldier  on 
horseback,  very  closely  pressed  by  his  pur- 
suers, saved  himself  by  forcing  his  animal  to 
jump  this  dark  chasm.  Nearly  to  the  very 
foot  of  the  Yuncal  we  continued  our  ride, 
followed  for  over  an  hour  by  a  whole  crowd 
of  condors,  who,  circling  and  hovering  high 
above  us,  apparently  only  waited  for  our 
tumbling  down  one  of  those  fearful,  deep 
precipices,  or  in  some  other  fashion  coming 
to  grief,  to  make  a  good  square  meal  out  of 
us  and  our  horses.  Turning  a  sharp  corner, 
we  came  in  full  sight  of  the  mountain  giants 
Yuncal  and  Uspallata,  but  received  such  an 
awful  snow  storm  right  in  our  faces,  coming 
howling  down  from  the  icy  peaks  of  the  Cor- 


1885.] 


Travels  in  South  America. 


595 


dillera,  that  we  had  to  return  as  fast  as  pos- 
sible for  dear  life.  I  perceived  several  good 
lodes  of  copper  ores  in  the  rocks  alongside 
my  trail,  some  of  them  with  silver-bearing 
veins.  Near  the  guard  house  my  host  is 
working  a  mine  with  good  success  ;  various 
specimens  I,  myself,  picked  up,  which  show 
rich  in  copper  and  silver. 

I  returned  via  Santa  Rosa  by  rail  to  Val- 
paraiso, and  left  this  city  on  the  i6th  of 
July  on  board  the  fine  steamer  "  Columbia," 
en  route  for  Mollendo.  At  Coquimbo,  we 
find  ancored  in  the  bay  the  Japanese  frigate 
"Tsukuba,"  Captain  Arridje,  a  gentleman 
whose  acquaintance  I  had  had  the  pleasure 
of  making  in  Tokio  during  a  visit  in  '81. 
Captain  Davis,  of  the  "Columbia,"and  I  paid 
him  a  visit,  and  passed  on  board  a  very 
pleasant  hour.  We  looked  all  over  the  very 
well  kept  ship.  She  is  a  midshipman  school- 
ship,  and  on  a  somewhat  long  cruise,  with 
about  forty  of  these  young  gentlemen  on 
board.  We  had  time  to  make,  besides,  a 
short  trip  to  La  Serena,  a  very  fine  looking, 
clean  town  of  about  sixteen  thousand  inhab- 
itants, reached  by  railroad  from  Coquimbo 
in  twenty-five  minutes. 

On  our  voyage  further  on,  we  had  occa- 
sion to  cast  a  look  over  Antofogasta,  Yqui- 
que,  and  Arica.  Trade  in  the  first  two  pla- 
ces named  was  rather  depressed,  on  account 
of  the  low  prices  of  nitrate  of  soda,  the  con- 
sequence of  an  immense  over  production. 
Arica  shows  more  busy  life.  The  Chilean 
government  is  making  strong  efforts  to  make 
this  the  main  introducing  and  shipping  port 
for  Bolivia,  via  Tacna  and  Tacora  Pass,  in 
strong  competition  with  the  Mollendo,  Puno, 
and  lake  road. 

Late  in  the  afternoon  of  the  23d,  we  an- 
chored off  Mollendo.  It  is  rather  a  danger- 
ous landing,  but  I  managed  to  get  myself, 
bag  and  baggage,  on  the  wharf  without  a 
ducking.  On  the  next  morning's  train  (7  A. 
M.),  I  started  for  Arequipa.  Running  along 
the  sea  beach,  we  passed  Mejia,  the  old  port 
(or  rather  open  roadstead) ;  a  little  later,  En- 
senada  Station,  and  now  we  began  to  ascend 
into  the  foothills  to  Tanbo,  1,000  feet  eleva- 
tion, leaving  the  fine  and  fertile  Tanbo  val- 


ley to  our  right  down  below.  From  here  we 
steamed  up  to  Posco,  1,830  feet  high,  and 
Cachendo,  3, 250  feet  high,  in  long,  splendid- 
ly constructed  serpentine  lines  of  railroad, 
gradings  from  three  to  four  per  cent.,  with- 
out tunnels  or  viaducts,  and  with  scarcely 
any  artificial  embankments,  continuously 
rising  along  the  mountain  slopes,  here  pretty 
well  covered  with  grasses  and  bushes.  I 
saw  splendid  geraniums  and  heliotropes  (the 
latter  in  bushes  six  feet  high,  with  lilac  blos- 
soms of  the  most  delicate  perfume)  growing 
abundantly  along  the  road.  Just  before 
reaching  Cachendo  Station,  we  turned  a 
sharp  corner  in  a  deep  cut,  and  the  glorious 
sight  of  the  great  middle  Cordillera,  with 
the  snow-covered  peaks  of  Coropuna,  22,800 
feet  high,  Charchani,  19,800  feet,  Misti,  18,- 
650  feet,  and  Pichupichu,  17,800  feet,  burst 
upon  my  eyes.  The  last  three  mountains, 
surrounding  Arequipa,  stood  out  so  very 
clearly  against  the  dark  blue  sky,  and  appar- 
ently so  near,  that  I  fancied  them  in  the  im- 
mediate neighborhood. 

From  this  station  to  Vitor,  5,35ofeet  high,  a 
distance  of  forty-two  miles,  the  steadily  rising 
line  runs  over  a  desolate  alkaline  plain,  with 
not  a  spark  of  vegetation,  covered  only  with 
large  boulders  of  reddish  and  blackish  por- 
phyry, slate  sandstones,  and  granite,  the  last 
in  a  sad  state  of  decomposition.  Higher  up 
the  mountain,  the  road  is  forced  through 
barren  rocks  of  whitish  tufas,  porphyries, 
granite  sandstones,  and  copper-bearing  marl 
slates.  At  last,  at  Station  Tiavaya,  6,850 
feet,  we  got  the  first  glimpses  into  the  green 
valley  of  the  Arequipa  river.  Further  on 
the  many  towers  and  high  church-buildings 
of  the  town  itself  came  into  sight.  A  few 
minutes  later,  after  crossing  the  iron  bridge, 
the  train  runs  into  the  fine  station  7,550  feet 
above  the  sea,  of  the  famous  city  of  Arequipa. 

I  remained  fully  eight  days  in  this  highly 
interesting  and  very  pleasantly  situated 
place.  The  large,  new  cathedral,  built  en- 
tirely of  square  blocks  of  white  trachytish  tu- 
fa, is  considered  one  of  the  finest  buildings 
in  South  America,  notwithstanding  the  dif- 
ferent styles  of  its  architecture,  and  forms 
the  main  side  of  the  large  principal  square. 


596 


Travels  in  South  America. 


[Dec. 


This  plaza,  with  the  garden  in  the  middle 
full  of  gay  flowers  and  shrubs,  and  four  foun- 
tains (one  in  each  corner),  overshadowed  by 
the  splendid  white  cone  of  Misti,  and  the 
three-peaked,  gigantic  Charchani,  is  closed 
in  on  the  other  sides  by  substantial  buildings, 
all  with  "  portals,"  under  which  a  lively  retail 
trade  is  carried  on  The  interior  of  the  ca- 
thedral contains  a  new  pulpit,  beautifully 
carved  out  of  solid  oak,  a  perfect  master- 
piece of  French  art,  executed  in  Lilla,  1879, 
the  noble  gift  of  a  pious  Arequipan  lady. 
Pretty  near  the  town  is  situated  the  lovely 
village  of  Tingo,  renowned  for  its  mineral 
baths,  and  much  frequented  by  wealthy  citi- 
zens as  a  summer  residence.  Up  to  my  ar- 
rival, it  was  still  the  head-quarters  of  ths  Chil- 
ean forces. 

The  consequences  of  the  fearful  earth- 
quakes of  1868  can  still  be  perceived  in  heaps 
of  shapeless  ruins  all  around  the  town,  and 
nearly  every  church  and  house  still  bears 
traces  of  that  tremendous  convulsion  of  the 
earth. 

From  Arequipa,  the  main  trail  up  over 
the  great  table-lands  departs — reaching  from 
eleven  thousand  even  to  fourteen  thousand 
feet  high,  bordered  on  one  side  by  the  un- 
broken, snowy  ranges  of  the  western  Cordil- 
lera, and  on  the  other  by  the  even  loftier 
peaks  of  the  eastern  chain.  It  leads  through 
the  sterile,  cheerless,  icy  cold  Despoblados 
to  Cuzco,  the  old  Inca  capital.  A  consid- 
erable traffic  is  carried  on  from  Arequipa  to 
Cuzco  in  all  kinds  of  dry  goods,  liquors,  pro- 
visions, etc.,  etc.;  and  as  a  return,  silver  ores, 
cinchona  bark,  cocoa,  and  principally  alpaca 
and  sheep's  wool.  The  only  way  of  forward- 
ing the  goods  and  produce  is  on  muleback 
(a  good,  sound  mule  carries  twelve  arobas, 
and  makes  the  journey  in  fourteen  to  eight- 
een days) ;  or  the  back  of  llamas,  each  of 
which  carries  only  four  arobas,  and  does  the 
trip  in  about  five  or  six  weeks. 

From  Arequipa  I  started  by  railroad  to 
Puno.  The  train,  after  leaving  the  station, 
soon  crosses  the  valley  of  the  broad  river  (on 
a  fine  iron  trestle  bridge  sixty-six  feet  high 
and  one  thousand  feet  long),  and  ascending 
in  sharp  curves,  winds  around  the  base  of 


Charchani  through  sterile  masses  of  boulders 
and  conglomerates.  At  the  station  Aguas 
Calientas,  we  have  risen  in  twenty-six  miles 
to  9,500  feet  above  the  Pacific  level.  Here 
is  the  main  and  only  depot  of  fire-wood  for 
the  locomotives  and  also  for  the  town  supply; 
the  svild  olive  tree  growing  around  in  ravines 
and  barancas  furnishes  this  fuel.  The  next 
eighteen  miles,  to  Punto  de  Minos,  12,300 
feet  high,  have  the  steepest,  most  wonder- 
fully constructed  gradings  and  sharp  curves; 
about  four  miles  above  Aguas  Calientas  five 
long,  winding  turns  of  the  track,  one  above 
the  other,  can  be  seen.  One  small  tunnel  is 
passed  in  this  section,  the  only  one  on  the 
whole  line,  four  hundred  and  eight  feet  long 
and  seventeen  feet  high,  cut  through  some 
very  soft  slate  rocks.  At  Punto  Arenos  we 
are  right  in  the  middle  range  of  the  Andes ; 
no  watershed ;  no  sierras ;  the  land  forming 
numerous  terraced  plains,  varying  from  nine 
thousand  to  fourteen  thousand  feet  high,  and 
stretching  towards  east  and  west  for  miles 
and  miles.  Isolated  mountains,  mostly  ac- 
tive or  extinguished  volcanoes,  are  scattered 
irregularly  over  the  plains. 

Higher  and  higher  up  those  plateaus  the 
train  winds.  The  only  vegetation  the  eye 
meets  is  some  specimens  of  the  cactus  fam- 
ily, similar  to  those  found  in  Mexico,  South- 
ern California,  and  Arizona.  The  wooden 
stem  of  the  Cerei'  Garden,  growing  twenty 
feet  high  and  more,  is  used  as  fire-wood,  but 
principally  by  the  poor  natives  for  construct- 
ing the  frame-work  and  roof  of  their  miser- 
able huts.  The  nopal — the  same  plant  on 
whose  leaves  in  Guatemala  and  Teneriffe  the 
cochineal  is  cultivated — here  on  these  old, 
exposed  heights  only  produces  its  "  Indian 
figs,"  tuiai,  w  hich  are  highly  appreciated 
by  the  poorer  class  of  people  as  food.  To 
the  extreme  limits  of  all  vegetation,  up  close 
to  the  line  of  perpetual  snow,  still  grows  the 
Yareta,  a  dense,  resinous  moss,  only  a  few 
inches  above  the  ground,  but  a  foot  and 
more  below  the  earth.  The  moss,  when  dried, 
serves  as  an  excellent  fuel,  the  principal  one 
besides  the  taquia  (Llama  dung)  used  all 
along  the  line  to  Puno,  and  anywhere  around 
in  the  country. 


1885.J 


Travels  in  South  America. 


597 


Through  some  deep  cuts,  through  gray 
tufas,  gneiss,  and  green  stone  rock,  over  a 
wide  precipice  at  Punto  Sumbay,  at  an  ele- 
vation of  13,413  feet,  where  the  iron  bridge 
is  175  feet  high  by  286  in  length,  we  reached 
towards  evening  Vincocayo,  ninety-six  miles 
from  Arequipa,  and  14,360  feet  above  sea- 
level.  Here  we  had  to  stay  over  night,  pro- 
vided with  every  comfort,  and  even  the  lux- 
uries of  a  first-class  hotel,  which  establishment 
the  railroad  company  has  erected  here,  and 
farmed  out  to  a  very  competent  landlord. 
Bitter  cold  it  was  during  the  night,  and  next 
morning  at  six  o'clock,  when  I  arose,  after  a 
poor  slumber,  much  disturbed  by  attacks  of 
sorroche,  I  found  the  water  in  my  pitcher 
and  wash  basin  frozen  into  solid  lumps  of 
ice.  At  seven  A.  M.,  after  being  warmed  up 
by  several  cups  of  steaming  tea,  mixed  nearly 
half  and  half  with  something  stronger  than 
milk,  we  left  again  in  the  train,  and  soon 
reached  Crucero-Alto,  one  hundred  and  eigh- 
teen miles  from  Arequipa,  at  14,666  feet 
elevation.  This  is  the  highest  point  of  the 
road,  and,  up  to  the  present  time,  the  high- 
est ever  traversed  by  locomotives  and  trains, 
as  the  section  through  the  great  Cumbre 
tunnel,  on  the  Oroya  railroad,  is  not  yet  fin- 
ished. Just  here  we  came  in  full  sight  of 
the  smoking  volcano,  Ubinas,  16,980  feet 
high,  lying  about  forty  miles  away  to  our 
right.  Now  gradually  descending,  we  wound 
around  the  mountain  lakes  of  Soracocha, 
13,595  feet,  and  Cachipascana,  13,585  feet 
above  the  sea,  to  Santa  Lucia,  one  hundred 
and  forty-eight  miles  from  Arequipa,  and 
13,250  feet  high,  the  breakfast  station  for 
passengers — and  a  very  poor  breakfast  they 
gave  us.  In  close  vicinity  to  the  next  sta- 
tion, Maravillos  (13,000  feet  high),  on  a 
creek,  the  outlet  of  the  two  lakes,  are  situ- 
ated the  very  fine  crushing  and  ore-reducing 
works  recently  built  by  the  Puno  Railroad 
Company.  Numerous  quite  rich  silver  mines 
are  worked  in  the  barren  looking  mountains 
around.  Juliaca,  12,550  feet  high,  is  the 
switching-off  point  for  the  Cuzco  line  of  rail- 
road, now  finished  and  in  good  working  or- 
der as  far  as  Santa  Rosa,  13,100  feet  high, 
a  distance  of  eighty-two  miles. 


A  long  winding  around  the  hills,  running 
nearly  all  the  way  on  a  dead  level,  brought 
us  to  Puno,  1 2,540  feet  high,  from  which  place 
the  train  runs  directly  down  to  the  wharves, 
alongside  of  which  the  two  small  screw 
steamers  are  moored,  ready  to  carry  passen- 
gers and  freight  across  the  Lake  of  Titicaca, 
at  an  elevation  of  12,505  feet.  These  steam- 
ers have  a  freight-carrying  capacity  of  about 
one  hundred  and  twenty  tons,  and  accommo- 
dation for  twenty-four  first-class  passengers. 
The  oldest  of  them  was  years  ago  brought 
up  to  Puno  in  pieces  from  Tacna  on  mules' 
and  llamas'  backs,  over  the  fearful  rough 
Cordillera  of  Tacora,  the  pass  of  which 
reaches  to  15,000  feet  in  elevation  —  an 
achievement  which,  at  that  time,  a  great 
many  people  thought  so  impossible  that  it  was 
ridiculed  even  in  several  European  papers. 

The  shallow  banks  of  the  lake  are  cover- 
ed with  a  thick  growth  of  tall  rushes,  out 
of  the  material  of  which  the  Indians  con- 
struct their  bolsas.  These  rush  thickets 
are  lively  with  thousands  of  waterfowl. 
On  a  very  sandy  beach  in  a  small  inner 
bay,  I  saw  a  good  many  scarlet-plumed 
flamingoes  and  rose-colored  spoonbill  cranes, 
all  of  them  keeping  entirely  aloof  from  the 
crowd  of  other  birds.  Strange  to  find  these 
creatures,  which  generally  live  only  in  warm 
climates,  here  in  this  cold  altitude.  At  no 
other  place  on  the  lake  wherever  I  passed 
did  I  encounter  them  again. 

Even  around  the  wharf  the  water  of  the 
lake  is  so  shallow  that  the  small  steamer, 
which  only  draws  about  six  feet  when  fully 
loaded,  can  take  in  only  one-half  of  her 
cargo  at  the  wharf,  and  then  must  proceed 
through  a  narrow  artificial  channel,  about  a 
mile  and  a  half  long,  which  is  kept  open  by 
constant  dredging,  farther  out  into  deeper 
anchorage.  Here,  by  means  of  launches,  the 
rest  of  the  cargo  is  brought  alongside  and 
taken  in. 

Towards  nightfall  we  got  under  way,  and 
steamed  slowly  out  into  the  vast  sheet  of 
water  which  glittered  like  silver  in  the  moon- 
light. It  was  bordered  on  our  right  (the  op- 
posite banks  are  not  visible)  by  sterile  rocks 
and  hills  of  reddish  porphyry,  trachytes,  and 


598 


Travels  in  South  America. 


[Dec. 


clayish  slates,  rising  nearly  all  abruptly  out 
of  the  lake  to  a  height  of  from  one  thousand 
to  twelve  hundred  feet.  Next  morning  at 
eight  o'clock  we  anchored  off  Copocabana, 
a  small  town  on  the  large  peninsula  of  the 
same  name,  which  belongs  already  to  Bo- 
livia. Here  is  the  shrine  of  Our  Virgin  of 
Copocabana,  far  famed  all  over  the  Andes 
provinces  of  Peru  and  Bolivia.  Thousands 
and  thousands  of  pilgrims,  not  only  poor 
Indians,  but  also  a  great  many  of  the  best 
families,  particularly  from  La  Paz  and  sur- 
rounding villages,  unite  here  every  year  dur- 
ing the  great  church  feasts  in  August. 

Soon  we  started  again,  and  we  kept  up 
steam  pretty  well  with  taquia,  the  only  fuel 
available,  a  fresh  supply  of  which  we  had 
taken  over,  packed  in  large  sacks.  True,  the 
smell  of  the  smoke  is  very  unpleasant — rath- 
er repugnant  at  first;  but  men  get  accus- 
tomed to  everything  here  in  these  remote 
countries.  At  all  events,  you  are  obliged  to 
rough  it  or  stay  at  home. 

At  about  ten  o'clock  A.  M.,  the  fine  pano- 
rama of  the  immense  snow-capped  range  of 
the  eastern  Cordillera  gradually  began  to  rise 
on  the  horizon,  from  the  gigantic  Illampo 
Sorata,  21,200  feet  high  (set  down  in  a  good 
many  older  works  as  the  highest  mountain  of 
the  American  continent),  and  the  sharp-cut 
pyramid  of  Huaina  Potozi,  20,200  feet  high, 
to  the  magnificent  three-peaked  Illimani, 
lying  farthest  to  the  south,  and  in  its  highest 
point  (the  southern)  towering  21,300  feet 
towards  heaven.  By  eleven  A.  M.  we  steamed 
through  the  Straits  of  Taquina — only  about 
five  hundred  yards  wide,  formed  by  the  pe- 
ninsulas of  Copocabana  and  Hachacacha — 
into  the  smaller  part  of  the  lake  known  under 
the  name  of  Vinamarca.  After  we  had 
passed  the  straits,  the  glorious  sight  of  the 
long  chain  of  all  the  mountain  giants,  with 
their  extensive  fields  of  perpetual  snow,  and 
their  large  glaciers  creeping  down  the  sides, 
presented  itself,  apparently  in  the  immediate 
vicinity,  and  proved  to  me  such  an  attraction 
that  for  hours  I  was  unwilling  to  move  my 
eyes  from  it.  Only  one  great  drawback 
again — no  vegetation  covers  the  lower  part 
of  the  western  slope  of  this  Cordillera  ;  every- 


where, with  very  rare  exceptions,  the  eye 
meets  only  barren  rocks  ;  whereas  the  west- 
ern declivities  of  this  part  of  the  Andes  are 
covered  with  the  most  luxuriant  vegetatation. 

From  here  all  the  many  head  streams  of 
the  mighty  Amazon  river  are  collecting  their 
waters,  and  then  rushing  through  dark,  deep 
ravines,  full  of  cascades  and  roaring  cata- 
racts, down'to  the  great  Brazilian  plains.  A 
comparatively  very  small  number  of  streams 
and  streamlets  seek  their  way  down  into  the 
Lake  of  Titicaca,  and  it  is  a  very  well  known 
fact  that  its  waters  are  gradually  receding. 

At  three  P.  M.  we  steamed  alongside  the 
wharves  of  Chililaya — or,  as  it  is  now  called, 
Puerto  Perez — a  small  hamlet,  where  are  lo- 
cated the  Bolivian  Custom  House  and  sev- 
eral commercial  establishments,  chiefly  for 
receiving  and  forwarding  all  kinds  of  goods. 
An  awfully  desolate  place  it  is,  with  about 
one  hundred  adobe  houses  and  miserable 
mud  huts,  and  no  trees,  not  even  a  single  tuft 
of  grass  ;  only  along  the  beach,  rushes  and 
rushes  again — and  even  those  half  frozen  to 
death  by  the  icy  cold  that  comes  howling 
down  from  the  immense  snow-fields  of  the 
Cordillera  at  nightfall. 

The  next  morning  I  started  on  my  journey 
to  La  Paz,  in  a  good,  strong,  American-built 
buggy,  drawn  by  a  pair  of  mules.  Over  a 
well-kept  road,  continuously  rising  again,  I 
passed  on  to  a  wide,  high  plain,  on  which 
were  three  or  four  good-sized  villages  and  an 
abundant  sprinkling  of  Indian  hamlets  and 
ranches.  By  help  of  good  irrigation  (sev- 
eral creeks  well  fed  by  the  melting  snow  and 
ice  masses  of  the  Potosi  range  flow  through 
this  plateau),  the  hard  working  Indians  have 
forced  the  soil  to  yield  to  them,  even  at  this 
considerable  altitude  of  thirteen  thousand 
feet,  crops  of  barley,  potatoes,  and  alfalfa, 
the  green  fields  of  which  I  passed  on  each 
side  of  the  road.  A  seven  hours'  good  driv- 
ing, during  which  I  changed  three  times  for 
fresh  animals,  brought  me  to  the  Alto,  an  im- 
mense bluff;  sixteen  hundred  feet  below 
which,  directly  under  my  feet,  in  a  broad  ra- 
vine, was  spread  the  city  of  La  Paz.  A  very 
pretty  sight  it  was — deep  down  below,  the 
grayish  groups  of  the  houses  of  the  town,  di- 


1885.] 


Travels  in  South  America. 


599 


vided  by  the  gulch  of  the  river,  and  relieved 
here  and  there  by  green  patches  of  fields  and 
meadows,  as  well  as  by  the  trees  and  bloom- 
ing shrubberies  of  the  Alameda  park,  and 
having  as  a  gigantic  background  the  splen- 
did white  masses  of  Illimani.  Descending 
down  an  excellent  serpentine  road — a  mas- 
terpiece of  engineering,  indeed — and,  fur- 
ther on,  through  the  narrow,  crooked  lanes  of 
the  outskirts  and  the  streets  of  the  city  itself, 
which  were  quite  pretty,  I  reached  my  hotel. 

I  remained  a  good  eight  days  at  La  Pazde 
Ayacucho — as  its  full  name  now  is — and 
found  the  climate,  notwithstanding  its  high 
elevation  of  12,110  feet,  much  milder  than  I 
expected  at  such  an  altitude.  This  must  be 
due  to  its  sheltered  situation  in  a  deep  ra- 
vine, which  produces  a  comparatively  warm 
and  steady  temperature.  For  this  very  rea- 
son I  encountered  a  good  many  people  suf- 
fering from  affections  of  the  lungs,  who  all 
came  to  La  Paz  as  to  a  kind  of  health  resort, 
and,  as  I  found  out,  even  if  they  did  not  much 
improve  in  health,  they  never  grow  worse 
there. 

Years  and  years  ago,  they  began  the  con- 
struction of  a  large  cathedral  on  the  great 
plaza.  The  designs  promised  one  of  the  fin- 
est churches  in  South  America.  The  chief 
building  material  was  a  whitish  crystalline 
gypsum,  capable  of  fine  polish,  which  gives 
it  a  marble-like  appearance.  For  a  few  years 
they  worked  with  a  hearty  good  will ;  the 
building  showed  already  its  splendid  outlines 
several  yards  above  the  ground.  Then,  all 
of  a  sudden,  a  dead  stop  occurred,  and  every 
thing  was  left.  Since  then  time  and  weather 
have  been  pretty  busy  to  destroy  again  what- 
ever was  constructed  with,  great  expenditure 
of  labor  and  lavishing  of  money.  Gradu- 
ally, one  by  one,  the  fine  arches  and  walls 
are  tumbling  down  again. 

The  large  market  halls  offer  every  morn- 
ing a  highly  interesting  picture  of  genuine 
Indian  life.  Members  of  all  the  different 
tribes,  mostly  women,  in  their  picturesque, 
gay  ribboned  head  dresses, -and  dark,  home- 
spun, coarse,  woolen  garments,  are  seen  to 
flock  down  from  their  remote  hamlets,  often 
many  leagues  away,  to  unite  at  the  Mercado. 


They  bring  for  sale  their  scanty  produce  of 
barley,  potatoes,  hot  pepper,  aji,  and  taquia 
fuel  (all  the  kitchen  fires  are  kept  burning 
merely  by  means  of  this  obnoxious  stuff). 
Other  Indians  arrive  from  the  rich  Yungas 
valley,  about  thirty  miles  away,  and  at  least 
five  thousand  feet  lower  down,  leading  their 
mules  and  llamas,  heavily  laden  with  the  fin- 
est and  choicest  fruits  of  the  tropical  zone, 
which  they  sell  at  astonishingly  low  prices. 

La  Paz  numbers  now  about  eighty  thou- 
sand inhabitants;  and  a  good  many  large  bus- 
iness houses  carry  on  here  a  lively  trade  with 
the  surrounding  country  and  neighboring 
provinces.  Cocoa  is  widely  cultivated  in 
the  provinces  of  Yungas  valley,  of  Totoro- 
bamba,  and  Totoral,  for  home  consumption 
and  export ;  and  bark  cinchona,  of  best  ca- 
lisaya  quality,  is  produced  now  in  large  plan- 
tations, in  the  semitropical  valleys  of  Sorata 
and  Yungas.  These  are  the  main  staples  of 
exportation.  The  various  rich  mines  of  the 
country,  besides,  yield  large  amounts  of  sil- 
ver, copper  and  tin.  A  good  deal  of  wool  is 
also  produced  every  year,  but  nearly  all  is  used 
by  the  Indian  population.  Only  very  little 
alpaca  wool  finds  its  way  to  the  foreign  mar- 
kets. Coffee  and  cocoa,  both  of  which  are 
of  excellent  quality,  are  grown  on  the  eastern 
slopes  of  the  Cordillera,  and  are  scarcely 
produced  in  sufficient  quantity  to  meet  the 
demand  for  home  consumption.  The  same 
is  to  be  said  of  the  splendid  wine  pressed  out 
of  the  luxurious  grape  of  the  Yungas.  The 
rich  and  delicate  Pedro  Jimenez,  of  the  best 
vintage,  appeared  to  me  fully  equal  to  its 
Spanish  namesake. 

I  undertook  several  excursions  into  the 
very  heart  of  the  main  Cordillera.  On  horse- 
back, and  accompanied  by  a  skillful  guide,  I 
went  along  fearful  trails,  scarcely  fit  for  a 
llama  or  cargo  mule— some  only  from  twelve 
to  eighteen  inches  wide,  having  on  one  side 
a  sheer  precipice  several  hundred,  and  often 
a  thousand  feet  deep,  and  on  the  other  side 
the  walls  of  the  cold  towering  rocks.  Right 
up  to  the  line  of  perpetual  snow,  here  about 
sixteen  thousand  feet,  we  went,  and  had  the 
good  luck  to  meet  several  flocks  of  the  fine, 
but  exceedinglytimid  vicunas — so  very  much 


600 


Travels  in  South  America. 


[Dec. 


valued  for  their  precious  wool.  These  pretty 
animals  were  cropping  the  scanty  grasses  and 
mosses  on  the  steep  slopes,  and  rushed  off  like 
lightning  the  moment  they  caught  sight  of  us. 

Regarding  the  aborigines,  one  peculiar  fact 
most  particularly  struck  me  :  it  is  the  strong 
inclination  to  industry  of  almost  all  women 
among  the  Andes  Indians.  I  met  them 
on  the  march,  saw  them  carrying  heavy  loads, 
squatting  down  for  rest  and  a  social  chat,  or 
offering  their  products  in  the  markets  ;  and 
at  all  such  times  I  noticed  that  they  kept 
their  hands  busy  turning  a  rough  wooden 
spindle,  spinning  into  a  coarse  yarn  their 
common,  home -dyed  red  or  blue  wool. 

On  my  return  voyage  to  Puno,  just  after 
passing  the  Straits  of  Yaquina,  near  Copaca- 
bana,  I  got  the  full  benefit  of  one  of  the 
"  bursters,"  so  much  dreaded  here.  Roaring 
and  thundering,  it  came  down  on  us  with  such 
a  mass  of  snow  and  sleet,  that  we  scarcely 
could  see  fifty  feet  ahead  ;  and  for  over  an 
hour  it  handled  our  frail  little  steamer,  with 
its  rather  suspicious  leaky  boilers,  in  a  fear- 
ful way,  giving  to  nearly  all  of  us  poor  pas- 
sengers a  pretty  smart  attack  of  sea-sickness. 

In  Puno,  I  had  to  remain  two  days,  await- 
ing the  dispatching  of  a  train  to  Arequipa. 
The  Chilean  forces  had  evacuated  the  former 
town  ten  days  before,  and  the  troops  of  Gen- 
eral Canavaro  (Caceristas)  had  immediate- 
ly marched  into  it.  The  old  Indian  town 
of  Puno  is  situated  on  the  base  of  a  barren 
hill,  sloping  down  to  the  large  shallow  bay 
pf  the  lake ;  its  straight,  well  paved  streets 
meet  at  right  angles,  and  contain  a  good 
many  neat  looking  dwelling  houses.  The 
venerable  old  Cathedral,  occupying  a  conspic- 
uous place  on  the  main  plaza,  appears  to 
have  been  erected  during  the  very  first  years 
of  Spanish  rule.  Its  broad,  high  facade  is 
covered  with  very  queer  stone  cuttings  and 
carvings.  A  great  many  stores  and  com- 
mercial houses  in  the  town  carry  on  a  lively 
trade  with  Bolivia  and  into  the  large  province 
of  Cuzco.  Wool,  hides,  and  skins  are  the 
chief  staples  of  return  remittance.  Some 
silver  mines — of  sulphurets  and  pyrites — re- 
cently reopened  in  the  neighborhood,  work 
very  well,  and  turn  out  a  good  profit. 


I  remained  only  one  night  in  Arequipa, 
arriving  two  days  after  its  occupation  by  Gen- 
eral Canavaro's  forces,  and  hastened  back 
to  Mollendo  by  next  morning's  train.  I  ar- 
rived just  in  time  to  catch  the  P.  S.  N.  Co. 
steamer,  "Ayacucho,"  bound  for  Callao — 
and  a  piece  of  great  good  luck  it  was,  for  a 
few  days  later  this  port  was  declared  closed 
by  the  Lima  government.  A  very  pleasant, 
short  voyage  brought  me  next  -Saturday 
morning  safely  to  Callao,  and  by  one  of  the 
two  lines  of  railroad  plying  between  the  port 
and  the  capital  (each  line  running  trains  ev- 
ery alternate  hour  all  the  day  long),  I  pro- 
ceeded directly  to  Lima. 

I  found  Lima,  once  famed  as  the  beauti- 
ful, gay  paradise,  rather  dull  and  subdued. 
The  unfortunate  civil  war  raging  still  around 
the  country,  and  up  to  the  very  neighborhood 
of  the  city,  paralyzed  all  trade  and  enterprise. 
Like  a  heavy-laden  storm-cloud,  the  fear  of 
an  immediate  outbreak  within  the  very 
walls  of  the  town,  with  all  its  horrors  of  a 
bloody  street  fight,  was  hovering  over  the 
heads  of  the  citizens.  The  inevitable  catas- 
trophe at  last  came.  From  the  small  hours 
Wednesday  morning  of  the  2jth  of  August 
until  after  two  P.  M.  of  the  same  day,  we  had 
the  most  fearfnl  fighting  inside  the  unhappy 
town.  The  particulars  and  results  of  that 
day's  work  are  too  well  known  to  be  repeated 
here.  For  over  six  hours  I  had  to  hear  the 
whistling  of  bullets  right  and  left  through  the 
balconies  of  my  hotel-rooms,  and  one  had 
to  be  most  careful  to  keep  his  head  close  in- 
side the  walls.  With  wonderful  celerity  the 
triumphant  government  of  General  Iglesias, 
immediately  after  the  combat,  took  steps 
for  pacification  of  the  city  and  surrounding 
provinces,  and  to  reopen  the  long  blockaded 
Oroya  railroad  and  its  communications  to 
Carro  de  Pasco.  Eight  days  after  the  fight, 
thanks  to  the  great  energy  of  the  government, 
and  to  the  strenuous  efforts  of  the  leading 
manager  of  the  railroad,  the  whole  line  up  to 
Chicla  was  again  in  good  working  condition. 

I  had  the  pleasure  of  traveling  over  this  tract 
on  the  second  train.  From  Lima  to  Chicla  the 
road  rises  continuously,  nearly  12,000  feet  on 
a  distance  of  only  seventy-eight  miles — the 


1885.] 


Song. 


601 


most  interesting  and  stupendous  price  of  rail- 
road engineering  I  ever  saw,  by  far  beating  the 
great  roads  over  the  Sierra  Nevada  and  the 
Rocky  Mountains.  Ascending  the  broad, 
fertile  valley  of  the  Rimac,  we  soon  passed 
some  very  large  sugar-cane  plantations  in  the 
most  luxurious  growth.  By  means  of  a  most 
perfect  system  of  irrigation,  and  no  rain,  the 
right  quantity  of  moisture  needed  at  each 
stage  by  the  cane  can  be  regulated  exactly. 
The  fields  produce  eight  per  cent.,  and  even 
nine  per  cent.,  of  sugar,  a  yield  to  be  had 
no  where  else.  In  Central  America,  the 
West  Indies,  and  Spanish  main,  as  well  as 
in  Brazil  and  Tucuman,  six  per  cent,  is  con- 
sidered a  very  good  crop.  From  Chosica 
station,  thirty-three  and  one-half  miles  from 
Lima,  at  2,831  feet  elevation,  the  chief  grad- 
ings  and  great  curves  of  the  line  begin.  Tun- 
nel after  tunnel  (most  of  them  cut  in  sharp 
curves  through  the  solid  rock — porphyry, 
granite,  gneiss,  and  sand-stone),  alternate 
with  splendid  iron  trestle-work  bridges,  span- 
ning yawning  chasms  and  deep  gulches, 
showing  far  down  below  the  foaming  waters 
and  roaring  mountain  torrents.  The  fine, 
great  viaduct  of  Verrugas  appears  in  its  light, 
elegant  forms,  just  like  a  gigantic  spider- 
web  thrown  over  the  immense  abyss.  Be- 
tween Matucana  station,  at  7,788  feet  eleva- 
tion, and  Rio  Blanco,  at  11,543  feet,  the 
most  stupendous  gradients  occur,  and  these 


are  overcome,  not  by  curves,  but  by  regular 
zigzag  windings,  and  an  excellent  system  of 
reverse  tangents.  Of  course,  under  these 
circumstances,  the  trains  can  only  be  made 
up  of  a  limited  number  of  cars,  say  three  or 
four  freight  and  two  passenger  wagons.  Traf- 
fic is  open  only  as  far  as  Chicla.  From  here 
on  everything  has  to  go  by  mules  or  llamas 
to  Carro  de  Pasco,  a  good  three  days'  hard 
riding  over  fearfully  rough  trails.  Once  the 
celebrated  Cumbre  tunnel  through  Mount 
Meiggs,  four  thousand  yards  long,  and  in  its 
center  point  reaching  an  elevation  of  15,658 
feet  above  Pacific  level,  is  finished,  it  will 
mark  the  greatest  height  up  to  which  human 
ingenuity  has  forced  the  locomotive. 

One  great  fact  which  struck  me,  wherever 
and  whenever  I  had  the  pleasure  of  travel 
over  these  Peruvian  railroad  lines,  was,  the 
splendid  working  condition  into  which  they 
were  put  again  and  kept ;  not  only  the  en- 
gines and  rolling  stock,  but  principally  the 
road  and  its  ballasting.  These  achievements 
in  so  very  short  a  time  after  all  the  ex- 
penses of  foreign  and  civil  warfare,  after  the 
wanton  destruction  of  sections  of  line,  sta- 
tions, and  rolling  stock  (the  ruins  and  wrecks 
in  Mollendo  and  along  the  beach  give  still  a 
sad  picture  of  what  happened  during  the 
unfortunate  war),  bear  a  lasting  testimony  to 
the  splendid  management  of  those  railroads 
and  the  ability  of  their  directors. 

Louis  Degener. 


SONG. 

Drifting  northward  the  rain-clouds  pass, 

Leaving  the  grass 

Cool  and  damp, 
Then  at  the  sun  the  poppies  kindle 

Each  its   lamp. 

Love,  remember  not  cloud  nor  rain ; 

Smile  again. — 

My  heart  lies 
Waiting,  with  all  its  flowers  unkindled, 

For  your  eyes. 


E.   C.  Sanford. 


602 


Hawaiian  Volcanism. 


[Dec. 


HAWAIIAN  VOLCANISM. 


THE  Island  of  Hawaii,  the  largest  of  the 
Sandwich  Island  group,  has  two  volcanoes — 
Kilauea,  the  one  usually  visited  by  travelers, 
and  Mauna  Loa.     As  Kilauea  is  not  a  sep- 
arate mountain,  but  a  crater,  apparently,  at 
the  base  of  the  mountain  Mauna  Loa,  the 
idea  commonly  entertained  has   been,  and 
still  is,  that  Kilauea  and    Mauna   Loa  are 
really  one  volcano,  with  two  orifices  or  vents. 
But  since  these  two  orifices  or  vents   are 
twenty  miles   apart   measured  horizontally, 
and  ten  thousand  feet  apart,  measured  ver- 
tically (for  Mauna  Loa  is  one  thousand  feet 
higher  than  Kilauea),  and  do  not  sympathize 
with  each  other  in  any  way — their  activity 
and  quiescence  periods  neither  always  syn- 
chronizing with  each  other,  nor  always  failing 
to  synchronize,  but  occurring  wholly  without 
regard   to   each  other  —  the   conclusion   is 
nearly  inevitable  that  Kilauea  and   Mauna 
Loa  are  without  liquid  connection  at  subter- 
ranean depths.     For  the  laws  of  hydrostatics 
would  require,  in  case  such  liquid  connection 
did  exist,  that  the  ten  thousand  feet  taller 
column  of  molten  lava  should  run  out  at 
the  orifice  of  the  shorter  column,  which  has 
only  the  pressure  of  the  atmosphere  to  pre- 
vent its  rising  and  flowing  all  abroad.    With 
the  fiery  liquid  filling  the  Kilauea,  or  shorter 
arm   of    the   volcanic    syphon,    specifically 
heavier,  volume  for  volume,  than  that  filling 
the  longer,  or  Mauna  Loa  arm,  this  same 
shorter  arm  might  indeed  balance  the  longer ; 
but  the  two  lavas  do  not,  as  a  matter  of  fact, 
seem  to  be  of  different  specific  weight,  but, 
on  the  contrary,  seem  to  be  exactly  alike. 
It  is  impossible  to  discover  that,  on  reaching 
the  surface  of  the  earth,  either  is  any  more 
dense  or  any  more  aerated  than  the  other. 
So  clear  and  demonstrable,  indeed,  did  it 
seem  to  Captain  Button,  of  the  United  States 
Geological  Survey,  that  Kilauea  and  Mauna 
.    Loa  are  not  one  volcano,  but  two,  that  he 
made  it  a  premise  on  which  to  rest  the  gen- 
eral conclusion  that,  whatever  else  terrestrial 


volcanoes  may  or  may  not  be,  they  are  not 
orifices  connecting,  by  means  of  subterranean 
channels,  with  a  molten  interior  of  the  earth; 
and  that  the  interior  of  the  earth  is,  in  all 
likelihood,  therefore,  not  molten,  but  solid. 

Kilauea  is,  properly  and  strictly  speaking, 
a  caldera  rather  than  a  crater.  The  differ- 
ence between  a  crater  and  a  caldera  is,  that 
a  crater  is  an  opening  in  the  earth's  crust, 
through  which  liquid  lava  rises  up  to  the 
surface,  and  thence  flows  forth  like  a  stream 
of  water  from  a  fountain  ;  while  a  caldera  is 
a  depression  in  the  earth's  crust,  which  the 
movement  of  a  subterranean  column  of  mol- 
ten lava  has  created,  by  causing  the  crust  to 
fall  in  above  it,  the  top  of  the  molten  lava 
column  remaining,  with  slight  variation,  at 
the  height  of  the  floor  of  the  caldera,  and 
seldom  rising  higher.  Thus,  when  one  reach- 
es the  "  volcano,"  as  Kilauea  is  usually  called, 
the  spectacle  which  meets  the  view  is  that  of 
an  immense  basin,  with  nearly  perpendicular 
sides,  three  miles  across,  nine  miles  around, 
and  six  hundred  feet  deep.  The  floor  of 
this  basin  is  blackened  lava,  lifted  up,  in  one 
place,  into  jagged  cones,  and  perforated  also 
with  two  holes,  which  are  really  sub-basins, 
holding  the  liquid  fire.  The  most  noticeable 
thing  about  these  pools  of  molten  rock  is, 
that  the  surfaces  of  them  are  continually 
crusting  over  by  cooling;  while  the  crust  thus 
formed,  having  reached  a  certain  thickness, 
breaks  into  fragments,  and  plunges  into  the 
fiery  sea  beneath,  and  is  remelted.  Cooled 
lava  has  a  greater  specific  gravity  than  lava 
in  its  molten  state ;  a  cooled  fragment,  there- 
fore, on  the  surface  of  a  reservoir  of  the 
molten  material,  immediately  sinks  into  the 
fiery  mass  and  becomes  liquid  again. 

Chemically,  lava  is  chiefly  silicate  and  ox- 
ide of  iron,  with  ten  per  cent,  made  up  of  a 
variety  of  materials.  Mineralogically,  it  is 
basalt ;  and  the  ancient  lava  of  the  island  of 
Hawaii  has  assumed  in  some  cases  a  col- 
umnar structure,  as  shown  by  the  pentagonal 


1885.] 


Hawaiian  Volcanism. 


603 


and  hexagonal  prisms,  much  like  the  famous 
basaltic  columns  of  the  Giant's  Causeway, 
which  have  been  actually  found  on  the  east- 
ern slope  of  the  island.  Still,  the  rock  of 
Hawaii,  even  the  oldest  part  of  it,  that  meets 
the  ordinary  view,  is  basaltic  lava  rather  than 
basalt  proper.  A  mineral,  in  the  technical 
sense  of  the  word,  the  writer  has  never  seen 
on  this  island,  except  within  the  crater  of 
Mokuaweoweo,  on  the  summit  of  Mauna 
Loa,  where,  as  part  of  a  vein  that  has  pushed 
itself  up  through  a  rift  in  the  wall  of  that 
famous  caldera,  is  to  be  beheld  and  handled 
a  mineral  proper:  a  rock,  /.  e.,  utterly  without 
vesicles,  and  compact.  Everything  in  the 
shape  of  stone  on  the  Island  of  Hawaii  is 
lava  of  some  sort. 

This  universal  Hawaiian  material  is,  in  gen- 
eral, porous  and  friable,  whenever  it  has 
passed  from  liquid  to  solid  in  contact  with 
the  atmosphere,  under  no  pressure  except 
that  of  the  atmosphere  ;  and  tough  and  hard, 
whenever  it  has  passed  from  liquid  to  solid 
deep  down  and  under  the  titanic  pressure  of 
a  superincumbent  mass.  It  makes  a  good 
deal  of  difference,  too,  both  as  to  the  interior 
compactness  of  lava  and  its  external  appear- 
ance, whether  it  has  cooled  slowly  or  rapidly. 
The  Hawaiians  themselves,  even  in  their  days 
of  ignorance,  took  note  of  the  fact  that  the 
lava  about  them  was  of  two  principal  sorts  : 
pahoehoe,  or  smooth  lava,  which  seems  to 
have  become  what  it  is  by  slowly  parting  with 
a  portion  of  its  heat  in  its  reservoir  or  viaduct 
condition,  and  then  with  the  remainder  on 
coming  in  contact  with  the  atmosphere,  and 
aa,  or  rough  lava,  which  seems  to  have  be- 
come what  it  is  by  being  suddenly  thrown 
out  into  the  coolness  of  the  atmosphere,  with 
all  its  original  heat  still  in  it,  and  so  to  have 
been  compelled  to  pass  from  liquid  to  solid 
very  rapidly.  This  sort  of  lava,  the  aa,  is  in 
rocky  fragments,  of  contour  and  superficies 
the  most  irregular  and  jagged  conceivable. 

The  exact  temperature  of  molten  lava  has 
never  been  ascertained.  All  that  the  pres- 
ent writer  is  able  to  say  about  the  matter  is, 
that  fragments  of  solid  lava  have  been  melted 
in  a  blacksmith's  forge,  and  that  soft  iron, 
suspended  in  an  oven-shaped  cavity,  a  few 


inches  above  a  pool  of  liquid  Kilauea  lava, 
fused  in  about  five  minutes.  This  shows  that 
the  temperature  of  the  liquid  lava  was  at 
least  three  thousand  degrees  Fahrenheit,  and, 
perhaps,  much  more.  In  spite  of  its  enor- 
mous heat,  however,  the  same  molten  lava 
cools  and  stiffens  readily  and  rapidly,  when1 
ever  brought  into  contact  with  the  cold  of 
the  external  air,  or  with  anything  else,  in 
fact,  that  is  a  good  heat  absorbent.  Thus 
the  scum  floating  on  the  surface  of  a  boil- 
ing lake  of  liquid  lava,  borne  upward  into 
the  air  by  the  steam  and  gas  issuing  from  be- 
low, is  drawn  out,  as  it  is  carried  aloft,  into  the 
fine  threads  of  glass,  called  Pele's  /tatr,  which 
has  been  found  strewing  the  streets  of  Hilo, 
Hawaii — a  distance  of  sixty  miles  from  the 
molten  pool,  from  the  surface  of  which  it 
took  wings  and  mounted  upwards ;  the  fila- 
mentous silica  in  question  had  been  wafted 
all  that  way  by  the  currents  of  the  upper  air: 
while  a  group  of  hollow  lava  pillars,  fifty 
miles  away  from  the  volcanic  sources  of  the 
island,  are  thicker,  in  each  and  every  case, 
on  the  side  towards  the  mountain,  than  on 
the  side  from  it,  and  moulded  interiorly,  also, 
as  if  tree-trunks  were  the  patterns  giving  them 
shape — an  ample  evidence  that  the  ancient 
lava  stream  flowed  among  and  around  the 
trees  of  a  forest,  and  that  the  sappy  green- 
ness of  these  ancient  trees  absorbed  the  heat 
from  the  coating  of  stiffened  lava  formed 
around  each  tree  trunk  that  stood  in  the  path 
of  the  fiery  river ;  that  the  absorption  of  heat 
was  greatest  on  that  side  of  the  tree-obstruc- 
tions where  the  motion  of  the  burning  cur- 
rent would  put  the  largest  number  of  heated 
particles  in  a  position  to  have  their  heat  taken 
from  them  ;  and  that  the  liquid  mass  outside 
these  several  tree-coatings  flowed  away,  leav- 
ing the  lava-petrifactions  thus  formed  up- 
right and  exposed  to  view. 

Hawaiian  volcanoes  afford  opportunities  of 
investigation  even  to  the  general  observer, 
especially  and  above  all  when  they  are  in  a 
condition  of  eruption ;  particularly  if  the 
eruption  develops  into  a  lava  stream.  A  flow 
from  an  active  volcano  is  an  opportunity  not 
to  be  thrown  away,  for  examining  the  general 
subject  of  terrestrial  volcanism.  Little  flows 


Hawaiian  Volcanism. 


[Dec. 


in  Kilauea  —  small  lava  streams,  running 
about  in  the  blackened  floor  bounded  by  the 
nine  miles  of  perpendicular  wall — are  by  no 
means  uncommon ;  although  a  flow  from 
Kilauea,  of  sufficient  size  to  stretch  for 
miles  over  the  adjoining  country,  is  an  event 
that  has  occurred  only  twice  since  our  knowl- 
edge of  Hawaiian  history  :  once  in  1823, 
when  a  lava  stream,  taking  its  rise  from  this 
source,  ran  southwest  by  south,  and  reached 
the  sea;  and  again  in  1840,  when  another 
stream  from  the  same  source  ran  northeast 
by  east,  and  also  reached  the  sea.  In  nei- 
ther case,  however,  did  the  liquid  material 
rise  up  and  overflow  the  brink  of  the  caldera» 
but,  instead,  found  a  vent  in  the  enclosing 
wall,  somewhere  quite  low  down,  and  through 
this  made  its  way  along  an  underground  pas- 
sage to  the  surface  of  the  earth,  some  miles 
from  its  source,  and  some  hundreds  of  feet 
below  it.  But  the  great  volcano  for  flows  is 
not  Kilauea,  but  Mauna  Loa,  which  has  sent 
forth  no  less  than  eight  within  a  period  of 
fifty  years. 

The  utmost  summit  of  Mauna  Loa  (a 
mountain  13,600  feet  high)  is  marked  by  the 
caldera  of  Mokuaweoweo,  which  is  a  ba- 
sin like  Kilauea,  only  not  so  large.  Its 
length  is  two  and  one-half  miles,  its  breadth 
three-fourths  of  a  mile,  its  depth  seven  or 
eight  hundred  feet.  Its  floor  is  blackened 
lava,  begirt  by  perpendicular  walls.  One 
small  area  of  this  floor  emits  sulphurous 
fumes  and  steam  in  times  of  quiescence ; 
while  in  times  of  activity  a  boiling  lake  of 
molten  lava,  perhaps  more  than  one,  is  seen 
to  have  broken  through  this  same  area  of 
floor,  and  to  be  throwing  up  fire-jets  and 
fountains,  often  to  an  enormous  height.  Now, 
these  boiling  lakes  and  playing  fire-fountains 
are  the  top  of  that  column  or  reservoir  of 
molten  lava  which  sends  out  those  immense 
flows  for  which  Mauna  Loa  is  so  famous. 
The  fiery  material  creating  these,  however, 
never  overflows  the  brink  of  the  Mokuaweo- 
weo caldera,  but  breaks  through  the  side  of 
the  mountain  at  points  varying  all  the  way, 
usually  one  to  five  thousand  feet  below  the 
summit.  One  flow  there  was,  that  of  1868, 
which  broke  out  at  the  amazingly  low  level 


of  ten  thousand  feet  below  the  summit,  and 
which  created  a  terrible  commotion  more- 
over, in  tearing  its  way  out  of  the  mountain 
at  a  point  so  near  its  base.  The  earthquakes 
which  occurred  in  connection  with  the  1868 
eruption  were  something  frightful  to  remem- 
ber to  those  who  experienced  them,  and 
frightful  even  to  hear  described,  to  those  who 
did  not.  This  was  the  eruption  that  set 
in  motion  a  landslide,  which  overwhelmed 
human  beings  and  their  dwellings,  and  up- 
lifted a  tidal  wave  that  destroyed  more  lives 
than  the  landslide. 

The  last  outbreak  from  Mauna  Loa  oc- 
curred in  1880.  The  fiery  river  of  this  date 
poured  out  of  the  mountain  at  a  point  n,- 
100  feet  above  the  sea,  and  2,500  feet  below 
the  summit,  and  became,  in  quick  succession, 
three  streams,  each  having  the  point  of  out- 
break as  its  fountain  head.  The  first  stream, 
twenty  miles  long,  ran  north;  the  second, 
fifteen  miles  long,  ran  south  ;  and  the  third, 
forty-five  miles  long,  ran  east.  These  three 
streams  left  on  the  surface  of  the. earth  a 
deposit  of  solid  lava,  in  all  eighty  miles  long, 
one-half  a  mile  wide,  and,  on  an  average, 
twenty  feet  thick.  The  place  where  all  this 
liquid  material  emerged  to  the  surface,  was 
a  crack  in  the  side  of  the  mountain.  The 
upper  end  of  this  crack  was  marked  by  a 
pit,  with  perpendicular  sides,  some  fifty  feet 
in  diameter,  and  two  hundred  and  twenty 
feet  deep.  A  lava  flow  can  move  along 
upon  the  surface  of  the  earth  only  as  the 
cooled  material  it  has  already  poured  forth 
makes  of  itself  a  hollow  viaduct,  to  convey 
from  rear  to  front,  and  keep  warm  on  the  way 
thither,  the  fresh  material ;  just  as  an  army 
might  hold  a  railway  as  fast  as  it  should  ad- 
vance, in  order  to  bring  up  supplies  enabling 
it  to  advance  still  further.  The  forty-five 
miles  of  solid  lava,  which,  as  a  causeway  on 
the  face  of  the  ground,  stretches  from  near 
the  summit  of  Mauna  Loa  to  within  a  mile 
of  Hilo  village,  has  embedded  in  it  a  hollow 
tube,  as  a  back  bone,  extending  from  starting 
point  to  terminus ;  this  same  hollow  tube 
ran  a  longer  and  longer  stream  of  liquid  fire 
as  the  flow  advanced,  and  added  to  the  length 
of  both  causeway  and  tubing. 


1885.] 


Hawaiian  Volcanism. 


605 


An  advancing  lava  flow  makes  a  consider- 
able ado  as  it  goes  on — especially  if  its  line  of 
advance  is  through  a  jungle  or  forest.  The 
noise  accompanying  its  movement,  under 
these  circumstances,  resembles  the  roar  of 
the  battle  field.  The  ears  of  the  person 
who  visits  the  scene  are  greeted  by  the  crack- 
ling of  blazing  foliage,  the  hissing  of  hot  air 
and  steam,  the  falling  of  trees,  and  the 
bursting  of  bombs,  all  commingled  in  one 
tumult. 

Traversing  a  lava  stream  while  it  is  yet  run- 
ning, may  be  compared  to  traversing  a  river 
in  winter  by  walking  on  the  ice.  A  pair  of 
thick  shoes  and  stockings  are  needed  to  pro- 
tect the  feet  from  the  heat,  as  on  the  ice  to 
protect  them  from  the  cold.  Vent  holes, 
too,  will  be  ever  and  anon  encountered  in 
the  solid  crust  covering  the  liquid  stream, 
down  which  the  spectator  can  look  and  be- 
hold the  fiery  river  below ;  and  fire  falls, 
which  are  usually  without  any  covering  of 
solid  lava  over  them,  just  as  water-falls  in 
winter,  be  the  weather  never  so  cold,  are  with- 
out any  covering  of  ice. 

The  ascent  of  this  greatest  Hawaiian  vol- 
cano (Mauna  Loa)  is  a  somewhat  formidable 
task,  on  account  of  the  rarefaction  of  the 
air  at  that  elevation  (for  fourteen  thousand 
feet  of  sea  level,  within  the  tropics,  means 
more  vertigo  than  the  same  elevation  in 
temperate  latitudes);  along  with  the  cold 
of  so  high  an  altitude,  which  is  exceedingly 
intense  and  penetrative  at  night ;  while  the 
descent  into  the  crater  or  caldera  of  the  sum- 
mit is  a  task  scarcely  less  than  appalling,  so 
precipitous  is  the  single  break  in  the  perpen- 
dicular walls  that  enclose  the  chasm,  down 
which  only  is  entrance  into  the  basin  below 
possible.  However,  the  Mokuaweoweo  cal- 
dera has  been  entered  by  men — once  by 
members  of  the  Wilkes  party,  in  1841,  and 
twice  since ;  and  can  be  entered  again  by  any 
one  that  has  the  nerve  to  undertake,  and  the 
muscle  to  achieve  the  task. 

More  American  and  European  travelers 
should  make  their  way  to,  at  least,  the  brink 
of  this  remarkable  and  unique  basin,  than 
are  in  the  habit  of  so  doing.  Those  who 
accomplish  the  rather  difficult  ascent  thither, 


will  be  rewarded  by  the  sight  of  the  most 
impressive  chasm  on  the  face  of  the  earth 
— the  opportunity  of  looking  upon  a  little 
bit  of  Chaos  made  visible,  and  of  realizing 
thus  how  exceedingly  formless  and  void  the 
earth  was  when  it  was  "  without  form  and 
void."  Moreover,  when  conditions  favor,' 
the  cloud  views  are  unsurpassed :  the  whole 
panorama  meeting  the  view  below  is  the  up- 
per or  sky  surface  of  continuous  vapor  mass- 
es, stretching  on  in  almost  endless  perspec- 
tive, and  looking  brilliant  and  cold,  as  if, 
earth  having  disappeared,  naught  else  but  a 
sea  of  ice,  bounded  by  the  sky,  were  floating 
beneath. 

Light  is  brought  from  every  quarter  to  il- 
lumine the  dark  mystery  hanging  over  the 
origin  of  terrestrial  heat ;  the  fountain  head 
whence  this  goes  forth  being,  as  of  course 
it  must  be,  the  primal  cause  of  volcanoes — 
a  mystery  on  which,  unfortunately,  the  vol- 
canism  of  Kilauea  and  Mauna  Loa  throws 
no  more  light  than  yEtna,  Vesuvius,  Skap- 
tar  Jokul,  and  Krakaton.  That  the  interior 
of  the  earth  is  liquid  fire,  which  the  contrac- 
tion of  the  outside  crust  of  the  earth  squeez- 
es out  through  the  open  volcanic  orifices  of 
the  surface  of  the  earth;  that  the  sedimen- 
tary deposits  in  the  bottom  of  that  part  of 
the  ocean  near  the  shores  of  continents  are 
a  sort  of  non-conductive  wet  blanket,  to 
keep  in  the  diffused  heat  of  the  earth's  crust, 
sufficient  heat  being  thus  gradually  collected 
to  melt  a  portion  of  the  crust  itself;  that  vol- 
canic heat  is  produced  by  the  contact  with 
and  action  upon  each  other,  of  powerful 
chemicals  within  the  bowels  of  the  earth; 
that  volcanic  orifices  are  really  the  tips  of  so 
many  terrestrial  lightning  rods,  as  it  were, 
carrying  off  the  diffused  electricity  of  the 
earth  into  space ;  that  the  slight  movements 
of  strata  athwart  strata,  due  to  the  gigantic 
pressure  of  gravitation,  accompanied,  as  these 
titanic  movements  must  be,  with  a  tremen- 
dous friction,  pass  over  into  a  heat  sufficient 
to  melt  all  known  rocks;  all  these  hypoth- 
eses must  remain  hypotheses,  until  the  pos- 
session of  fresh  light  establishes  some  one  of 
them  as  fact,  or  sweeps  them  all  off  into 
the  region  of  fancy. 

Edward  P.  Baker. 


606 


A   Wedding  among  the  Communistic  Jews  in  Oregon. 


[Dec. 


A  WEDDING  AMONG  THE  COMMUNISTIC  JEWS  IN  OREGON. 


ESCAPED  from  the  Greek  Christians  and 
the  Czar,  a  handful  of  Jews  from  southern 
Russia  have  settled  in  a  mountain  valley  of 
Oregon,  and  given  to  this  American  home 
the  name  of  New  Odessa. 

A  strange  country  is  Russia  :  in  its  schools, 
the  science  of  the  very  latest  movement  of 
the  intellect  of  Europe ;  in  its  government, 
the  absolute  brutality  and  the  utterly  unscru- 
pulous greed  of  the  past  despotisms  of  Asia. 
Every  man  and  every  woman,  too,  who  dares 
to  say  that  the  use  of  knowledge  is  the  amel- 
ioration of  the  race,  instead  of  the  aggrand- 
izement of  the  aristocracy,  driven  with  blows 
and  in  chains  to  the  snows  and  mines  of  Si- 
beria. Its  only  original  novelist,  Tchemi- 
cheffsky,  for  one  romance,  "  What  is  to  be 
done?"  which  had  a  socialistic  signification, 
doomed  to  hard  labor  in  prison  for  sixteen 
years ;  and  his  freedom  at  the  expiration  of 
the  term  refused  to  the  united  petition  of 
literary  Europe.  The  works  of  Mill,  of  Hux- 
ley, of  Spencer,  of  every  author  who  dares  to 
think  of  a  possible  change  in  the  social  or- 
der, ruthlessly  barred  out  of  every  public  libra- 
ry in  the  empire.  The  imperial  family,  the 
counselors,  the  generals,  trapped  in  all  the 
appendages  of  uniform  and  display,  and  us- 
ing the  gentle  language  of  France.  The 
common  people  purely  Russian,  without 
great  change  in  manners  since  they  first  ar- 
rived in  Europe  from  Asia,  and  living,  many 
of  them,  in  the  primitive  village  communities 
of  past  centuries :  very  poor,  very  good  heart- 
ed, and  kind  to  their  friends,  but  very  igno- 
rant and  superstitious,  and  entirely  devoted 
to  the  government,  which  plunders  its  afflu- 
ence from  their  grinding  toil ;  so  utterly  un- 
enlightened, to  the  safety  of  the  Czar  and 
Church,  that  their  brutal  force  is  eager  at  any 
moment  to  rise  against  a  different  sect,  and 
to  plunder  and  kill  and  ravish  the  far  more 
intelligent  Jews,  who  are,  indeed,  only  saved 
from  utter  destruction  by  the  soldiers  of 
the  Czar,  who  know  their  value  as  collec- 


tors of  wealth,  tax  payers,  and  money  lend- 
ers. 

Indeed,  a  strange  nation,  showing  the  ob- 
stinate persistency  of  race  inheritance ;  the 
incongruities  of  its  place  in  Europe,  and  of 
the  culture  of  its  universities  to  its  domestic 
life,  so  obvious,  that  Napoleon,  struck  by  it, 
made  the  well  known  remark,  "  Scratch  un- 
der the  skin  of  the  Russian,  and  you  will  find 
the  Tartar."  And  yet,  this  strange  country, 
with  its  immense  expanse  of  land,  this  semi- 
savage  people,  which,  in  its  laws,  guards  it- 
self against  every  foreign  innovation,  is  from 
its  very  simple,  savage  curiosity  powerfully 
fascinated  by  every  strange  philosophy  that 
is  discovered  by  those  whose  position  as  trav- 
elers or  scholars  allows  them  to  pass  beyond 
the  lines  of  the  frontier.  The  mind  there  is 
in  it  feels  its  very  largeness  to  be  sterile,  and 
would  plant  in  Russia  everything  that  will 
grow  elsewhere ;  even  the  social  revolts  of 
the  older  nations.  And  the  Russian  student, 
despite  the  police  and  the  threat  of  Siberia, 
smuggles  into  the  cabin  of  ihe  peasant  and 
the  workshops  of  the  town  the  political  doc- 
trines of  Karl  Marx,  the  economical  propo- 
sitions of  Proudhon,  and  the  harmonious  fan- 
tasies of  Charles  Fourier.  He  has  already 
digested  the  truisms  of  science,  and  accepted 
the  scepticism  of  modern  philosophy  ;  but 
his  ideas  prove  radically  repulsive  to  the  na- 
tive Russian  sentiment  in  the  masses.  One 
of  their  number  has  said  :  "  It  is  as  if  we  had 
planted  here  the  tropical  banana,  expecting 
it  would  fruit."  The  desperate  resolve,  the 
stoical  resignation,  the  perhaps  smaller  ner- 
vous sensibility  of  the  less  advanced  races, 
animate  and  sustain  the  Russian  socialist  in 
his  quixotic  career.  He  displays  a  singular, 
yes,  a  transcendant  heroism.  Men  and  wo- 
men succeed  each  other  in  the  secret  socie- 
ties to  die  on  the  gibbet,  or  to  linger  more 
miserably  in  the  under-water  dungeons  of 
the  Neva  :  but  as  the  banana  will  not  grow 
north  of  latitude  twenty-eight,  so  both  social- 


1885.] 


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607 


ism  and  scepticism  wither  in  the  repellant 
temperature  of  the  national  Russian  heart. 
Cringing  before  the  government  which  lashes 
him,  like  a  faithful  dog  under  his  master's 
whip,  the  Russian  peasant  informs  on  the  so- 
cial propagandist ;  and  with  a  ferocity  which 
shows  how  much  crueller  is  his  ignorance 
than  ever  the  wickedness  of  his  ruler,  he 
breaks  out  in  frequent  riots  against  the  un- 
believing Jew. 

The  Russian  Jews  are  indeed  the  aptest 
disciples  of  the  socialistic  idea.  Jews,  though, 
they  are  only  in  name ;  for  eighteen  centu- 
ries have  gone  since  the  fall  of  Jerusalem, 
and  no  faith  long  survives  the  destruction  of 
its  temples.  Judaism  is  dead — the  Jew  sur- 
vives not  as  the  worshiper  of  the  one  God- 
Jehovah,  but  as  the  pure-blooded  child  of  a 
singularly  homogeneous  and  strongly  marked 
race,  which  formerly  grew  corn  and  grapes 
on  the  sunny  hillsides  of  Palestine.  Every- 
where remarkable  for  acuteness  of  intellect 
and  an  extraordinary  aptitude  for  the  ac- 
quirement of  riches,  the  Jew  in  Russia  de- 
velops characteristics  of  great  social  senti- 
mentality. There  is  in  history  nothing  else 
which  approaches  the  sentiment  of  the  Ser- 
mon on  the  Mount,  in  which  the  heart  of  Je- 
sus pulsates  its  love  for  every  human  being, 
friend  or  foe — and  Jesus  was  a  Jew.  There 
was,  then,  in  the  Jewish  organization,  a  la- 
tent capacity  for  depths  of  feeling,  which  it 
only  required  the  proper  circumstances  to 
make  alive ;  and  at  least  a  similar  feeling,  a 
passion  for  the  happiness  of  others,  has  un- 
doubtedly amongst  the  younger  generation 
of  Jews  in  Russia  met  with  the  peculiar  con- 
dition necessary  to  develop  it  into  an  active 
energy.  It  is  not  meant  that  all  Jews  in 
Russia  are  humanitarians ;  it  is  not  meant 
that  a  majority  of  the  Jews  in  Russia  are  hu- 
manitarians ;  but  that,  comparing  the  Jews 
with  the  native  Russians,  and  with  the  Ger- 
mans in  the  Empire,  the  Jews  present  in  pro- 
portion to  population  a  much  greater  num- 
ber of  individuals  who  feel  the  stimulation  of 
humanitarian  sentiment,  as  expressed  in  the 
socialistic  doctrines,  and  are  ready  to  risk 
fortune  and  life  in  the  service  of  purely  hu- 
manitarian ends.  In  a  word,  a  very  consid- 


erable part  of  nihilistic  or  socialistic  Russia 
is  Jewish. 

Three  years  ago,  a  band  of  such  Jews, 
nearly  all  of  them  residents  of  Odessa,  re- 
solved to  leave  Russia,  and  seek  in  the  Unit- 
ed States  a  home  where  they  would  be  free 
from  the  taxes  and  military  service  of  des-  • 
potism,  and  the  brutality  of  Christian  fanati- 
cism, which  they  had  seen  more  than  once 
plunder  their  own  homes.  The  band  num- 
bered about  one  hundred,  all  young  people, 
the  average  age  being  twenty-one.  Nearly 
all  the  band  were  unmarried  youths,  but 
there  were  a  few  young  girls  and  several  mar- 
ried couples. 

Their  hopes  were  vague,  but  passionate ; 
their  means  in  money  so  small,  that  imme- 
diately on  their  arrival  in  New  York,  they 
were  compelled  to  hire  out  as  laborers,  till 
some  way  should  open  to  them  to  unite  their 
numbers  in  a  common  colony  or  home.  It 
is  unnecessary  to  recite  the  particulars  of 
their  movements  and  labors  ;  but  two  years 
ago  a  portion  of  the  band,  about  one-third 
of  its  original  number,  had  resolved  itself 
into  a  society  adopting  the  system  of  com- 
mon property,  and  bought  a  farm  of  eight 
hundred  acres  in  Southern  Oregon,  with  the 
purpose  of  founding  a  social  life  very  much 
like  that  which  existed  amongst  the  earliest 
Christians,  when,  after  the  day  of  Pentecost, 
they  were  filled  with  the  Holy  Spirit,  and 
were  of  one  mind  and  one  heart,  and  no  man 
said  that  aught  that  he  had  was  his  own. 
This  is  the  Russian  colony  at  Glendale,  Ore- 
gon, known  as  the  New  Odessa  Community. 

The  industrial  labors  of  this  society  have 
been,  for  many  reasons,  very  rude  and  inef- 
ficient ;  the  improvements  which  they  have 
added  to  the  place  as  they  bought  it  are  of 
the  most  limited  character,  and  their  farms 
and  buildings  are  only  noticeable  for  their 
unthrifty  and  untidy  appearance.  Their  pres- 
ent interest  as  a  society  is  to  be  found  en- 
tirely in  the  singularity  of  their  social  life. 
They  have  no  religion ;  they  have  hardly  a 
political  organization  for  the  management  of 
their  affairs;  they  have  no  defined  code  of 
morals,  unless  it  is  to  be  good.  One  of  their 
young  women  once  replied  to  me,  when  I 


608 


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[De< 


remonstrated  with  her  for  some  unusual  act 
of  courtesy,  exclaiming  "  You  are  too  good !  " 
"  Why,  we  cannot  be  too  good."  They  ap- 
pear, however,  to  be  entirely  free  from  those 
extraordinary  eccentricities  of  behavior  which 
characterize  many  of  the  so-called  American 
reformers  of  a  parallel  line  of  purpose,  and 
those  Russian  come-outers  who  are  not  of 
Jewish  descent. 

Yesterday  was  Sunday,  and  there  was  a 
marriage  in  the  community.  Nearly  all  the 
members  eat  and  sleep  and  stagnate — for  I 
can  hardly  speak  of  it  as  living — in  a  large 
hall  of  their  own  construction  :  a  wretched 
edifice  built  of  rough  boards  and  unplaned 
planks,  and  containing  only  two  apartments, 
the  lower  story  being  the  dining-room  and 
kitchen  both  in  one,  and  the  upper  story  a 
large  sleeping  room  without  partitions.  In 
the  sleeping  room  the  Community,  with  the 
exception  of  two  or  three  families  who  live 
in  small  shanties,  not  only  sleeps,  but  loun- 
ges— and  lounges,  too,  a  good  deal  of  the  time 
— reads,  debates,  and  dances.  The  bed- 
steads, which  are  home-made  structures  of 
boards,  nailed  together  in  the  most  flimsy 
manner,  are  placed  under  the  eaves  in  a  long 
row  on  each  side  of  the  room,  and  the  center 
is  furnished  with  a  rough  table  for  writing. 
As  for  reading,  the  Russian  of  every  type  I 
have  ever  met  always  reads  stretched  prone 
upon  his  bed.  On  Sunday  we  had  been 
lounging  on  our  beds  most  of  the  morning, 
taking  a  late  breakfast  at  ten  o'clock,  and 
going  back  up  stairs  to  lounge  again,  or  to 
read  the  philosophers  of  evolution,  of  pro- 
gress, and  social  emancipation.  But  about 
two  in  the  afternoon  I  descended  to  the 
kitchen  to  enquire  for  dinner.  To  my  sur- 
prise, I  found  several  of  the  women  very  busy 
making  dried  apple  pies  and  custards — great 
novelties,  the  usual  dinner  at  New  Odessa 
being  bean  soup  and  hard  baked  biscuits  of 
unbolted  flour  called  after  the  name  of  that 
wretched  dysyeptic  Graham.  My  first  thought 
was,  It  is  a  holiday;  for  on  his  birthday  the 
Russian  must  eat  his  pie,  this  being  just  as 
necessary  to  his  happiness  as  is  a  christening 
to  salvation  with  an  old-time  believer  in  the 
offices  of  the  Church  ;  he  calls  it  a  birthday 


pie,  in  Russian  something  like  "  indncui pro- 
hoc." 

I  was  delighted  when  I  looked  at  the  fresh 
baked  pies,  and  felt  at  once  a  deep  glow  ot 
gratitude  toward  the  brother  whose  coming 
into  the  world  had  brought  us,  as  I  supposed, 
this  agreeable  addition  to  our  repast.  "  Who 
is  the  good  man,"  I  asked,  "  who  has  given 
us  this  pleasure  ?  "  And  to  my  greater  sur- 
prise, I  was  told  that  something  even  more 
important  was  to  be  celebrated — there  was 
to  be  a  wedding.  It  was  a  very  sudden  af- 
fair, a  surprise  to  everybody  as  well  as  myself: 
a  young  man  and  woman  had  made  up  their 
minds  to  enter  into  matrimony,  and  it  was 
to  be  done  at  once. 

There  was  an  immediate  bustle  and  hurry, 
and  every  man  in  the  community  tried  to 
find  the  suit  of  clothes  in  which  he  left  Rus- 
sia. Two  or  three  young  girls  went  into  the 
woods  for  flowers,  and  the  rafters  of  the  hall, 
up  stairs  and  down,  were  soon  hung  with  the 
flowering  branches  of  the  tulip  tree.  On 
this  great  occasion,  white  cloths  instead  of 
oil  cloths  were  spread  upon  the  dining  table. 
The  pies  were  baked  with  a  rush,  each  pie 
being  inscribed  in  paste  with  the  initials  of 
the  bridegroom  and  bride. 

Living  with  these  people,  whose  language 
I  do  not  understand,  I  am  often  startled  by 
unexpected  occurrences.  I  did  not  know 
the  sentiment  in  the  Community  on  the  sub- 
ject of  marriage,  nor,  indeed,  if  there  was 
any  sentiment ;  but  it  was  certain  there  was 
to  be  a  marriage.  Now  I  could  understand 
the  tears  of  the  dear  little  Annuta.  At  one 
end  of  the  sleeping  apartment  occupied  by 
the  men,  there  is  a  little  separate  nest  of 
maidenhood — a  corner  fenced  with  shawls, 
where,  on  a  narrow  cot,  sleep  Annuta  and 
her  little  sister.  Gentle  as  the  men  are  in 
their  speech  and  deportment,  they  dress 
roughly  and  look  rough,  like  woodsmen  and 
farm-hands,  as  in  their  labors  they  are.  An- 
nuta, who  is  only  eighteen,  appears  amongst 
us  like  some  charming  flower  which  springs 
up  amongst  the  rude  growth  of  the  common 
fields.  The  night  before  Annuta  had  some 
deep  trouble  (she  is  the  sister  of  the  bride) ; 
she  sobbed  for  many  hours  in  her  little  room 


1885.] 


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609 


and  refused  t'o  be  comforted.  What  exactly 
was  the  cause  of  her  grief,  I  do  not  know ; 
but  I  am  sure  it  was  something  about  her 
sister. 

All  is  busy,  and  I,  too,  should  hurry  on  to 
the  wedding,  but  my  pen  pleads  for  a  few 
lines  to  Annuta.  Although  eighteen  and  a 
fully  developed  woman,  she  is  so  small  in 
stature  and  so  naive  in  manner  as  to  make 
the  impression  of  a  child.  Imagine  this 
child,  who  is  a  charming  woman,  or  this  wo- 
man, who  has  the  freshness  and  abandon  of 
a  child.  If  your  being  is  Arcadian,  if  your 
emotions  are  sensitive  to  loveliness  and  inno- 
cence, you  hesitate,  if  you  meet  her  in  the 
grassy  lanes  of  the  blooming  orchard,  wheth- 
er to  kneel  at  her  feet  and  kiss  her  hand  in 
homage  to  her  woman's  charms,  or  gather- 
ing her  in  your  arms  to  kiss  her  forehead,  as 
you  would  a  dear  little  girl.  She  is  a  bru- 
nette :  a  dark  olive  skin,  hair  of  that -darkest 
brown  which  is  so  much  richer  and  warmer 
in  tone  than  the  pure  black  ;  very  large,  dark 
brown  eyes,  with  soft  but  passionate  glances  ; 
a  small,  but  shapely  head  ;  features  not  Jew- 
ish at  all,  but  of  a  softened  and  brightened 
Tartar  type,  her  face  rather  wide,  and  lips  a 
little  thick,  and  her  expression,  under  any  cir- 
cumstances, that  of  quick  intelligence  and 
good  nature;  with  a  figure  singularly  graceful, 
but  robustly  graceful,  well-formed  hands  and 
feet,  and  a  quick,  firm  step  and  movements 
— such  is  Annuta. 

To  Annuta  the  wild  flowers  were  brought, 
and  her  fingers  wove  them  into  wreaths  for 
the  bride  and  bouquets  for  the  table.  She 
had  attired  herself  in  a  close-fitting  black 
dress,  without  even  a  ribbon  as  ornament. 
When  the  wreaths  were  finished,  she  tied  a 
thick  Russian  towel,  embroidered  with  red 
silk,  round  her  waist  as  an  apron,  and  helped 
to  make  the  pies — busy  little  maiden.  The 
artists  of  the  dinner,  however,  were  the  mar- 
ried women,  though  the  formal  cook  of  the 

day  was  R ,  the  cook  of  Sunday;  for  it 

is  the  Community  law  that  on  Sunday  there 

must  be  a  man  cook.     In  Russia,  R had 

been  a  student  of  veterinary  science;  now 
he  is  a  communist  and  a  cook.     Once  he 
drenched  horses;  now,  in  his  turn,  on  Sun- 
VOL.  VI.— 39. 


days  he  feeds  his  hungry  brothers  and  sisters 
with  soup  and  porridge.  He  is  a  good  fel- 
low ;  of  all  the  Sunday  cooks  he  serves  the 
soup  with  the  most  grace,  and  I  think  he 
burns  it  the  least  often.  Not  at  all  puffed 
up  with  the  great  dignity  of  his  office,  he  be- 
haved with  singular  meekness  amongst  the' 
crowd  of  volunteer  females,  alJowing  them  to 
do  much  as  they  pleased  with  all  the  para- 
phernalia of  the  stove.  At  six,  dinner  was 
announced,  just  two  hours  behind  time,  in 
waiting  for  the  wedding. 

The  brothers  and  sisters  had  been  gathered 
a  few  moments  on  the  benches  in  the  dining- 
room,  when  the  bridegroom  and  bride  en- 
tered. Both  parties  were  young,  perhaps 
twenty-two ;  the  young  man  well  educated, 
well  read  in  philosophic  and  romantic  liter- 
ature, and  rather  good  looking.  The  bride 
is  noted  for  her  kind  disposition,  or  what 
might  be  called  her  womanliness ;  but  hav- 
ing her  hair  cut  short,  her  aspect  was  that  of 
a  strong-minded  female.  She  was  very  nicely 
dressed,  wore  a  wreath  of  white  flowers,  and 
looked  charming  enough  to  make  any  man 
happy.  On  the  arrival  of  the  bridal  party, 
which  included  the  mother  and  sisters  of  the 
bride,  a  little  ceremony  took  place,  in  which 
the  young  man  and  woman  were  understood 
to  unite  themselves  in  the  conjugal  relation. 
After  this,  both  the  groom  and  bride  were 
embraced  by  the  associates,  the  kissing  being 
entirely  different  from  the  kissing  done  on 
similar  occasions  by  English  or  Americans. 
Each  in  turn  took  the  groom  and  bride  in 
his  or  her  arms ;  the  lips  were  pressed  to- 
gether again  and  again  with  a  long,  deep, 
and  almost  solemn  emotion :  such  kisses  as 
English-speaking  people  exchange  only  at 
moments  of  direst  tragedy  or  the  most  pas- 
sionate exaltation.  These  kisses  are,  I  think, 
peculiar  to  the  Russian  Jews:  at  least,  I 
have  never  seen  other  races  kiss  with  such 
effusion.  After  the  embraces  were  finished, 
the  groom,  giving  his  arm  to  the  bride,  led 
her  to  the  head  of  the  table,  where  they  sat 
down  side  by  side,  facing  the  company,  the 
family  sitting  next  to  them.  Tall  silver  can- 
dlesticks had  been  placed  at  the  end  of  the 
table,  and  a  pretty  wreath  of  flowers  was  laid 


610 


A    Wedding  among  the  Communistic  Jtws  in  Oregon. 


[Dec 


opposite  the  plates  of  the  happy  couple, 
flanked  with  the  marriage  pies  bearing  the 
names  of  the  pair  in  the  brown  pastry. 

The  cook  had  been  lucky  indeed  that  day, 
for  after  breakfast  he  had  taken  a  stroll  in 
the  valley  with  a  rifle  on  his  shoulder,  and 
had  met  and  dispatched  a  jack  rabbit.  Such 
an  incident  as  this  becomes  worthy  of  men- 
tion in  the  Community,  because  the  members 
being  mostly  vegetarians,  there  is  left  so  little 
spirit  for  the  chase  and  for  animal  food,  that 
it  is  only  occasionally  that  game  is  served, 
though  deer  are  plenty  on  the  mountains 
and  ducks  in  the  stream.  The  jack  rabbit 
was  turned  into  a  capital  ragout,  which,  after 
a  long  abstinence  from  anything  of  the  kind, 
tasted  perfectly  delicious.  For  my  part,  I 
felt  all  the  gentler  as  well  as  the  stronger 
after  it,  as  I  am  sure  all  did  who  ate,  and 
that  we  rose  from  the  ragout  better  humani- 
tarians than  we  sat  down.  And  such  was  a 
nobler  ending,  certainly,  for  the  jack  rabbit — 
to  be  a  means,  or  at  least  a  stimulus,  to  phi- 
lanthropic evolution,  by  passing  into  the  or- 
ganisms of  philosophers,  than  to  fall  a  prey 
to  and  nourish  a  sneaking  coyote,  which 
would  otherwise  probably  have  been  its  ulti- 
mate fate. 

The  ending  of  the  dinner  completed  the 
ceremony  on  the  first  floor ;  after  dinner  an 
ascension,  and  in  the  hall  above  a  service  in 
English,  followed  by  a  ball.  It  took  a  little 
time  to  wash  the  dishes  and  to  get  up  stairs. 
I  set  down  such  matters  as  the  dish-washing, 
because  they  cannot  be  omitted  in  the  pic- 
ture of  such  an  occurrence  in  theCommunity, 
for  they  are  part  of  the  extraordinary  as  well 
as  the  ordinary  procession  of  events.  In 
the  life  of  social  equality,  the  kitchen,  with 
its  fumes  and  odors,  is  not  hidden  away  in 
deference  to  fastidious  tastes.  It  is  a  con- 
spicuous part  of  the  dwelling.  But  when 
the  dishes  were  washed  and  stored  away,  all 
repaired  to  the  upper  room,  where  the  clos- 
ing scenes  of  the  day  were  to  take  place. 

The  center  of  the  room  had  been  cleared 
of  all  obstructions ;  the  white  blooms  and 
green  leaves  of  the  tulip  boughs  drooped 
down  overhead,  as  if  the  hall  were  canopied 
by  a  flowering  forest.  At  one  end  of  the 


hall  are  some  shelves  for  books,  and  at  thi 
end  a  table  had  been  placed,  with  seats  fo 
the  bridal  pair  and  the  bride's  family.  Thi 
tall  candlesticks  were  set  on  this  table ;  the 
candles  lighted,  and  the  wreaths  of  flower: 
laid  in  the  center.  Behind  this  table,  the 
bridal  party  seated  themselves. 

An  hour  ago,  the  bride's  cheeks  were 
blooming ;  now  she  looks  a  little  pale,  and  i< 
perhaps  the  prettier  for  it.  The  bridegroom 
with  whom,  commonly,  the  prevailing  ex 
pression  is  that  of  an  acute  and  quick  intelli 
gence,  wears  a  look  of  apprehensive  curiosity 
for  he  is  not  quite  certain  of  the  nature  o: 
the  ceremony  in  English,  which  is  now  ai 
hand. 

When  all  are  settled  in  their  places,  an  as 
sociate  of  the  Community  steps  forward,  anc 
announces  that  he  will  now  marry  the  couple 
again.  The  serious  tones  of  his  voice  awe 
even  the  children  to  quiet,  and  there  is  £ 
hushed  silence  in  the  room  when  he  com 
mences : 

"What  day  is  it;  dark  or  fair? 

Brings  it  future  joy  or  care  ? 
What  ray  this  morn  broke  through  the  night  ? 
Did  the  ray  herald  black  or  white  ? 

"Who  knows,  who  knows,  save  only  Fate? 
It  is  too  late,  it  is  too  late 
To  ask.     Today  it  will  be  done. 
May  it  end  sweetly  as  begun. 

The  moment's  here, 

Too  near;  too  near! 

They  wait;  they  wait ; 

It  is  too  late! 

The  youth  and  maid! 

They  must  be  said 

Those  words  of  fate  ; 

To  wedded  state, 

They  quickly  go, 

Their  love  to  sow. 

"Youths  and  maidens,  gather,  gather; 
Come,  old  mother;  come,  old  father. 
Maidens,  bring  the  blushing  bride; 
Lead  her  to  the  bridegroom's  side. 

"  Oh  youth,  thou  art  too  bold. 

Hast  thou  her  graces  told  ? 
How  darest  thou  take  such  a  gift  ? 
How  mayst  thou  balance  it  by  thrift  ? 

Only  if  thou  wilt  soar, 

Be  pure  to  thy  heart's  core. 

Be  gentle  as  a  dove, 

And  as  constant  thy  love. 


1885.] 


A    Wedding  among  the   Communistic  Jews  in  Oregon. 


611 


"  Dost  thou  her  truly  take? 
Ah,  what  now  is  at  stake  ! 
Wait,  wait;  tremble,  tremble, 
If  false  thou  dissemble. 

"  Oh  maiden,  let  no  fear 
Of  aught  now  keep  thee  here, 
Only  confidence  in  him 
That  he  will  his  life  so  trim, 

As  to  bring  both  joy, 

Joy,  joy,  only  joy. 

"If  you  think  this, 
If  you  hope  bliss, 
If  thou  lovest  him  only, 
And  without  him  art  lonely, 
If  thou  wilt  bless  his  strength, 
To  his  virtue  give  length, 
And  ever  be  truest  wife, 
Yielding  to  him  thy  sweet  life, 
Then -prepare  the  pledge  to  say, 
Or  if  not,  thou  mayst  speak  nav- 

' '  Youth!  dost  thou  take  her  as  thy  bride  ? 
The  simple  Yes  your  lives  hath  tied. 
Maiden!  shall  he  thy  husband  be? 
Yes  ?     Then  thou  ceasest  to  be  free. 
Let  thy  friends  kiss  thee  and  give  joy, 
Wish  thee  many  a  girl  and  boy. 
But  remember,  man  and  wife, 
To  live  purely  all  your  life. 

"  Who  cares  what  heralded  the  ray 
Which  first  this  morning  brought  the  day  ? 
The  wedding 's  done,  the  guests  are  here. 
We  now  rejoice,  forbid  each  tear, 
Whirl  in  the  dance,  or  sing  gay  song,     • 
To  coax  the  tardy  sun  along. 
Soon  comes  the  night,  the  air  shall  hush 
When  from  their  posts  the  stars  will  rush, 
And  from  above  shall  softly  gaze 
To  mark  the  lovers'  tender  ways. 
Nay,  wicked  stars,  now  veil  your  eyes, 
And  tend  your  duties  in  the  skies." 

Some  passages  in  this  seemed  to  touch  the 
feelings  of  those  conversant  with  the  English, 
and  one  woman  was  moved  to  tears.  The 
bridegroom,  who  is  rather  a  reckless  fellow, 
seemed  a  little  startled  at  the  grave  earnest- 
ness and  purity  of  life  which  were  enjoined 
by  those  words  especially  addressed  to  him. 

But  as  the  closing  lines  describe,  the  seri- 
ous business  of  the  day  was  over,  and  the 
ball  the  next  thing  in  order.  Alas,  the  soci- 
ety has  no  instrumental  music;  not  even  the 
poorest  squeak  of  a  fiddle.  In  this  strait  the 


toughest  throats  amongst  the  brothers  are  de- 
voted as  a  band.     Kind  hearted  fellows — A 
and  B  and  C  and  D — are  arranged  against  the 
wall  to  chant  for  hours  the  strains  of  la,  la,  la, 
with  all  the  changes  of  time  and  air  neces- 
sary to  guide  the  steps  in  the  waltz,  the  polka,  • 
and  the  quadrille.     The  particular  favorite 
of  the  people  seemed  to  be  the  American 
country  quadrille.     This  was  danced   again 
and  again,  with,  it  seemed  to  me,  every  pos- 
sible variety  of  blunder  ;  the  bridegroom  act- 
ing as  leader  of  the  dance,  calling  the  figures, 
tearing  his  hair  like  a  Frenchman  at  the  mis- 
takes of  his  friends,  and  shouting  out  his  de- 
spairing instructions  with  a  rolling  Russian 
R,  for  all  the  world  like  an  Irishman  with  a 
little  whisky  in  him.     Altogether,   the  ball 
was  a  very  rude  affair,  with  hardly  a  graceful 
scene  in  it,  except  a  few  steps  in  a  waltz  by 
two  young  girls,  sisters  of  the  bride.     It  was 
relieved,  however,  by  one  round  in  the  ring 
dance,  in  which  the  little  children  and  the 
bride  took  part,  all  singing  a  joyful  children's 
song  in  Russian.     However,  by  rude   I  do 
not  mean  rough,  or  that  there  was  any  breach 
of  good  manners,  for  the  social  courtesy  of 
these  people  under  all  circumstances  is  re- 
markable, but  simply  that  there  was  an  en- 
tire want  of  grace.     Under  similar  circum- 
stances of  poverty  and  no  music,  I  have  seen 
the  people  of  a  French  community  hold  a 
ball,  and  display  all  the  charms  of  measured 
movement.     But  on  the  other  hand,  the  so- 
cial bond  with  the  French  was  evidently  arti- 
ficial, or  rather  no  bond  at  all,  but  the  pre- 
tense of  a  bond  ;  whilst  with  the  Russians,  all 
was  genuine  and  sincere,  and  though  there 
was  no  harmony  in  their  dance,  there  was 
harmony  in  their  minds. 

At  quite  an  early  hour,  the  new  couple  re- 
tired from  the  scene  to  the  shanty  assigned 
them  close  by  the  hall.  I  dislike  to  call  their 
house  "shanty,"  but  shanty  it  is.  The  ball 
went  on,  and  the  writer  went  to  bed ;  and 
when  he  awoke  very  early  in  the  morning, 
the  festivities  were  only  concluding,  for  he 
saw  some  of  the  brothers  stealing  gently  to 
rest  from  a  final  repast,  which  had  just  been 
dispatched  in  the  kitchen. 


612 


A  Problem  of  Love. 


[De 


A  PROBLEM    OF  LOVE. 


THE  STATEMENT. 

TOMORROW  !  What  will  it  bring  to  me  ? 
How  momentously  experience,  hope,  life  it- 
self, culminate  in  a  day.  In  this  crisis  I  feel 
that  my  destiny  is  at  stake,  and  so  far  as  I 
am  to  be  an  actor  in  the  events  that  will  de- 
termine it,  I  need  first  a  calm  mind  and  clear 
vision. 

I  have  never  kept  any  record  of  passing 
events,  and  the  varied  experiences  of  my  life 
seem  now  to  throng  upon  me  in  confusion. 
I  feel  that  if  I  can  reduce  them  to  some 
order,  it  will  help  me  in  many  ways ;  I  am 
not  quite  sure  of  my  perspective.  I  will  try 
to  recall  those,  experiences  that  have  led  me 
to  today,  that  I  may  forestall  the  doubts  that 
may  hereafter  arise.  I  have  none  now,  but 

"  I'll  make  assurance  doubly  sure, 
And  take  a  bond  of  fate." 

I  was  born  in  New  England  a  little  less 
than  thirty  years  ago,  of  moderately  poor 
and  immoderately  honest  parents.  My  child- 
hood was  as  happy,  I  suppose,  as  it  could  be, 
consistently  with  the  rigid  suppression  of 
that  time  and  place.  As  a  boy,  I  was,  I 
trust,  a  little  stubborn,  and  felt  justified  in 
having  my  own  way  when  I  could  get  it. 
I  believe  I  was  not  very  bad;  I  certainly 
was  not  very  good.  The  uneventful  years 
led  me  in  due  time  to  the  doors  of  dear  old 
Harvard.  There  I  was  happy.  I  can  not 
boast  of  having  achieved  high  honors  either 
in  the  class-room  or  in  athletic  sports.  I 
was,  however,  a  fair  average,  and  was  content. 

I  graduated  creditably,  and  then  came  that 
perplexing  question,  What  next?  I  was  too 
averse  to  fighting  to  think  of  becoming  a 
lawyer,  and  there  seemed  already  to  be  quite 
enough  to  protect  evil-doers  and  defeat  jus- 
tice. Studying  for  the  ministry  was  not  to 
be  thought  of — not  that  my  habits  were  so 
inconsistent,  but  I  fancied  I  was  not  serious- 


minded;  I  was  fond  of  fun,  and  a  joking  pa 
son  I  always  regarded  as  an  abominatioi 
A  doctor  might  do  well  enough,  perhaps,  fo 
I  was  always  rather  fussy,  and  "handy  abou 
the  house,"  as  my  aunts  admitted,  and  migh 
master  the  little  that  doctors  really  know,  anc 
cover  my  ignorance  with  the  rest  of  them 
but  when  I  found  that  the  debt  to  one  of  m} 
aunts,  aforesaid,  incurred  for  a  part  of  my 
college  expenses,  would  be  doubled  before  I 
would  be  privileged  to  sit  down  and  wait  for 
patients,  I  gave  it  up,  and  determined  to  win 
what  bread  I  could  without  special  prepara- 
tion. 

In  one  respect  I  was  fortunate.  I  had 
formed  no  entangling  alliances.  I  had  never 
had  the  misfortune  to  fall  in  love.  To  be 
sure  I  had  never  tried,  and,  indeed,  must 
confess  that  on  one  or  two  occasions  I  had 
escaped  "  though  as  by  fire,"  after  resolute 
resistance.  I  always  had  the  conviction 
that  love  which  could  be  controlled  by  force 
of  will  was  not  the  genuine  article,  and  that 
the  test  that  any  sane  man  should  apply  was 
the  effort  to  control.  So  many  incipient  lik- 
ings have  been  coddled  into  weak  fondness 
because  some  lonely  swain  wanted  to  love 
somebody — and  then  "  when  the  sun  was  up, 
it  was  scorched,  and,  because  it  had  no  root, 
it  withered  away."  Perhaps  I  digress.  I 
was  considering  the  question 'of  bread  win- 
ning— that  unwelcome  but  blessed  conserv- 
ator of  civilization.  What  should  I  do  ?  The 
home  nest  was  full,  and  I  was  not  needed 
there.  The  same  conditions  seemed  to  hold 
everywhere.  I  vigorously  canvassed  the 
only  place  I  then  considered  worth  living  in, 
if  happily  I  might  get  a  modest  foothold  in 
its  world  of  affairs,  and  thus  be  spared  the 
trouble  of  removing  to  Boston  after  I  had 
achieved  success  elsewhere.  But  my  Jove 
for  that  city  seemed  unreciprocated,  and  I 
reluctantly  concluded  that  if  Boston  could 
get  on  without  me,  I  would  get  on  without 
her.  I  resolved  to  go  west.  At  the  end  of 


1885.] 


A  Problem  of  Love. 


613 


six  months  of  school-teaching,  I  took  an 
economical  trip  across  the  continent,  and 
found  myself  in  the  tumultuous  city  by  the 
Golden  Gate,  known  to  the  Eastern  tourist  as 
the  place  where  he  saw  the  seals  at  the  Cliff 
House. 

I  brought  a  few  good  letters,  and  hunted 
up  my  classmates,  whom  I  found  glad  to  see 
me,  but  as  yet  uninfluential  and  unsuggestive. 
I  began  to  feel  that  unlike  Boston  as  San 
Francisco  was,  she  was  wonderfully  like  her 
in  having  nothing  for  me  to  do.  But  I  had  a 
will,  and  there  opened  a  way.  I  had  applied 
to  the  agent  of  the  leading  express  company 
for  a  situation  of  any  kind.  He  was  courte- 
ous in  manner,  but  as  usual  there  was  no 
opening.  The  next  day  I  abandoned  letters 
and  reference,  and  began  a  canvass,  block  by 
block  and  store  by  store.  At  a  furniture  es- 
tablishment I  found  the  proprietor  in  trouble, 
his  porter  having  left  him  without  notice. 
He  hesitatingly  offered  me  the  place,  and  I 
unhesitatingly  took  it.  I  made  myself  use- 
ful, regardless  of  pride  and  dignity.  What 
dignity  can  a  man  consistently  sustain,  who 
has  less  than  the  price  of  a  month's  board  as 
a  guarantee  against  hunger? 

One  day,  all  the  goods  had  been  shipped 
but  a  dainty  tea-poy,  urgently  wanted  at 
Grass  Valley.  The  express  would  soon  close ; 
the  box  was  not  very  heavy ;  I  shouldered 
it  and  started  for  the  office.  As  I  deposited 
it  on  the  sidewalk,  the  manager,  coming  out 
of  his  office,  passed  me.  He  turned  back, 
as  he  apparently  placed  me,  and  asked  me 
what  I  was  doing.  The  conversation  ended 
by  his  saying  he  thought  he  wanted  me.  My 
employer  consented  to  the  change,  and  the 
next  day  I  took  a  responsible  position  at 
double  my  former  pay,  and  had  a  good  hold 
of  that  slippery  thing  we  call  success. 

That  was  five  years  ago.  In  the  mean  time  I 
have  been  fulfilling  my  destiny  as  an  average 
man.  When  I  could,  I  went  into  business 
for  myself.  I  have  not  been  uniformly  suc- 
cessful by  any  means,  but  on  the  whole  have 
prospered.  I  am  free  from  debt,  have  an 
increasing  business,  and  am  as  independent 
as  a  man  no  abler  nor  older  than  I  can  rea- 
sonably expect  to  be.  Socially,  I  have  been 


comfortable,  but  not  satisfied.  A  boarding- 
house  is,  under  the  most  favorable  conditions, 
but  an  endurable  make-shift ;  but  what  is 
the  use  of  being  miserable  about  it,  if  it  is 
the  best  you  have  or  can  legitimately  obtain? 
I  would  die  of  combined  ennui  and  dyspep- 
sia, before  I  would  sally  out  like  a  Bushman 
to  hunt  out  and  club  down  a  wife. 

To  be  sure,  I  have  met  many  interesting 
and  attractive  women  ;  who,  Heaven  knows, 
are  a  world  too  good  for  me;  but  the  "giant 
dwarf  Dan  Cupid  "  has  never  invested  them 
with  his  "  almighty  dreadful  little  might."  I 
say  never  has.  To  speak  by  the  card,  I  should 
say  "  never  had." 

It  is  now  some  five  months  since  my 
friend  Thompson  invited  me  to  spend  a  week 
at  his  camp  on  the  Lagunitas.  I  have  always 
loved  the  woods.  A  tree  is  to  me  the  most 
interesting  of  inanimate  objects,  and  a  man 
who  could  be  lonely  by  the  side  of  a  running 
stream  I  should  have  little  respect  for.  I  felt 
a  longing  for  out-of-doors,  and  easily  con- 
vinced myself  that  I  needed  a  rest. 

It  was  at  the  sunset  hour  of  a  lovely  spring 
day,  that,  having  wound  around  among  the 
Marin  hills  in  the  most  surprising  manner, 
the  little  train  stopped  at  "the  tank,"  and 
Thompson  and  I  took  our  traps,  including 
the  box  of  fruit  with  which  every  well-bred 
camper  reinforces  his  welcome,  and  started 
down  the  road  toward  the  spot  he  had  so 
glowingly  described,  when  needlessly  urging 
me  to  join  the  party.  Very  soon  a  turn  in 
the  road  brought  us  in  view  of  a  slight  pla- 
teau, which  presented  a  very  picturesque  and 
animated  scene — graceful  tents,  placed  with 
delightful  irregularity,  a  dining  table  beneath 
a  lovely  oak,  canvas  hammocks  peeping  out 
from  clumps  of  redwoods,  a  trim  staff,  from 
which  the  flag  was  just  lowering,  in  response 
to  the  whistle-call  of  the  friendly  engineer  on 
the  train  now  passing  on  the  other  bank  of 
the  stream,  and  a  group  of  jolly  campers 
waving  a  red  handkerchief  salute,  and  lifting 
their  merry  voices  in  the  camp  yodel,  as  a 
welcome  to  the  returning  "lord  of  the  wood." 

The  charm  of  camping  eludes  description, 
and  cannot  be  explained — it  must  be  felt,  or 
it  will  never  be  known.  In  part,  it  is  the 


614 


A  Problem  of  Love. 


reward  Nature  bestows  upon  her  worship- 
ers, while  the  relief  from  the  conventional 
is  enough  to  make  one  light-hearted.  The 
standard  of  propriety  is  no  longer  artificial, 
but  natural:  adjusted  to  the  congenial  circle, 
not  set  up  as  a  defense  or  an  example  to  the 
unappreciative  multitude.  When  starched 
linen  gives  place  to  soft  woolen,  kindred  dis- 
comforts, intellectual  and  social,  are  also 
laid  aside.  Simplicity  reigns,  and  the  sim- 
plest things  delight.  False  dignity  is  forgot- 
ten, and  good  feeling  makes  charity  a  useless 
virtue. 

All  this  follows  on  one  condition — the 
company  must  be  genuine  people,  capable 
of  appreciating  both  their  surroundings  and 
one  another.  This  was  a  camp  of  enthusi- 
asts. Indeed,  their  expressions  of  enjoy- 
ment had  seemed  so  extravagant  to  some  of 
the  friends  they  had  left  behind  them,  that 
their  retreat  had  been  playfully  dubbed  "The 
Asylum";  and  like  many  other  names  tinged 
at  first  with  opprobrium,  it  had  been  accept- 
ed for  its  better  meaning.  There  were  in 
the  company  Thompson's  wife,  and  her  sis- 
ter, lovely  Miss  Scott ;  Joe  Everett,  a  bright, 
young  lawyer,  waiting  as  patiently  as  possible 
to  be  old  enough  to  be  considered  a  safe 
counselor ;  Tom  Weldon,  a  bank  clerk  and 
a  thorough  good  fellow ;  Miss  Marsh,  a  de- 
lightfully intelligent  school  teacher,  and  Miss 
Lucy  Gray,  a  young  woman  of  whom  I  had 
often  heard,  but  had  never  chanced  to  meet.. 

I  suppose  that  every  young  woman  makes 
some  sort  of  an  impression  on  every  young 
man  when  first  presented,  but  ordinarily  it  is 
not  very  striking.  It  is  wisely  ordered  that 
this  form  of  dynamic  force  is  commonly  qui- 
escent. But  when  I  met  Miss  Gray,  I  felt 
moved.  I  could  not  tell  whether  it  was  her 
directness,  her  apparent  fearlessness,  that 
struck  me  as  unusual,  or  whether  it  was  sim- 
ply the  natural,  unrestrained  conditions  un- 
der which  we  met  that  threw  a  glamour  over 
her. 

Her  personal  appearance  did  not  impress 
me.  She  was  not  beautiful,  .nor  even  pretty 
(poor  abused  word),  but  she  was  interesting. 
Her  features  were  by  no  means  regular;  her 
eyes  were  clear  and  honest,  but  they  would 


inspire  no  sonnets;  her  mouth  was  well  ada 
ed  to  display  her  very  white  teeth,  but  no  su 
dangerous  Cupid's  bow  as  Miss  Scott's.    S. 
was  not  dignified  and  intellectual  like  Mi 
Marsh,  nor  graceful  and  gracious  like  Mi 
Thompson,  and  yet  I  felt   there  was  som 
where  a  charm.     I  was  not  pleased  with  ht 
manner.     She  seemed  to  have  little  reservt 
At  the  dinner  table  I  thought  her  a  little  frh 
olous,  and  almost  saucy  at  times.     I  hopei 
it  was  only  a  camp  consequence.     One  ex 
pects  a  higher  key  in  the  open  air,  and  whei 
seated  at  a  rude  table  on  a  backless  bench 
much  latitude  should  be  allowed.     It  is  noi ' 
preeminently  the  time  or  place  for  quiet  gen- 
tleness and  lady-like  repose;  Miss  Gray  talked 
a  good  deal,  which  I  thought  not  in  the  best 
of  taste,  she  being  the  youngest  in  the  party; 
and  she  apparently  ignored  the  fact  that  there 
was  a  stranger  at  the  table,  who  was  not  yet 
up  in  the  jokes  and  small  talk  of  the  camp : 
but  she  was  spirited,  and  often  witty,  and  her 
not  infrequent  laugh  was  very  musical.     She 
had  an  excellent  appetite,  and  seemed  thor- 
oughly healthy.     I  didn't  object  to  that,  but 
her  approach  to  loudness  tried  me.    My  ideal 
woman  just  then  was  a  very  proper  creature. 

After  our  early  dinner,  and  a  delightful 
stroll  up  a  neighboring  canon  to  a  charming 
spot,  where  a  prostrate  tree  spanned  the  fern- 
banked  stream,  we  gathered  around  the  camp- 
fire,  and  sang  and  talked  in  the  balmy  eve- 
ning air  till  many  a  bright  star  had  sunk  be- 
hind the  wooded  hills.  What  good  fun  it 
was,  and  how  comfortable  and  happy  "  the 
girls  "  looked,  curled  into  such  easy  attitudes, 
and  holding  one  another's  heads,  and  sup- 
porting one  another's  backs  in  that  delightful 
way  that  friendly  women  have  and  friendly 
men  can  only  sigh  for. 

Such  a  charming  conglomeration  of  song  ! 
sentimental,  patriotic,  comic,  negro  melodies, 
quaint  old  ballads,  a  touch  of  Spanish  and 
of  German,  rounds,  glees,  and — most  taking 
of  all — the  dear  old  college  songs,  so  rich  with 
association.  They  came  back  after  a  five 
years'  rest  in  some  hidden  nook  of  memory 
as  fresh  as  ever,  and  all  the  intervening  years 
seemed  to  slip  away  as  by  magic,  and  I  acted 
as  though  I  were  as  young  as  I  felt. 


1885.] 


A  Problem  of  Love. 


615 


Miss  Lucy,  I  observed,  was  extremely  va- 
riable. She  would  for  a  time  be  the  liveliest 
of  the  lively,  her  glee  by  no  means  gentle ; 
and  then,  without  observable  cause,  relapse 
into  pensive  silence.  It  puzzled  me.  The 
enshrined  goddess  for  me  was  an  even-tem- 
pered being — always  equable,  never  extreme. 

At  last  the  ladies  took  to  their  tents,  and 
the  long  and  lovely  evening  was  gone.  I  took 
my  blankets,  and  tried  the  open  air.  What 
unappreciated  beauty  one  finds  in  the  heav- 
ens, when  leisure  and  comfort  afford  the  op- 
portunity for  their  study — and  I  had  abun- 
dant opportunity  that  night.  Sleep  was  coy, 
and  I  wooed  her  vainly.  I  fancied  I  owned 
a  steady  brain,  and  although  six  or  seven 
hours  had  transported  me  to  a  new  world, 
where  I  seemed  to  have  lived  long,  I  could 
not  see  why  my  head  should  be  turned,  and 
my  customary  facility  for  falling  asleep  lost 
altogether.  Absurd  as  it  seemed,  I  found 
myself  arguing  down  my  interest  in  Miss 
Lucy  Gray.  I  felt  that  she  occupied  a  de- 
cidedly disproportionate  share  of  my  mind 
as  I  reviewed  my  entrance  to  Arden.  I 
could  not  account  for  it  by  anything  she  had 
said  or  done,  nor,  so  far  as  I  could  judge,  by 
anything  she  was.  Nevertheless,  her  last 
peal  of  merry  laughter  rang  in  my  ears,  and 
her  final  "  good-night "  seemed  so  lady-like 
and  refined,  that  I  felt  I  must  have  judged 
her  severely  when  I  thought  her  a  trifle  bois- 
terous. I  finally  convinced  myself  that  I 
was  an  idiot  to  think  about  her  at  all,  and 
that  there  was  no  danger  but  that  the  fancy 
would  wilt  as  suddenly  as  it  had  sprung  up, 
just  as  had  several  others  I  could  without 
difficulty  recall. 

Upon  this  complacency  gentle  sleep  de- 
scended, and  I  knew  no  more  of  earth  till 
the  discordant  note  of  an  early  blue  jay  re- 
called me  to  consciousness  of  a  new-born 
day. 

How  lovely  was  that  morning  !  Nature 
seemed  to  wear  her  brightest  smile  in  sym- 
pathy with  our  happiness ;  the  birds  seemed 
to  sing  for  us;  and  the  babble  of  the  brook 
was  surely  its  effort  to  express  our  common 
joy.  If  my  walk  was  lonely,  it  was  very  de- 
lightful. The  freshness  and  fragrance  of  the 


air,  the  beauty  of  flower  and  fern  nodding 
thanks  for  the  refreshing  dew,  the  calm,  blue 
sky  beyond  the  leafy  etching  of  the  branching 
trees — how  restful  and  satisfying  they  seemed. 
And  when  the  perfect  stillness  was  broken 
by  a  distant,  friendly  call,  which  could  only 
come  from  our  woodland  home,  it  was  with, 
a  sense  of  rich  expectancy  that  I  turned  to 
retrace  my  steps. 

Nor  was  I  disappointed  ;  the  breakfast  was 
very  merry.  I  found  myself  much  more  in 
the  spirit  of  the  camp,  and  less  disposed  to 
be  critical.  All  were  kind,  and  bright,  and 
happy ;  and  bless  me,  what  appetites,  and 
with  what  fearlessness  they  were  satisfied! 
And  then  the  day — full  of  varied  delight:  we 
were  free  from  dull  care,  our  everlasting  du- 
ties laid  aside ;  no  struggling,  nothing  to  en- 
dure, with  no  aim  but  enjoyment,  and  none 
to  molest  or  make  us  afraid :  and  so  we 
swung  in  the  hammocks,  or  read,  or  talked, 
or  sketched,  or  renewed  the  merry  games  of 
childhood,  or  did  anything  that  seemed  good- 
ly and  pleasant  to  our  unfettered  wills. 

How  soon  acquaintance  ripens  under  such 
conditions  and  passes  into  friendship,  or  at 
least,  into  that  comradeship  that  leads  to 
the  more  personal  relation  where  tastes  and 
characters  fit.  One  gets  on  at  such  a  time, 
and  learns  to  like  or  dislike  very  speedily. 
One  fancies  that  he  sees  his  fellows  as  they 
really  are — natural,  undisguised  by  conven- 
tionality, beyond  the  necessity  of  subterfuge. 
Doubtless,  this  is  not  wholly  true.  Habits 
are  not  so  readily  laid  aside,  and  "  Titbot- 
tom's  spectacles "  would  probably  have  re- 
vealed much  that  was  surprising,  and  no 
doubt  discomforting ;  but  in  a  real  camp 
everything  unpleasant  is  ignored,  and  there 
is  so  much  good  feeling  that  the  small  quan- 
tity of  kindly  counterfeit  is  not  noticed. 

Our  company  was  a  very  agreeable  one.  I 
liked  them  all.  Not  that  there  was  any  dull 
uniformity  about  it;  we  were  one  family, 
but  did  not  feel  bound  to  curb  our  prefer- 
ences, or  deny  ourselves  the  luxury  of  express- 
ing them  within  reasonable  bounds. 

I  could  see  no  reason  for  it,  but  I  found 
myself  irresistibly  drawn  by  Miss  Lucy.  I 
could  only  conclude  that  she  was  one  of  that 


616 


A  Problem  of  Love. 


[Dec. 


dangerous  class  of  persons  whom  we  call  fas- 
cinating. She  puzzled  me  not  a  little.  She 
seemed  often  wayward,  and  sometimes  pro- 
vokingly  unreasonable.  She  was  apparently 
indifferent  to  the  opinion  of  any  one,  and 
independent  to  the  last  degree.  She  was 
always  ready  for  fun,  but  when  the  conversa- 
tion became  serious  she  had  little  to  say. 
She  was  sometimes  guilty  of  keeping  an  ear 
for  what  others  were  saying,  when  engaged  in 
conversation  with  you.  She  was  not  as  un- 
conscious as  one  would  have  an  admired 
friend ;  and  yet,  in  spite  of  all  these  defects, 
I  grew  every  day  more  interested  in  her,  and 
more  dependent  upon  her  for  my  happiness. 
Against  all  reason  or  justice,  I  resented 
her  cordiality  to  others.  If  Everett  was 
with  her  I  became  actually  uncomfortable. 
I  fancied  she  enjoyed  his  company  and  in- 
vited his  devotion.  I  retained  enough  rea- 
son to  admit  that  she  had  a  perfect  right  to 
do  so.  I  went  further,  and  convinced  my- 
self that  it  was  nothing  to  me  if  she  did. 
Why  shouldn't  she  ?  and  why  should  I  care  ? 
Ah,  but  I  did.  There  was  the  pinch.  Reason 
did  not  settle  it.  I  would  spend  a  day  under 
the  spell,  thrilled  with  happiness  when  she 
smiled  upon  me,  and  miserably  unhappy 
when  she  seemed  indifferent;  and  then  when 
all  was  still,  and  the  constellations  wheeled 
above  me,  I  would  think  it  all  out,  and, 
confident  of  how  unreasonable  and  unwar- 
rantable it  was,  would  fancy  I  had  put  it  all 
aside,  and  determine  firmly  that  the  next 
day  should  find  me  sensible,  and  superior  to 
all  folly.  Then,  when  the  day  came,  I  would 
begin  by  being  judiciously  devoted  to  Miss 
Scott,  a  very  charming  girl,  whom,  for  all  I 
could  see,  I  ought  to  like  better  than  the  in- 
consistent enigma  who  didn't  seem  to  care  a 
fig  for  me ;  but  I  couldn't  keep  it  up.  One 
glance  would  melt  me,  and  before  night  I 
would  be  waiting  eagerly  for  the  smallest  bit 
of  encouragement  her  ladyship  would  deign 
to  bestow,  and  if  perchance  she  would  talk 
to  me,  or  let  me  hold  her  fan,  or  accompany 
me  when  I  scoured  the  hills  for  wood  for  the 
camp-fire,  I  was  radiant.  Then  would  follow 
self-reproach  at  my  weakness,  and  a  solitary 
stroll,  from  which  I  would  return  to  a  sedate 


companionship  with  Miss  Marsh,  or  that  cul- 
pable expedient — a  mild  flirtation  with  the 
married  woman  of  the  camp.  This  conflict 
between  reason  and  inclination  finally 
reached  a  point  where  I  felt  that  it  must 
stop.  I  would  not  think  of  her  as  anything 
but  a  friend.  I  was  wrong  to  give  way  to 
my  vagabond  affections.  They  had  no  right 
to  fix  themselves  upon  an  object  not  ap- 
proved by  my  godlike  judgment.  Reason 
should  reign. 

I  understand,  I  believe,  the  sensation  of  a 
well-hooked  trout,  when,  in  his  instinctive 
effort  to  escape,  he  finds  the  end  of  his  line, 
and  turning  back  to  the  comparative  com- 
fort of  the  slack,  tries  to  persuade  himself 
that  he  is  not  caught  after  all,  and  decides 
definitely  that  he  will  not  be.  I  set  my  face 
firmly  against  all  ungrounded  sentiment,  and 
resolved  to  resist  every  inclination  to  ten- 
derness. It  was  the  last  night  in  camp  when 
I  settled  the  matter,  and  my  will  power  car- 
ried me  decently  through  the  following  day. 
I  was  severely  impartial,  but  was  not  so 
happy  in  it  as  I  ought  to  have  been.  A  clear 
conscience  may  bring  peace,  but  it  often  fails 
to  bring  joy. 

It  was  with  real  regret  that  I  prepared  to 
return.  I  felt  like  a  fugitive  slave  being 
sent  back  to  bondage.  But  no  one  may 
mope  in  camp.  If  he  craves  that  luxury, 
he  must  wait  till  he  is  alone.  The  entire 
company  accompanied  me  to  the  train,  and 
with  unblushing  unconcern,  and  apparent 
obliviousness  of  the  wondering  passengers, 
bade  me  a  most  rollicking  farewell.  Comb 
serenades,  camp  calls,  handkerchief  salutes, 
and  merry  jokes  rang  around  the  train. 
Even  the  sedate  Miss  Marsh  was  almost 
noisy,  and  Miss  Scott  seemed  to  forget  how 
she  looked.  Miss  Gray  was  full  of  fun,  but 
I  fancied  it  was  a  little  forced.  She  had 
been  quiet  on  the  walk  to  the  train,  and  with 
gentle  shyness  had  said  she  hoped  I  would 
call  upon  her.  I  thanked  her  in  that  mean, 
non-committal  way  that  a  man  in  society  falls 
into.  Indeed,  I  did  not  know  what  I  should 
decide  to  do  about  it.  At  the  train  she  was 
audacious  in  her  merriment.  I  thought 
the  engine  would  never  be  satisfied  in  drink- 


1885.] 


A  Problem  of  Love. 


ing  water  from  the  tank.  The  smiling  pas- 
sengers had  enjoyed  "  Good-bye,  ladies," 
and  "Wait  till  the  clouds  roll  by,"  and 
I  was  afraid  the  entire  repertory  would  be 
showered  upon  them  if  they  did  not  get  away, 
but  the  bitter-sweet  moment  of  parting  came 
at  last,  and  we  rolled  away  from  the  unre- 
strained and  picturesque  group. 

Freshened  and  brightened,  I  returned  to 
my  daily  duties.  I  tried  to  get  back  into 
the  social  niche  from  which  I  had  stepped, 
but.I  could  not  get  in.  It  would  not  hold 
me.  There  was  an  insipid  flavor  to  the  very 
proper  society,  and  it  seemed  a  burden  in- 
stead of  a  relief.  And  then,  whether  I 
would  or  no,  that  sweetly  contradictory  face 
was  constantly  surprising  me.  Bubbling 
over  with  merriment,  tender,  with  an  almost 
sadness,  or  lit  up  with  thoughts  from  the  far 
within,  as  she  gazed  in  abstraction — I  could 
see  it  everywhere.  It  looked  up  from  my 
ledger.  It  put  in  eclipse  all  the  languishing 
style  at  my  boarding-house;  and  at  midnight, 
as  I  reasoned  with  myself,  it  was  light  in  the 
darkness. 

And  yet  I  held  to  my  resolution.  I  called 
it  a  fancy.  As  time  passed,  and  it  refused 
to  fade,  I  began  to  wonder  if  this  new  expe- 
rience were  really  love.  I  sought  for  its 
source.  I  had  the  effrontery  to  analyze.  I 
balanced  the  favorable  with  the  unfavorable, 
to  see  if  what  I  liked  outweighed  what  I  did 
not  like.  I  cannot  understand  now,  how  any 
man  can  be  so  cold-blooded  as  to  count  the 
points  of  the  woman  he  admires,  but  I  did  it. 
I  was  terribly  impartial,  and  the  result  did 
not  satisfy  my  august  reason.  The  Court 
ordered"  judgment  for  plaintiff.  She  had  been 
tried  and  found  wanting.  This  having  been 
settled,  I  felt  safe  in  calling  upon  her.  I 
persuaded  myself  it  was  but  common  cour- 
tesy to  pay  my  respects  once. 

Her  manner  was  softened  and  toned  down 
in  her  father's  modest  home,  and  her  devo- 
tion to  him  was  very  lovely.  She  was  moth- 
erless, and  it  was  evident  that  her  taste  was 
reflected  in  the  charming  room  where  every- 
thing was  simple  and  unpretentious,  but  rest- 
fully  harmonious.  I  gave  her  a  point  for 
good  taste.  She  was  cordial  in  her  greeting, 


and  easy  and  agreeable  in  the  pleasant  chat 
which  followed.  When  I  took  my  leave,  she 
gave  me  that  kind  of  an  invitation  to  call 
again  that  one  feels  at  liberty  to  accept  or 
neglect  at  will.  Mindful  of  the  judgment  of 
the  Court,  I  thought  I  would  not  go. 

I  was  mistaken  ;  in  two  weeks  I  called 
again.  I  could  not  tell  whether  she  was 
pleased  or  not.  Young  Everett  was  there, 
and  she  was,  I  fancied,  rather  more  attentive 
to  him  than  to  me — not  that  she  neglected 
me,  but  her  manner  was  more  restrained, 
less  frank  and  open.  She  sang  for  us 
very  sweetly,  with  fine  tenderness  of  expres- 
sion. She  played  with  good  taste  a  lovely 
sonata,  and  then  acted  like  a  spoiled  child 
in  teasing  her  father  to  join  her  with  his  vio- 
lin in  a  duet. 

Points  offset. 

The  next  time  I  called  was  on  a  Sunday. 
I  expected  to  find  her  reading  Thomas  a 
Kempis.  She  was  playing  with  the  cat. 

One  off. 

A  week  or  so  after,  she  accepted  an  invi- 
tation to  go  yachting,  a  camp  re-union  afloat. 
We  had  a  very  enjoyable  day,  but  it  was 
marred  for  me  through  her  neglect.  She 
was  in  a  full  flow  of  camp  spirits,  and  with 
great  skill  avoided  my  little  attentions,  and 
seemed  to  persist  in  being  with  Everett.  I 
concealed  my  idiotic  jealousy,  or  fancied  I 
did — a  man  usually  deludes  himself  in  this. 
I  was  obliged  to  throw  off  a  large  point  in 
my  summary.  No  man  is  very  generous 
when  he  fancies  himself  slighted,  even  when 
he  thinks  he  is  indifferent  to  the  slighter. 

The  next  Sunday  I  went  to  her  church,  and 
occupied  a  seat  where,  unobserved,  I  could 
watch  her.  Her  attention  to  the  service  was 
very  close  and  sympathetic.  Her  face  was 
as  responsive  to  the  fervor  and  poetry  of  the 
discourse  as  a  delicate  harebell  to  a  breath 
of  morning  air. 

I  stole  out  of  church  with  a  guilty  sense 
of  being  a  spy.  She  was  met  at  the  door  by 
that  odious  Everett,  and  went  smiling  up  the 
street  with  him,  as  though  the  heaven  she 
cared  for  was  in  his  keeping. 

I  stayed  away  for  a  month.  She  seemed 
a  little  cool  when  I  called.  I  hoped  she 


618 


A  Problem  of  Love. 


[Dec. 


felt  reproached,  but  could  not  see  that  she 
did.  There  was  not  the  remotest  reason 
why  she  should.  She  was  soon  her  charm- 
ing self,  and  I  forgot  all  else.  She  fairly 
beamed  when  I  invited  her  to  join  a  moon- 
light horse-back  party,  which  I  invented  on 
the  spot,  and  had  much  subsequent  difficulty 
in  materializing. 

On  the  ride  she  was  merry  aud  quiet  by 
turns.  My  cautious  efforts  to  give  the  con- 
versation any  serious  or  sentimental  turn 
were  skillfully  parried.  She  seemed  as 
thoughtless  and  heartless  as  a  butterfly.  I 
was  displeased.  To  be  sure,  I  didn't  mean 
anything  myself,  and  didn't  intend  to  go  very 
far,  but  that  made  my  rebuff  no  easier.  Who 
ever  knew  conceit  to  be  rational  ? 

I  went  home,  determined  that  I  would  not 
love  her.  She  was  not  my  ideal,  and  the 
woman  I  would  marry  I  must  love  so  unre- 
servedly that  I  could  never  be  displeased  at 
anything  she  did.  But  it  was  useless.  She 
was  in  my  heart.  I  found  that  I  had  made 
my  own  the  experience  of  Shakspere's  Biron : 

"  I  will  not  love;  if  I  do,  hang  me;  i'  faith 
I  will  not.  O,  but  her  eye — by  this  light, 
but  for  her  eye  I  would  not  love  her:  yes, 
for  her  two  eyes."  And  I  was  finally  forced 
with  Biron  finally  to  exclaim  :  "  By  heaven, 
I  do  love." 

The  battle  was  over.  The  surrender  was 
unconditional.  I  felt  like  a  sneaking  traitor 
whenever  the  idea  of  points  occurred  to  me. 
What  sacrilege  to  treat  heavenly  woman  as 
one  would  a  beast  of  the  field,  whose  merits 
can  be  scaled  and  counted.  Lucy's  faults 
now  seemed  but  blessed  proofs  of  her  mortal- 
ity. There  remained  no  doubt  in  my  mind. 
I  knew  that  I  loved  her  unreservedly.  I 
had  resisted  in  vain.  The  richest  experience 
of  life  had  mysteriously  come  to  me.  I  loved, 
and  all  about  and  within  me  was  illumined 
and  transfigured  by  its  power.  Those  only 
who  have  never  loved  can  say  that  love  is 
blind.  He  who  has  had  the  holy  baptism 
knows  how  far  and  clear  is  love's  vision.  It 
is  above  the  senses,  and  reveals  beauties  not 
seen  to  mortal  eyes.  It  sees  the  imperfec- 
tions, but  it  sees  beyond,  the  greater  good 
that  bears  them  as  lightly  as  a  majestic  river 


floats  the  drift-wood  on  its  placid  breast.  It 
finds  its  own  in  spite  of  dim-eyed  reason, 
and  rejoices  in  defeating  the  imperial  will. 
Ah,  Cupid,  I  can  but  be  glad  that  I  contested 
your  power.  I  know  and  respect  you  more 
fully,  and  I  am  your  more  obedient  and 
willing  slave. 

I  now  resolved  to  win  Miss  Lucy,,  if  any- 
thing I  could  do  or  be  might  accomplish  it. 
I  was  by  no  means  confident  of  success.  I 
had  received  no  encouragement,  and  I  was 
not  without  humility.  I  knew  no  reason 
why  she  should  love  me,  but  I  took  conso- 
lation from  my  recent  experience,  and  hoped 
she  might  love  me  without  reason.  The 
mighty  Arbiter  would  not  be  so  good  to  me, 
and  then  doom  me  to  disappointment.  But 
I  did  not  feel  that  I  could  go  to  my  love  at 
once  with  my  heart  in  my  hand  and  risk  the 
result.  I  must  prepare  her,  and  strive  to 
awaken  in  her  a  regard  for  me  to  which  I 
could  speak. 

And  so  I  laid  siege ;  but  my  approaches 
to  the  citadel  have  been  very  slow.  She  is 
a  most  elusive  creature,  and  I  cannot  make 
out  whether  she  is  indifferent  to  me  or  not. 
Sometimes  I  fancy  that  I  surprise  indications 
of  regard  ;  again,  that  I  detect  effort  at  their 
concealment.  She  does  not  dislike  me,  I 
am  sure,  but  unless  I  felt  that  she  could 
love  me  with  the  fervent  devotion  and  aban- 
don I  feel  for  her,  I  should  not  want  her  to 
accept  me.  At  times  I  have  felt  that  I  was 
going  too  far  without  knowing  her  feelings. 
It  seems  a  little  unfair,  that  a  man  must  com- 
mit himself  before  he  can  gain  any  assurance 
whatever  of  what  the  result  will  be;  but  I 
suppose  he  must.  It  seems  as  though  some 
inkling,  some  faint  encouragement,  might  be 
given,  without  compromising  maidenly  re- 
serve and  sanctity,  but  I  cannot  win  it  from 
Lucy.  I  have  tried  in  vajn,  and  now  feel 
that  there  is  but  one  course  to  follow.  I 
must  tell  her  my  love  plainly,  and  abide  the 
result.  I  know  that  dainty  Philip  Sidney 
said,  "They  love  indeed  who  quake  to  say 
their  love,"  but  I  have  quaked  long  enough; 
I  will  no  more  of  it.  I  will  rather  emulate 
the  valor  with  which  bluff  King  Hal  won  his 
bride.  I  will  show  her  that  I  am  in  earnest. 


1885.] 


A  Problem  of  Love. 


619 


I  will  put  aside  my  doubts,  and  I  believe  I 
will  not  fail.  I  am  strong  now,  and  full  of 
high  resolve  and  courage.  I  feel  capable  of 
storming  any  defense.  This  effort  to  set 
down  in  order  my  struggle  and  surrender  has 
cleared  and  calmed  my  mind  and  fortified 
my  heart.  My  undoubted  love  lies  clear  be- 
fore me,  and  I  am  full  of  hope.  Not  another 
day  of  uncertainty  shall  pass  over  me.  To- 
morrow she  shall  know  my  love  and  I  will 
know  my  fate. 

II. 

THE  SOLUTION. 

[Extracts  from  the  Diary  of  Miss  Lucy  Gray.] 

"  The  Asylum"  Lagunitas. 

June  8th,  188-. — A  new-comer  today,  a 
Mr.  Allen,  a  friend  of  the  Thompsons.  I 
think  I  shall  like  him.  One  welcomes  a  new 
face  in  the  wilderness,  however  pleasant  the 
little  group  of  campers  may  be.  Mr.  Everett 
is  gentlemanly  and  nice,  but  he  does  not 
conceal  the  disappointment  he  feels  at  his 
lack  of  success.  He  resents  the  fact  that 
clients  are  few,  and  seems  to  feel  slighted 
by  all  mankind  by  reason  of  it.  So  he  is  not 
always  agreeable.  Mr.  Weldon  is  well  enough, 
but  1  do  not  happen  to  care  for  him.  For- 
tunately, it  doesn't  trouble  him — at  least, 
when  Miss  Scott  is  gracious. 

Mr.  Allen  seems  rather  stiff  and  proper, 
coming  fresh  from  the  world  of  formalities 
and  prudence.  I  could  not  resist  the  temp- 
tation to  shock  him  just  a  little.  I  was  al- 
most rude  at  dinner,  and  quite  garrulous — 
but  why  should  one  come  to  camp,  if  one 
cannot  be  a  little  free  and  careless  ?  If  we 
are  to  strictly  observe  the  poky  proprieties, 
we  might  as  well  stay  at  home.  I  hope  he 
is  not  a  prig. 

June  gth. — He  isn't  altogether.  He  sang 
some  very  jolly  college  songs  last  night,  and 
seemed  some  years  younger  around  the  camp- 
fire  than  he  did  at  dinner.  He  talks  well,  but  is 
simple  about  it,  and  seems  very  good-natured 
and  generous.  I  do  not  think  he  will  startle 
the  world  in  any  way,  but  I  think  he  would 
be  a  good  friend.  He  seems  gifted  in  the 
happy  faculty  of  making  every  one  comfort- 


able; and,  Allah  be  praised,  he  doesn't  talk 
about  himself. 

The  conversation  in  our  little  group  was 
general,  but  Miss  Marsh  seemed  forced  to 
speak  for  the  ladies — the  rest  of  us  were  stu- 
pid and  dumb  whenever  there  was  any  de- 
mand for  anything  but  nonsense.  She  is 
very  well  informed,  and  has  such  ability  of 
expression.  I  envy  people  who  can  speak 
with  such  easy  precision  and  grace.  My 
poor  little  tongue  is  only  active,  never  skilled 
or  effective.  I  presume,  however,  it  express- 
es all  I  have  to  say.  I  feel  that  I  know  so 
little,  and  am  so  little.  I  am  very  dissatis- 
fied with  myself  and  my  life.  I  feel  that  if 
mother  had  not  been  taken  from  me  it  might 
have  been  different.  She  would  sympathize 
with  me  and  hold  me  up.  One  feels  so  weak 
and  lonely,  with  only  a  father  and  friends. 
They  are  all  good,  but  they  are  hedged  about 
and  you  cannot  get  at  them.  It  is  not  enough 
to  be  loved  at  a  distance.  A  mother  takes 
you  right  into  her  arms  and  her  heart,  as  no 
one  else  can,  and  from  her  love  springs  rest 
and  peace.  I  have  no  refuge,  and  I  am  very 
lonely.  When  one  is  not  at  rest,  one  is  ex- 
posed to  do  many  foolish  things,  and  I  know 
I  often  act  horribly  just  because  I  am  uneasy 
and  have  no  repose.  I  must  try  to  do  bet- 
ter. 

June  loth. — We  had  a  very  delightful  walk 
today,  way  up  above  the  Forks.  All  went 
excepting  Mr.  Thompson  and  Miss  Scott, 
who  kept  camp.  She  is  very  pretty,  and  I 
wonder  all  the  gentlemen  did  not  want  to 
stay  with  her,  but  they  didn't  seem  to.  What 
peculiar  beings  they  are  !  They  rarely  do 
just  what  you  expect  them  to,  and  no  amount 
of  experience  seems  to  give  them  much  judg- 
ment. They  do  blunder  terribly,  poor  fel- 
lows, and  seem  so  surprised  when  convicted 
of  it.  Mr.  A.  was  very  injudicious  today. 
Somehow,  he  constituted  himself  my  es- 
pecial cavalier,  and  he  stuck  so  close,  so  long, 
that  it  must  have  been  noticeable.  I  felt 
it,  but  what  could  I  do  ?  One  can  only  ig- 
nore such  things.  It  only  makes  it  worse  to 
take  notice  of  it.  I  fear  Miss  Marsh  was  not 
pleased.  Was  I  ?  I  really  do  not  know.  I 
liked  it,  and  I  didn't.  He  is  thoroughly  a 


620 


A  Problem  of  Love. 


[Dec. 


gentleman,  and  a  very  comfortable  person  to 
be  with,  but  he  ought  to  think  how  things 
look.  He  seemed  to  take  alarm  at  last,  and 
left  me.  This  evening  he  has  been  very 
quiet,  and  has  taken  no  notice  of  me  at  all. 
He  has  seemed  to  regard  me  as  forbidden 
fruit,  and  his  manner  has  been  decidedly 
cool  when  compared  with  the  morning's  easy 
affability.  I  am  sure  I  haven't  done  or  said 
anything  to  offend  him,  but  there's  no  use  in 
trying  to  understand  a  man.  For  that  mat- 
ter, I  do  not  pretend  to  understand  myself. 

June  nth. — Today  has  not  been  a  happy 
day,  take  it  all-in-all.  I  hardly  know  why. 
I  do  not  feel  like  writing  about  it. 

June  I2th. — He  is  the  most  inconsistent 
man  I  ever  met.  I  have  no  idea  why  it 
should  interest  me,  however.  I  know  it  is 
simply  absurd,  that  I  should  care  a  whit 
whether  a  man  whom  I  first  met  four  days 
ago  is  consistent  or  inconsistent.  But  four 
days  in  camp  is  as  good  as  four  months  in 
town.  Indeed,  there  are  gentlemen  whom 
I  have  known  generally  for  four  years, 
whom  I  do  not  know  half  so  well  as  I  do 
this  friend — for  I  feel  that  he  is  a  friend,  in 
spite  of  his  provoking  variableness.  I  do 
like  an  even-tempered  person,  whom  one 
knows  where  to  find.  It  is  very  embar- 
rassing to  expect  a  person,  to  be  "a  little 
more  than  kind,"  and  then  find  him  a  little 
less  than  polite;  it  tries  one's  patience.  Mr. 
Allen  yesterday  was  very  agreeable,  but  to- 
day he  has  another  attack  of  silent  suffering. 
I  begin  to  think  he  has  some  type  of  inter- 
mittent fever;  there  seems  a  marked  regu- 
larity in  his  recurring  periods  of  hot  and 
cold.  I  hope  it  is  not  contagious.  I  fancy 
I  am  somewhat  sympathetic.  I  feel  threat- 
ened occasionally  with  his  moods,  but  I 
crush  the  symptoms.  Today  I  have  been 
friendly  with  Mr.  Everett.  We  fashioned 
a  startling  image  of  a  weird  bird  from  a  man- 
zanita  root,  and  this  afternoon  installed  it 
with  appropriate  ceremonies  as  the  camp 
deity,  "Te-he." 

June  i4th. — Yesterday  was  too  full  for 
journal  writing.  The  day's  doings  embraced 
a  walk,  a  boat-ride,  a  game  of  crambo,  much 
pleasant  talk,  a  chapter  of  Hamerton,  sketch- 


ing, and  much  else,  not  worth  mentioning, 
but  well  worth  enjoying.  Mr.  Allen  was 
quite  devoted  to  Miss  Scott  in  the  morning, 
but  it  didn't  seem  particularly  spontaneous, 
and  he  wearied  of  it  apparently,  and  looked 
in  the  afternoon  as  though  something  trou- 
bled him.  I  took  pity  on  him,  and  tried  to 
cheer  him  up  by  helping  him  bring  in  fire- 
wood, or  rather  offering  to.  Of  course  he 
quoted  the  Ferdinand-Miranda  episode,  and 
seemed  drifting  into  sentiment,  but  I  fore- 
stalled it,  and  we  returned  to  dinner  and 
common  sense. 

The  evening  around  the  camp-fire  was  par- 
ticularly pleasant.  I  suppose  the  poor  un- 
initiated think  they  are  all  alike,  but  they  are 
never  the  same.  Last  night  "  the  Boojum  " 
appeared,  and  was  excruciatingly  funny.  I 
laughed  immoderately  at  his  antics.  Mr. 
Thompson  was  his  keeper.  The  dignified 
Mr.  Allen  had  disappeared  early  in  the  even- 
ing, and  did  not  return  till  the  sport  was 
over. 

Today  we  have  "  kept  Sunday  "  pretty  well. 
Beside  our  individual  reading,  letter-writing, 
etc.,  we  had  a  social  service  of  reading  and 
rather  sensible  talk  down  at  the  Hammocks, 
and  this  afternoon  a  few  of  us  sought  a 
lovely,  quiet  spot  we  keep  for  occasions,  and 
had  a  delightful  religious  service.  Mr.  Al- 
len reads  well,  and  can  be  very  earnest  when 
he  chooses.  After  the  service  for  the  day, 
and  the  singing  of  a  few  dear  old  hymns,  we 
read  and  talked  of  a  chapter  in  "  Friends  in 
Counsel,"  and  concluded  by  reading  one  of 
Mrs.  Browning's  loveliest  poems.  Tomor- 
row Mr.  Allen  leaves  us.  I  feel  that  I  shall 
miss  him.  He  is  not  faultless  — who  is  ? — 
but  I  am  sure  he  is  good,  and  he  is  not  dis- 
agreeable about  it,  as  good  people  are  some- 
times. He  is  moody,  but  one  can  put  up 
with  that,  especially  if  afflicted  with  the  same 
weakness.  He  is  unselfish  and  kind,  and 
has  much  of  that  fine  chivalry  which  one  reads 
of  but  seldom  sees.  He  has  more  will  than 
imagination,  more  sense  than  sentiment;  but 
all  in  all,  is  a  manly  man,  and  I  feel  proud 
that  he  calls  me  his  friend. 

June  i 5th. — What  a  lark  we  had  in  seeing 
Mr.  Allen  off!  I  don't  know  why  it  was,  for 


1885.] 


A   Problem  of  Lone. 


621 


I  really  regretted  to  have  him  leave,  but  I 
felt  full  of  mischief;  and  when  I  saw  how 
annoyed  he  looked  at  our  boisterous  conduct 
in  the  presence  of  the  stiff  and  proper  peo- 
ple in  the  car,  I  acted  outrageously  just  to 
see  him  uncomfortable.  I  played  "  Wait  till 
the  Clouds  roll  by "  (which  he  abhors)  on 
an  old  comb ;  sang  "  Halico  Calico  "  (which 
he  doesn't  consider  quite  ladylike),  gave  camp 
calls,  and  behaved  like  a  spoiled  school  girl, 
rather  than  like  a  young  woman  old  enough 
to  be  discreet  and  dignified.  It  is  not  strange 
that  we  are  accused  of  perversity — we  often 
are  guilty.  Why  are  we  so  possessed  ?  What 
could  he  have  thought  of  me?  He  is  so 
refined  and  gentlemanly.  Oh,  dear!  can  I 
never  be  ladylike  ?  How  chagrined  and  dis- 
pleased he  must  have  been.  I  had  asked 
him  to  call,  but  I  might  have  saved  myself 
the  courtesy.  I  do  not  believe  he  will.  He 
will  think  I  belong  in  the  woods,  and  ju- 
diciously conclude  that  in  town  I  would  not 
be  a  desirable  acquaintance. 

June  i6th. — Have  not  felt  very  well  today. 
I  believe  I  am  getting  a  little  tired  of  camp. 
I  think  we  walk  too  much,  and  everybody 
seems  trying  to  keep  up  a  show  of  simplicity 
and  light-heartedness.  I  wish  they  would 
be  more  quiet.  I  do  not  get  a  chance  to 
think. 

June  iyth. — I  have  written  to  papa  to  send 
word  that  he  wants  me  to  come  home.  I 
have  enjoyed  myself  much,  but  I  think  I 
ought  to  go  home  and  take  care  of  him — 
dear  old  fellow — he  has  so  little  change  and 
rest.  He  must  miss  my  petting,  and  I  miss 
his  watchful  care.  We  are  each  all  that  the 
other  has,  and  ought  to  be  together.  I  am 
afraid  I  have  run  wild  too  long.  I  have  had 
great  fun  up  here,  but  one  gets  tired  of  too 
much  fun.  I  feel  a  good  deal  ashamed  of 
myself,  when  I  think  of  Monday's  perform- 
ance. It  was  hoydenish  and  silly.  I  sup- 
pose it  seemed  as  odious  to  Mr.  Allen  then 
as  it  does  to  me  now.  Why  is  it  that  one 
feels  challenged  by  the  delicate  reproach 
that  does  not  even  openly  express  itself,  and 
can  risk  the  good  opinion  of  a  friend  by  fly- 
ing in  its  face  ?  I  suppose  the  "  You  ought 
not"  affects  the  childish  mind  much  as  did 
the  "You  dare  not"  of  actual  childhood. 


It  seems  rather  dull  in  camp  this  week. 
I  don't  know  why.  I  hope  papa  will  send 
tomorrow. 

June  iqth. — Once  more  in  civilization, 
with  its  many  conveniences — too  many,  I 
think — its  obligations  and  its  delights. 

It  is  one  of  the  many  marvelous  charms 
of  camping,  that  one  is  so  hilarously  happy 
to  get  into  the  woods,  and  then  so  thorough- 
ly satisfied  to  get  back  again. 

Papa  seems  very  glad  to  have  me  home. 
He  says  he  knows  Mr.  Allen  quite  well,  and 
has  a  high  opinion  of  him.  Says  he  never 
heard  any  one  say  a  word  against  him. 
That  seems  about  as  hard  a  thing  as  can  be 
said  of  anybody. 

July  jrd. — It  is  two  weeks  since  I  came 
from  camp,  and  I  am  quite  back  in  my  old 
life,  but  still  with  renewed  spirit  and  fresh- 
ness. I  think  over  the  last  week  in  camp  a 
great  many  times,  and  I  must  confess  that 
Mr.  Allen  fills  a  large  portion  of  the  fore- 
ground of  the  picture  in  my  mind.  I  feel 
that  I  did  not  fully  appreciate  him.  I  cer- 
tainly did  not  treat  him  very  well.  I  met 
him  on  the  street  yesterday  for  the  first 
time.  He  bowed  very  pleasantly,  but  did 
not  stop  to  speak  to  me.  I  did  not  deserve 
it,  nor  did  I  expect  it,  but  I  was  a  little  dis- 
appointed. 

July  4th. — Mr.  Allen  called  this  evening. 
He  said  he  had  not  celebrated  the  day  in 
any  other  manner,  but  thought  I  would  do 
very  well  for  the  Goddess  of  Liberty,  and  he 
came  to  pledge  his  loyalty.  I  did  not  know 
whether  to  like  it  or  not.  I  was  so  repent- 
ant for  my  unpardonable  rudeness  at  that  aw- 
ful leave-taking,  that  I  am  afraid  I  seemed 
too  glad  to  see  him.  I  enjoyed  his  call  very 
much,  but  fearing  that  I  had  been  too  gra- 
cious, I  tried  to  lower  my  temperature,  and 
when  he  went  away  I  hardly  asked  him  to 
call  again. 

July  i6th. — Mr.  Allen  has  not  called 
again.  I  suppose  he  felt  compelled  by  his 
awful  sense  of  propriety  to  come  once,  and 
having  no  further  motive,  will  come  no  more. 
July  iqth. — What  a  coincidence.  I  have 
very  few  gentlemen  callers,  but  last  evening 
Mr.  Everett  and  Mr.  Allen  chanced  to  meet 
here.  I  was  a  little  embarrassed,  but  tried 


622 


A  Problem  of  Love. 


[Dec. 


to  treat  them  with  equal  consideration. 
Both  were  agreeable.  We  had  some  good 
music.  Mr.  Everett  sings  finely,  and  Mr. 
Allen  fairly.  I  sang,  because  I  thought  it 
shabby  to  refuse.  They  insisted  on  my  play- 
ing. I  was  glad  that  Mr.  Allen  liked  my 
favorite  sonata.  He  has  good  musical  taste, 
I  wanted  papa  to  play  with  me  on  his  violin, 
but  I  couldn't  coax  him. 

July  24th. — Went  to  church  this  morning 
as  usual,  and  then  to  call  on  old  Mrs. 
Thomas.  She  tired  me  dreadfully  with  the 
recital  of  her  woes  and  her  pains ;  but  I 
suppose  she  felt  better  for  it.  I  read  to  her 
and  tidied  up  her  room.  I  was  quite  tired 
when  I  reached  home.  I  was  having  a  good 
rest  and  playing  with  Dido,  when  in  walked 
Mr.  Allen.  I  wouldn't  give  up  as  though  it 
were  anything  to  be  ashamed  of,  so  I  played 
with  both  of  them. 

August  ist. — Had  a  delightful  day  yester- 
day on  a  yachting  excursion.  All  our  camp- 
ers went,  and  all  were  happy.  The  morn- 
ing was  placid  and  lovely,  with  just  the  breeze 
to  send  our  little  craft  gently  and  gracefully 
over  the  waters  blue;  but  soon  the  wind  fresh- 
ened, the  saucy  boat  leaned  to  her  work,  and 
flew  through  the  waves  with  great  dash.  Ah, 
how  exhilarating  it  was!  It  made  me  feel 
full  of  vigor  and  daring.  The  breeze  seemed 
audacious,  and  I  caught  the  spirit.  Mr.  Al- 
len, being  an  experienced  yachtsman,  was  un- 
moved, apparently.  It  provoked  me  to  see 
no  glow  of  enthusiasm  on  his  calm  face,  and 
I  am  afraid  I  romped  with  Mr.  Everett.  I 
know  I  persisted  in  staying  on  the  deck  un- 
til I  was  pretty  well  drenched  with  spray. 
Mr.  Allen  was  thoroughly  polite  all  day,  but 
was  not  so  genial  and  happy  as  he  generally 
is. 

September  4th. — Mr.  Allen,  whom  I  had 
about  given  up,  called  last  evening.  I  meant 
to  be  quite  severe  at  his  long  neglect,  but  I 
couldn't  keep  it  up.  I  was  really  so  glad  to 
see  him,  in  spite  of  his  unaccountable  freaks, 
that  I  suppose  it  broke  through  ;  any  way,  we 
had  a  pleasant  evening,  and  he  was  kind 
enough  to  invite  me  to  a  horseback  ride  next 
week,  in  company  with  a  pleasant  party  of 
friends.  A  very  pleasant  apology,  if  that  is  its 


significance.  At  any  rate  I  accepted,  and 
anticipate  much  pleasure. 

September  qth. — Our  horseback  ride  was 
exceedingly  pleasant.  It  alarms  me  when  I 
feel  how  much  I  enjoy  being  with  Mr.  Allen. 
It  is  a  new  and  very  strange  experience,  to 
be  so  dependent  on  another  for  happiness. 
When  in  his  company  I  have  a  sense  of 
subtle  harmony.  My  heart  seems  singing 
within  me ;  and  when  he  is  gone,  I  think 
upon  every  word  of  his  that  I  can  recall,  and 
they  are  many.  What  a  marvel  this  waking 
of  affection — this  growth  of  regard.  I  fear 
to  own  it  to  myself,  but  I  can  but  see  how 
my  heart  goes  out  to  him.  And  how  changed 
everything  seems.  My  life  is  fuller,  more 
serious,  and  yet  more  joyous — and  the  ten- 
derness I  feel  toward  all  the  world  !  Is  it  to 
last  ?  God,  the  giver,  only  knows,  but  what- 
ever the  end,  I  will  be  thankful  for  this  which 
I  have — this  exaltation  of  feeling,  this  glimpse 
into  the  marvelous  world  in  the  midst  of  the 
world.  I  must  hide  it  deep  from  the  sight 
of  all,  and  surely  from  his.  Can  I  meet  him, 
and  hide  it?  My  efforts  to  conceal  it  must 
cause  him  to  think  strangely  of  me,  for  I  am 
inconsistency  itself.  During  the  ride  I  would 
find  myself  drifting  into  a  happy  reverie  from 
which  I  felt  I  must  rouse  myself,  and  in  its 
dissipation  I  affected  a  heartless  gayety,  and 
chattered  like  a  magpie.  His  manner  is 
very  considerate  and  kind,  and  whatever  he 
thinks,  he  always  acts  as  a  generous,  thought- 
ful friend.  I  cannot  expect  that  he  will  ever 
be  more,  for  what  am  I,  that  such  a  man 
should  be  even  a  loyal  friend  ? 

September  nth. — Mr.  Allen  spent  the  eve- 
ning. I  was  so  afraid  he  would  read  my  tell- 
tale eyes,  that  I  preserved  the  most  unsenti- 
mental manner,  and  fenced  skillfully  when- 
ever he  showed  any  disposition  to  be  serious. 

Sept.  2oth. — Mr.  Allen  called  again.  I 
was  so  glad  to  see  him.  Can  it  be  that  he 
really  cares  for  me — I  mean,  in  the  way  I 
care  for  him  ?  For  I  can  confess  to  you,  my 
guarded  friend,  what  no  mortal  must  even 
guess.  I  dare  not  indulge  the  hope,  and 
yet  I  sometimes  fancy  that  he  does. 

Oct.  26th. — Mr.  Allen  is  very  kind  and  in- 
dulgent. He  bears  a  great  deal  of  unreason- 


1885.] 


On  the  Desert. 


623 


able  treatment  with  admirable  patience,  and 
shows  me  a  great  many  attentions  that  I  do 
not  deserve.  He  has  called  frequently,  and 
we  are  warm  friends,  but  I  doubt  if  we  are 
ever  more.  We  seem  to  have  reached  the 
end.  Strange  as  it  seems,  he  appears  to  be 
afraid  of  me.  I  cannot  doubt  that  he  cares 
for  me — he  gives  me  too  many  proofs  of 
that.  Can  it  be  that  he  expects  encourage- 
ment from  me  ?  It  does  seem  unreasonable 
to  strive  to  conceal  my  love,  and  still  hope 
he  will  discover  it.  How  can  I  expect  him 
to  risk  all,  not  knowing  what  fate  awaits  him  ? 
And  yet  I  can  give  him  no  hope,  till  I  know 
that  he  loves  me  wholly.  That  is  the  advan- 
tage woman  must  claim.  Man  must  do  and 
dare  if  he  would  win  us.  Our  concealment 
is  our  defense  and  safeguard.  It  is  our  test 
of  the  strength  of  love.  I  cannot  be  un- 
maidenly.  If  I  have  dissembled  well,  I  re- 
joice in  it.  I  will  help  no  man  to  win  me, 
and  will  accept  no  love  that  does  not  "in  the 
scorn  of  consequence  "  risk  all  for  the  hope 
of  success.  True  love  is  strong  and  daring, 
and  has  no  fear.  "The  kingdom  of  heaven 
suffereth  violence,  and  the  violent  take  it  by 
storm."  It  is  even  so  in  the  domain  of  love. 
Nov.  2d. — How  can  I  write,  even  here  in 
this  familiar  journal,  which  is  but  another 
self  to  whom  I  speak,  of  the  joy  that  possess- 
es me.  I  am  so  inexpressibly  happy!  He 


loves  me.  I  cannot  understand  how  he  can, 
but  I  know  that  he  does.  In  spite  of  my  coun- 
terfeit indifference,  with  no  encouragement 
that  I  could  guard  against,  he  dared  all;  and 
his  heart  shone  so  clearly  through  his  dear 
eyes  as  he  told  his  love,  that  I  could  but 
straightway  confess  that  he  had  long  had  my 
heart,  and  promise  that  my  hand  would  be 
given  when  he  claimed  it.  I  am  afraid  to 
look  a  human  being  in  the  face,  lest  my  eyes 
shall  proclaim,  "  He  loves  me."  I  feel  that 
the  greatest  of  earthly  blessings  is  mine.  I 
know  now  that  perfect  love  casteth  out  all 
fear,  for  I  enter  this  wondrous  new  world 
with  perfect  trust.  When  I  look  back  to 
those  lovely,  foolish  days  at  camp,  and  follow 
on  to  this  blissful  present,  and  peer  into  the 
roseate  future,  life  seems  such  a  mystery, 
and  love  such  a  miracle,  that  I  almost  doubt 
if  I  am  real.  How  experience  widens  as  life 
goes  on.  What  unimagined  realms  in  mind 
and  heart  are  revealed  when  heaven  blesses 
us  with  love.  What  differences  it  reconciles. 
What  problems  it  solves.  When  I  think 
how  unworthy  I  am  of  this  priceless  boon,  I 
feel  almost  burdened  with  the  sense  of  debt. 
I  am  filled  with  wonder  and  awe  ;  but  in  the 
presence  of  it  all  I  am  unutterably,  reverently 
thankful,  for  there  can  be  but  blessing  for 
one  who  has  truly  entered  the  kingdom  of 
love. 

Charles  A.  Murdoch. 


ON   THE   DESERT. 

Rider  and  horse  as  one — onward  he  dashes 

Over  the  wide,  white  plain.     To  right,  to  left, 

No  shrub  or  tree — only  gaunt  mountains,  cleft 
At  the  horizon.     Say  !  what  gleams  and  flashes 
In  the  far  distance,  past  the  dust  and  ashes 

That  round  him  rise — pale  desolations  weft? 

His  ear  of  its  quick  sense  well  nigh  bereft, 
Hears  sounds  like  steel  that  on  tried   sword-blade  clashes. 

He  plunges  on ; — his  steed  falls  down  and  dies  ! 

He  springs  from  earth,  and  casts  his  hopeless  eyes 

Above — around  !     Is  there  no  hand  to  save  ? 

Silence  profound  !     There  lies  his  undug  grave, 

And  there  the  phantom  of  the  desert  gleams 

With  beckoning  hands,  past  phantom  running  streams  ! 

Sylvia  Lawson   Corey. 


624 


Rough  Notes  of  a  Yosemite   Camping  Trip. 


[Dec. 


ROUGH  NOTES  OF  A  YOSEMITE  CAMPING  TRIP.— III. 


August  ii. — As  we  intended  going  only 
to  the  foot  of  Mount  Dana,  a  distance  of 
about  eleven  miles,  we  did  not  hurry  this 
morning.  Trail  very  blind.  Lost  it  a  dozen 
times,  and  had  to  scatter  to  find  it  each  time. 
Saw  again  this  morning  magnificent  eviden- 
ces of  the  Tuolumne  Glacier.  Among  the 
most  remarkable,  several  smooth,  rounded 
knobs  of  granite,  eight  hundred  to  one  thou- 
sand feet  high,  with  long  slope  up  the  valley, 
and  steep  slope  down  the  valley,  evidently 
their  whole  form  determined  by  an  envelop- 
ing glacier. 

About  two  P.  M.,  as  we  were  looking  out 
for  a  camping  ground,  a  thunder-storm  again 
burst  upon  us.  We  hurried  on,  searching 
among  the  huge  boulders  (probably  glacial 
boulders)  to  find  a  place  of  shelter  for  our 
provisions  and  ourselves.  At  last  we  found 
a  huge  boulder,  which  overhung  on  one  side, 
leaning  against  a  large  tree.  The  roaring  of 
the  coming  storm  grows  louder  and  louder, 
the  pattering  of  rain  already  begins.  "  Quick ! 
quick  !  "  In  a  few  seconds  the  pack  was  un- 
saddled, and  provisions  thrown  under  shel- 
ter; then  rolls  of  blankets  quickly  thrown 
after  them ;  then  the  horses  unsaddled  and 
tied  ;  then,  at  last,  we  ourselves,  though  al- 
ready wet,  crowded  under.  It  was  an  inter- 
esting and  somewhat  amusing  sight — all  our 
provisions  and  blanket  rolls,  and  eleven  men 
packed  away,  actually  piled  one  upon  anoth- 
er, under  a  rock  which  did  not  project  more 
than  two  and  a  half  feet.  I  wish  I  could 
draw  a  picture  of  the  scene  :  the  huge  rock 
with  its  dark  recess ;  the  living,  squirming 
mass,  piled  confusedly  beneath ;  the  magnif- 
icent forest  of  grand  trees  ;  the  black  clouds; 
the  constant  gleams  of  lightning,  revealing 
the  scarcely  visible  faces ;  the  peals  of  thun- 
der, and  the  floods  of  rain  pouring  from  the 
rocks  on  the  projecting  feet  and  knees  of 
those  whose  legs  were  inconveniently  long, 
or  even  on  the  heads  and  backs  of  some  who 
were  less  favored  in  position. 


In  about  an  hour  the  storm  passed,  the 
men  again  came  out,  and  we  selected  camp. 
Beneath  a  huge  prostrate  tree  we  soon  started 
a  fire,  and  piled  log  upon  log  until  the  flame, 
leaping  upwards,  seemed  determined  to  over- 
top the  huge  pines  around.  Ah  !  what  a  joy 
is  a  huge  camp-fire  !  not  only  its  delicious 
warmth  to  one  wet  with  rain  in  this  high, 
cool  region,  but  its  cheerful  light,  its  joyous 
crackling  and  cracking,  its  frantic  dancing 
and  leaping.  How  the  heart  warms,  and 
dances,  and  brightens,  and  leaps  in  concert 
with  the  camp-fire  ! 

We  are  here  nearly  ten  thousand  feet  above 
sea-level.  Nights  are  so  cool  that  we  are 
compelled  to  make  huge  fires,  and  sleep  near 
the  fire  to  keep  warm.  Our  camp  is  a  most 
delightful  one,  in  the  midst  of  grand  trees 
and  huge  boulders — a  meadow  hard  by,  of 
course,  for  our  horses.  By  stepping  into  the 
meadow,  we  see  looming  up  very  near  us,  on 
the  south,  the  grand  form  of  Mount  Gibbs, 
and  on  the  north,  the  still  grander  form  of 
Mount  Dana.  After  supper,  and  dishwash- 
ing, and  horse-tending,  and  fire-replenishing, 
the  young  men  gathered  around  me,  and  I 
gave  them  the  following  lecture  on  "  Depos- 
its in  Carbonate  Springs  " : 

"You  saw  yesterday  and  this  morning  the 
bubbles  of  gas  that  rise  in  such  abundance 
to  the  surface  of  Soda  Springs.  You  ob- 
served the  pleasant,  pungent  taste  of  the 
water,  and  you  have  doubtless  associated 
both  of  these  with  the  presence  of  carbonic 
acid.  But  there  is  another  fact,  which  prob- 
ably you  have  not  associated  with  the  pres- 
ence of  this  gas,  viz :  the  deposit  of  a  reddish 
substance.  This  reddish  substance,  which 
forms  the  mound  from  the  top  of  which  the 
spring  bubbles,  is  carbonate  of  lime,  colored 
with  iron  oxide.  This  deposit  is  very  com- 
mon in  carbonated  springs  :  I  wish  to  explain 
it  to  you. 

"  Remember  then :  First,  that  lime  car- 
bonate and  metallic  carbonates  are  insoluble 


1885.] 


Hough  Notes  of  a  Yosemite  Camping  Trip. 


625 


in  pure  water,  but  slightly  soluble  in  water 
containing  carbonic  acid ;  second,  that  the 
amount  of  carbonates  taken  up  by  water  is 
proportionate  to  the  amount  of  carbonic  acid 
in  solution  ;  third,  that  the  amount  of  car- 
bonic acid  that  may  be  taken  in  solution  is 
proportioned  to  the  pressure.  Now,  all 
spring  water  contains  a  small  quantity  of  car- 
bonic acid,  derived  from  the  air,  and  will 
therefore  dissolve  limestone  (carbonate  of 
lime);  but  the  quantity  taken  up  by  such 
waters  is  so  small  that  it  will  not  deposit, 
except  by  drying.  Such  are  not  called  car- 
bonated springs. 

"  But  there  are  also  subterranean  sources 
of  carbonic  acid,  especially  in  volcanic  dis- 
tricts. Now,  if  percolating  water  come  in 
contact  with  such  carbonic  acid — being  un- 
der heavy  pressure — it  takes  up  larger  quan- 
tities of  the  gas.  If  such  waters  come  to 
the  surface,  the  pressure  being  removed,  the 
gas  escapes  in  bubbles.  This  is  a  carbonated 
spring. 

"  If,  further,  the  subterranean  water,  thus 
highly  charged  with  carbonic  acid,  comes 
in  contact  with  limestone  or  rocks  of  any 
kind  containing  carbonate  of  lime,  it  dis- 
solves a  proportionately  large  amount  of  this 
carbonate,  and  when  it  comes  to  the  surface 
the  escape  of  the  carbonic  acid  causes  the 
limestone  to  deposit,  and  hence  this  material 
accumulates  immediately  about  the  spring, 
and  in  the  course  of  the  stream  issuing  from 
the  spring. 

"  The  kind  of  material  depends  upon  the 
manner  of  deposit,  and  upon  the  presence 
or  absence  of  iron.  If  the  deposit  is  tu- 
multuous, the  material  is  spongy,  or  even 
pulverulent;  if  quiet,  it  is  dense.  If  no  iron 
be  present,  the  deposit  is  white  as  marble ; 
but  if  iron  be  present,  the  oxidation  will 
color  the  deposit  yellow,  or  brown,  or  red- 
dish. If  the  amount  of  iron  be  variable, 
the  stone  formed  will  be  beautifully  striped. 
Suisun  marble  is  an  example  of  a  beautifully 
striped  stone,  deposited  in  this  way  in  a 
former  geological  epoch. 

"  I  have  said  that  such  springs  are  most 
common   in    volcanic  districts.     They  are, 
therefore,    most    commonly    warm.      Soda 
VOL.  VI.— 40. 


Springs,  however,  is  not  a  volcanic  district. 
In  our  travels  in  the  volcanic  region  on  the 
other  side  of  the  Sierras,  we  will  find,  prob- 
ably, several  others.  At  one  time  these 
springs  were  far  more  abundant  in  California 
than  they  are  now." 

August  12. — Rode  our  horses  up  as  far  as 
the  timber  expands,  staked  them  out  in  little 
green  patches  of  rich  grass,  very  abundant 
on  the  mountain  slopes,  and  then  began  the 
real  ascent  of  Mount  Dana  on  foot.  I  think 
we  ascended  about  three  thousand  feet  after 
leaving  our  horses.  Mount  Dana,  as  seen 
from  this  side,  is  of  a  very  regular,  conical 
forrrij  entirely  destitute  of  soil,  and  there- 
fore of  vegetation  ;  in  fact,  from  top  to  bot- 
tom, a  mere  loose  mass  of  rock  fragments — 
metamorphic  sandstone  and  slates.  The 
slope  is,  I  think,  forty  degrees ;  the  rock 
fragments,  where  small,  give  way  under  the 
foot,  and  roll  downwards  ;  if  large,  they  are 
difficult  to  climb  over.  The  ascent  is  diffi- 
cult and  fatiguing  in  the  extreme.  The  dan- 
ger, too,  to  those  below,  from  boulders  loos- 
ened by  the  feet  of  those  above,  is  very  great. 
A  large  fragment,  at  least  one  hundred 
pounds,  thus  loosened,  came  thundering 
down  upon  me  with  fearful  velocity  before  I 
was  aware.  I  had  no  time  to  get  out  of  the 
way  ;  in  fact,  my  own  footing  was  precarious. 
I  opened  my  legs  ;  it  passed  between,  and 
bounded  on  its  way  down. 

There  being  no  trail,  each  man  took  his 
own  way.  The  young  men  were  evidently 
striving  to  see  who  could  be  up  first.  I  took 
my  steady,  even  way,  resting  a  moment  from 
time  to  time.  My  progress  illustrated  the 
fable  of  the  hare  and  the  tortoise:  I  was  the 

third  man  on  top ;  Mr.  Muir  and  P alone 

had  gotten  there  before  me.  The  view  from 
the  top  is  magnificent  beyond  description. 
To  the  northwest,  the  sharp,  strangely  pic- 
turesque peaks  of  the  Cathedral  group;  to 
the  south,  in  the  distance,  the  Mount  Lyell 
group,  with  broad  patches  of  snow  on  their 
slopes;  and  near  at  hand,  the  bare,  gray 
mass  of  Mount  Gibbs;  to  the  north,  the  fine 
outlines  of  Castle  Peak,  rising  above  and 
dominating  the  surrounding  summits;  and 
to  the  east,  almost  at  our  feet,  the  whole  in- 


626 


Hough  Notes  of  a  Yosemite  Camping  Trip. 


[Dec. 


terior  valley,  including  Lake  Mono,  with  its 
picturesque  islands  and  volcanoes.  Stretch- 
ing away  to  the  west,  valleys,  with  grassy 
meadows  and  lakes  separated  by  low  wooded 
ridges.  I  could  count  forty  or  fifty  lakes, 
and  meadows  without  number.  These  mead- 
ows, and  lakes,  and  ridges  suggest  glacier 
beds,  with  moraines,  stretching  westward 
down  the  Sierra  slope. 

As  already  said,  the  mountain  is  super- 
ficially a  mass  of  loose  rock  fragments.  I  saw 
the  rock  in  situ  only  in  one  place,  but  this 
was  a  magnificent  section.  About  two-thirds 
of  the  way  up,  the  bed-rock  appears  as  a 
perpendicular  crag,  nearly  one  hundred  feet 
high.  It  is  here  a  very  distinctly  and  beau- 
tifully stratified  sandstone,  and  in  a  perfectly 
horizontal  position.  The  slope  on  the  west- 
ern and  southwestern  side  is  regular,  and 
about  forty  degrees ;  but  when  we  arrived  at 
the  top,  we  found  that  on  the  east  and  north- 
east the  slope  is  very  precipitous,  forming  a 
great  amphitheatre,  in  which  lay  vast  stores 
of  snow,  and  in  one  place  we  found  nestled 
a  clear,  deep  blue  lake,  apparently  formed 
by  the  melting  snow.  This  great  snow  field 
extends  a  little  over  the  gentle  slope  by  which 
we  ascended.  For  the  last  five  hundred  to 
one  thousand  feet  we  ascended  the  mountain 
over  this  snow.  Mount  Dana  is  13,227  feet 
high.  I  did  not  observe  any  remarkable  ef- 
fect of  diminished  density  of  amosphere  upon 
respiration  or  circulation.  The  beating  of 
the  heart  was  a  little  troublesome.  I  had 
to  stop  frequently  to  allow  it  to  become 
quiet ;  but  this  seemed  to  me  as  bad 
near  the  beginning  of  the  climb  as  near 
the  top.  It  seemed  only  more  difficult  to 
get  my  "  second  wind  "  than  usual. 

We  took  cold  lunch  on  the  top  of  the 
mountain,  and  began  our  descent,  which  was 
less  fatiguing,  but  much  more  dangerous  and 
trying,  than  the  ascent.  The  shoes  of  sev 
eral  of  the  party  were  completely  destroyed. 
Soon  after  reaching  camp,  we  again  had 
thunder  and  rain.  We  all  huddled,  with  our 
provisions  and  blankets,  again  under  our  rock 
shed.  After  supper  we  again  built  up  an 
immense  camp-fire.  Now  while  I  write,  the 
strong  light  of  the  blazing  fire  is  thrown  upon 


the  tall  tamarack  trees,  and  upon  the  faces 
of  the  young  men,  engaged  in  various  ways.  I 
wish  I  could  draw  a  picture  of  the  scene  now 
presented:  the  blazing  fire  of  huge,  piled 
logs ;  the  strongly  illuminated  figures  of  the 
party;  the  intense  blackness  of  sky  and  for- 
est. 

We  will  see  Mono  Lake  tomorrow.  Be- 
fore going  to  bed,  therefore,  the  party  gath- 
ered about  the  fire,  and  by  request  I  gave 
them  the  following  lecture  on  the  formation 
of  salt  and  alkaline  lakes  : 

"  Salt  Lakes  may  originate  in  two  general 
ways :  either  by  the  isolation  of  a  portion  of 
sea-water,  or  else  by  the  indefinite  concen- 
tration of  ordinary  river  water  in  a  lake  with- 
out an  outlet.  Great  Salt  Lake,  and  all 
the  other  salt  lakes  scattered  over  the  desert 
on  the  other  side  of  the  Sierras,  are  possibly 
formed  by  the  first  method.  It  is  probable 
that  at  a  comparatively  recent  geological 
epoch,  the  whole  of  the  salt  and  alkaline 
region  on  the  other  side  of  the  Sierras,  which 
we  will  see  tomorrow,  was  covered  by  an 
extension  of  the  sea  from  the  Gulf  of  Cali- 
fornia. When  this  was  raised  into  land,  por- 
tions of  sea-water  were  caught  up  and  isolated 
in  the  hollows  of  the  uneven  surface.  The 
lakes  thus  formed  have  since  greatly  dimin- 
ished by  drying  away,  as  is  clearly  shown  by 
the  terraces  or  old  water  levels  far  beyond 
and  above  the  present  limits ;  and  their  wa- 
ters have  become  saturated  solutions  of  the 
saline  matters  contained  in  sea  water.1 

"The  Dead  Sea,  and  many  other  salt 
lakes  and  brine  pools  in  the  interior  of  Asia, 
have  probably  been  formed  in  the  same  way. 
But  the  Caspian  Sea  is  probably  an  example 
of  the  second  method  of  formation :  /'.  e.,  by 
concentration  of  river  water.  The  reason 
for  thinking  so  is,  that  old  beach  marks,  or 
terraces,  show  a  great  drying  away  of  the 
lake,  and  yet  the  water  is  still  far  less  salt 
than  sea  water. 

"  Alkaline  Lakes  are  formed,  and  can  be 

1  Since  this  was  written,  it  has  been  proved  that  Great 
Salt  Lake  (and  probably  also  the  other  lakes  in  this 
region)  was  formed  in  the  second  way.  The  former 
outlet  of  this  lake  into  Snake  River  has  been  found.  It 
was,  therefore,  once  a  fresh  lake,  but  lost  its  outlet  and 
dried  away  to  its  present  condition. 


1885.] 


Rotigh  Notes  of  a  Yosemite   Cc.mping  Trip. 


627 


formed,  only  by  the  second  method,  viz :  by 
indefinite  concentration  of  river  water  by 
evaporation  in  a  lake  without  an  outlet.  Such 
concentration,  therefore,  may  form  either  a 
salt  or  an  alkaline  lake.  Whether  the  one 
or  the  other  kind  of  lake  results,  depends 
wholly  upon  the  composition  of  the  river  wa- 
ters. If  chlorides  predominate,  the  lake  will 
be  salt ;  but  if  alkaline  carbonates  predomi- 
nate, it  will  be  alkaline. 

"Perhaps  some  of  you  will  be  surprised 
that  the  pure,  fresh  water  of  mountain  streams 
can  produce  salt  or  alkaline  lakes.  I  must 
therefore  try  to  explain : 

"  We  speak  of  spring  water  as  pure  and 
fresh  ;  it  is  so,  comparatively.  Nevertheless, 
all  spring  water,  and  therefore  all  river  water, 
contains  small  quantities  of  saline  matters 
derived  from  the  rocks  and  soils  through 
which  they  percolate.  Suppose,  then,  the 
drainage  of  any  hydrographical  basin  to  ac- 
cumulate in  a  lake.  Suppose,  farther,  that 
the  supply  of  water  by  rivers  be  greater  than 
the  waste  by  evaporation  from  the  lake  sur- 
face. It  is  evident  that  the  lake  will  rise, 
and  if  the  same  relation  continues  it  will 
continue  to  rise,  until  it  finds  an  outlet  in  the 
lowest  part  of  the  rim,  and  is  discharged  into 
the  ocean,  or  some  other  reservoir.  Such  a 
lake  will  be  fresh;  i.  <?.,  it  will  contain  only 
an  imperceptible  quantity  of  saline  matter. 
But  if,  on  the  other  hand,  at  any  time  the 
waste  by  evaporation  from  the  lake  surface 
should  be  equal  to  the  supply  by  rivers,  the 
lake  would  not  rise,  and  therefore  would  not 
find  an  outlet.  Now  the  salting  process  will 
begin.  The  waters  that  flow  in  contain  a 
little,  be  it  ever  so  little,  of  saline  matter.  All 
this  remains  in  the  lake,  since  evaporation 
carries  off  only  distilled  water.  Thus,  age 
after  age,  saline  matters  are  leached  from 
rocks  and  soils,  and  accumulated  in  the 
lake,  which,  therefore,  must  eventually  be- 
come either  salt  or  alkaline. 

"  Thus,  whether  lakes  are  saline  or  fresh 
depends  on  the  presence  or  absence  of  an 
outlet;  and  the  presence  or  absence  of  an 
outlet  depends  on  the  relation  of  supply  by 
rain  to  waste  by  evaporation  ;  and  this  latter 
depends  on  the  climate.  Saline  lakes  can- 


not occur  except  in  very  dry  climates,  and 
these  lakes  are  rare,  because  on  most  land- 
surfaces  the  rainfall  far  exceeds  the  evapora- 
tion, the  excess  being  carried  to  the  sea  by 
rivers.  Only  in  wide  plains  in  the  interior 
of  continents  do  we  find  the  climatic  condi- 
tions necessary  to  produce  salt  lakes. 

"  I  have  shown  the  conditions  necessary 
to  the  formation  of  a  salt  lake  by  concentra- 
tion of  river  water.  Now,  the  very  same 
conditions  control  the  existence  of  salt  lakes, 
however  they  may  have  originated.  Even 
in  the  case  of  a  salt  lake  formed  by  the  isola- 
tion of  a  portion  of  sea  water,  whether  it  re- 
main salt  or  become  fresh  will  depend  wholly 
on  the  conditions  discussed  abore.  Suppose, 
for  example,  a  portion  of  sea  water  be  iso- 
lated by  an  upheaval  of  the  sea-bed ;  now, 
if  the  supply  of  water  to  this  lake  by  rivers 
be  greater  than  the  waste  by  evaporation 
from  the  surface,  the  lake. will  rise,  overflow, 
and  discharge  into  the  sea  or  other  reservoir, 
the  salt  water  will  be  slowly  rinsed  out,  and 
the  lake  will  become  fresh.  But  if  the  evap- 
oration should  equal  the  supply,  the  lake 
will  not  find  an  outlet,  and  will  remain  salt, 
and  will  even  increase  in  saltness,  until  it 
begins  to  deposit. 

"  Thus,  if  the  Bay  of  San  Francisco  should 
be  cut  off  from  the  sea  at  the  Golden  Gate, 
it  would  form  a  fresh  lake,  for  the  water  run- 
ning into  it  by  the  Sacramento  River  is  far 
greater  than  the  evaporation  from  the  bay. 
So  the  Black  Sea  and  the  Baltic  Sea,  as  shown 
by  the  comparative  freshness  of  their  waters, 
would  form  fresh  lakes.  But  the  Mediterra- 
nean, as  shown  by  the  great  saltness  of  its 
waters,  would  certainly  remain  salt,  and  be- 
come increasingly  salt.  We  have  the  best 
reasons  to  believe  that  Lake  Champlain, 
since  the  glacial  epoch,  was  an  arm  of  the 
sea.  It  has  become  fresh  since  it  became 
separated. 

"Thus  we  see  that  the  one  condition 
which  determines  the  existence  of  salt  and 
alkaline  lakes  is  the  absence  of  an  outlet. 
Now  the  ocean,  of  course,  has  no  outlet ;  the 
ocean  is  the  final  reservoir  of  saline  matters 
leached  from  the  earth.  Hence,  although 
the  saltness  of  the  ocean  is  a  somewhat  dif- 


623 


Rough  Notes  of  a  Yosemite   Camping  Trip. 


[Dec. 


ferent  problem  from  that  of  salt  lakes,  yet 
it  is  almost  certain  that  the  saline  matters 
of  the  ocean  are  the  accumulated  results  of 
the  leachings  of  the  rocks  and  soils  by  circu- 
lating waters  throughoutali  geological  times." 

DURING  my  travels  through  the  Sierras,  I 
have  made  many  observations  on  rocks  and 
mountains.  One  or  two  of  these  I  think 
worthy  of  mention. 

•First,  I  have  seen  everywhere  the  strong- 
est confirmation  of  the  view  that  granite 
is  often  but  the  final  term  of  metamor- 
phism  of  sedimentary  rocks.  In  Yosem- 
ite I  could  trace  every  stage  of  gradation 
from  granite  to  gneiss,  and  since  leaving  Yo- 
semite from  gneiss  into  impure  sandstone. 
On  Mount  Dana,  sandstones  are  easily  traced 
into  gneiss,  or  even  eurite,  and  slate  into  a 
crystalline  rock,  undistinguishable  'from  di- 
orite  or  other  traps. 

Second :  No  one  who  examines  the  forms 
of  the  peaks  of  the  Sierras  can  come  to  any 
other  conclusion  than  that  all  the  mountain 
forms  seen  here  are  the  result  of  denudation. 
Standing  at  Soda  Springs,  and  gazing  upon 
the  strange  forms  of  Cathedral  Group,  the 
conviction  is  forced  upon  the  mind  that  these 
were  not  upheaved,  but  simply  left  as  more 
resisting  fragments  of  an  almost  inconceiva- 
ble erosion — fragments  of  a  denuded  plateau. 
The  strange  ruggedness  of  the  forms,  the  in- 
accessible peaks  and  pinnacles,  have  been 
the  result  of  the  very  decomposable  nature 
of  the  granite.  Mount  Dana,  with  its  more 
regular  form,  consists  of  more  resistant  slates. 
The  evidence  that  Mount  Dana  has  been 
formed  entirely  by  denudation  is,  I  conceive, 
complete.  As  already  stated,  Mount  Dana 
is  composed  of  undisturbed  horizontal  strata. 
The  grand  bulge  of  a  great  mountain  chain  is 
probably  produced  by  the  shrinkage  of  the 
earth;  the  foldings  and  tiltings  of  strata  in 
mountain  chains  by  the  same  cause ;  but  the 
actual  forms  which  constitute  scenery  are 
purely  the  result  of  aqueous  erosion.  Meta- 
morphism  is,  I  believe,  always  produced  in 
deeply  buried  rocks  by  heat,  water,  and  pres- 
sure. The  universal  metamorphism  of  the 
rocks  in  the  Sierras  is,  therefore,  additional 


evidence  of  the  immensity  of  the  erosion 
which  brings  these  to  the  surface. 

Since  leaving  Yosemite,  we  have  seen  no 
houses  ;  in  fact,  no  human  beings  but  a  few 
shepherds.  As  the  flock  requires  to  be  driv- 
en from  one  pasture  to  another,  these  men 
live  only  in  hastily  constructed  sheds,  covered 
with  boughs.  In  this  shepherd's  life,  there 
may  be  something  pleasant  when  viewed 
through  the  imagination  only  ;  but,  in  reality, 
it  is  enough  to  produce  either  imbecility  or 
insanity.  The  pleasant  pictures  drawn  by 
the  poets  of  contemplative  wisdom  and  harm- 
less enjoyment,  of  affectionate  care  of  the 
flock,  of  pensive  music  of  pipes,  these  pos- 
sibly, probably,  once  did  exist;  but  certainly 
they  do  not  exist  now,  at  least  in  California. 

August  ij. — Considerable  frost  this  morn- 
ing, for  we  are  in  the  midst  of  the  snows. 
Over  Mono  Pass,  and  down  Bloody  Canon 
today.  I  really  dread  it  for  my  horse's 
sake.  Even  well-shod  horses  get  their  feet 
and  legs  cut  and  bleeding  in  going  down  this 
canon. 

The  trail  to  the  summit  is  a  very  gentle 
ascent,  the  whole  way  along  the  margin  of  a 
stream.  Distance,  three  or  four  miles.  On 
the  very  summit,  ten  thousand  seven  hun- 
dred feet  high,  there  is  a  marshy  meadow, 
from  which  a  stream  runs  each  way  :  one 
east,  into  the  Tuolumne,  along  which  we  had 
ascended ;  the  other  west,  down  Bloody 
Canon  into  Mono  Lake,  along  which  we  ex- 
pect to  descend.  Right  on  the  summit,  and 
in  Bloody  Canon-,  we  found  great  masses  of 
snow.  The  trail  passes  by  their  edges  and 
over  their  surfaces.  The  trail  down  Bloody 
Canon  is  rough  and  precipitous  beyond  con- 
ception. It  is  the  terror  of  all  drovers  and 
packers  across  the  mountains.  It  descends 
four  thousand  feet  in  two  or  three  miles,  and 
is  a  mere  mass  of  loose  fragments  of  sharp 
slate.  Our  horses'  legs  were  all  cut  and 
bleeding  before  we  got  down.  We  all  dis- 
mounted, and  led  them  down  with  the  great- 
est care.  In  going  down  we  met  a  large 
party  of  Indians — some  on  horseback  and 
some  on  foot — coming  up.  We  saluted  them. 
In  return,  they  invariably  whined,  "  Gie  me 
towaca,"  "  Gie  me  towaca."  They  were  evi- 


1885.] 


Rough  Notes  of  a  Yosemite  Camping  Trip. 


629 


dently  incredulous  when  told  that  none  of 
the  party  chewed. 

The  scenery  of  Bloody  Canon  is  really  mag- 
nificent, and  from  a  scientific  point  of  view, 
this  is  the  most  interesting  locality  I  have 
yet  seen.  Conceive  a  narrow,  winding  gorge, 
with  black,  slaty  precipices  of  every  conceiv- 
able form,  one  thousand  five  hundred  to  two 
thousand  feet  high  on  either  side.  As  the 
gorge  descends  precipitously,  and  winds  from 
side  to  side,  we  often  look  from  above  down 
into  the  most  glorious  amphitheatre  of  cliffs, 
and  from  time  to  time  beyond,  upon  the  glit- 
tering surface  of  Lake  Mono,  and  the  bound- 
less plains,  studded  with  volcanic  cones. 
About  one-third  of  the  way  down,  in  the  cen- 
ter of  the  grandest  of  these  amphitheaters, 
see  !  a  deep,  splendidly  clear,  emerald  green 
lake,  three  or  four  times  the  size  of  Mirror 
Lake.  It  looks  like  an  artificial  basin,  for  its 
shores  are  everywhere  hard,  smooth,  polished 
rock  ;  especially,  the  rim  at  the  lower  side  is 
highly  polished  and  finely  striated.  There 
can  be  no  doubt  that  this  lake  basin  has  been 
scooped  out  by  a  glacier,  which  once  de- 
scended this  canon.  In  fact,  glacial  action 
is  seen  on  every  side  around  this  lake,  and 
all  the  way  down  the  canon,  and  far  into  the 
plains  below.  The  cliffs  on  each  side  are 
scored  and  polished  to  the  height  of  one 
thousand  feet  or  more ;  projecting  knobs  in 
the  bottom  of  the  canon  are  rounded,  and 
scored,  and  polished  in  a  similar  manner. 

After  we  had  descended  the  steep  slope, 
and  had  fairly  escaped  from  the  high,  rocky 
walls  of  Bloody  Canon  proper ;  after  we  had 
reached  the  level  plain  and  had  prepared 
ourselves  for  an  extensive  view,  we  found 
ourselves  still  confined  between  two  huge, 
parallel  ridges  of  debris,  five  hundred  feet 
high,  and  only  one-half  a  mile  apart,  and  ex- 
tending five  or  six  miles  out  on  the  plain. 
These  are  the  lateral  moraines  of  a  glacier, 
which  once  descended  far  into  the  plain 
toward  Mono  Lake.  A  little  below  the  be- 
ginning of  these  moraines,  in  descending,  we 
found  a  large  and  beautiful  lake,  filling  the 
whole  canon.  Below  this  lake,  the  lateral 
moraines  on  either  side  send  each  a  branch, 
which  meet  each  other,  forming  a  crescentic 


cross-ridge,  through  which  the  stream  breaks. 
This  is  evidently  a  terminal  moraine,  and 
the  lake  has  been  formed  by  the  damming 
up  of  the  water  of  the  stream  by  this  moraine 
barrier. 

Below  this,  or  still  farther  on  the  plain,  I 
observed  several  other  terminal  moraines, 
formed  in  a  similar  way,  by  curving  branches 
from  the  lateral  moraines.  Behind  these  are 
no  lakes,  but  only  marshes  and  meadows. 
These  meadows  are  evidently  formed  in.  the 
same  way  as  the  lake;  in  fact,  may  be  lakes, 
subsequently  filled  up  by  deposit. 

After  getting  away  from  these  lateral 
moraines  fairly  out  on  the  plains,  the  most 
conspicuous  objects  that  strike  the  eye  are  the 
extinct  volcanoes.  There  are,  I  should  think, 
at  least  twenty  of  them,  with  cones  and  cra- 
ters as  perfect  as  if  they  erupted  yesterday. 
Even  at  this  distance  I  see  that  their  snow- 
white,  bare  sides  are  composed  of  loose  vol- 
canic ashes  and  sand,  above  which  project 
distinct  rocky  crater-rims,  some  of  dark 
rock,  but  most  of  them  of  light-colored, 
probably  pumice-rock.  Magnificent  views  of 
these  cones  and  of  Mono  Lake  are  gotten 
from  time  to  time  while  descending  Bloody 
Canon.  The  cones  are  of  all  heights,  from 
two  hundred  to  two  thousand  seven  hundred 
feet  above  the  plain,  and  the  plain  itself 
about  five  thousand  feet  above  sea-level. 

We  camped  in  a  fine  meadow  on  the 
banks  of  a  beautiful  stream — Rush  Creek. 
In  riding  down  to  our  camp  I  observed 
the  terraces  of  Lake  Mono,  former  water- 
levels,  very  distinctly  marked,  four  or  five  in 
number.  The  whole  region  about  Lake 
Mono  on  this  side  is  covered  with  volcanic 
ashes  and  sand.  It  is  the  only  soil  except 
in  the  meadows.  Even  these  seem  to  have 
the  same  soil,  only  more  damp,  and  there- 
fore more  fertile.  Scattered  about,  larger 
masses  of  pumice  and  obsidian  are  visible. 
Except  in  the  meadows  and  along  streams, 
the  only  growth  is  the  sage-bush.  Just  be- 
fore reaching  camp,  Mr.  Muir  and  I  exam- 
ined a  fine  section,  made  by  Rush  Creek,  of 
lake  and  river  deposit,  beautifully  stratified. 
It  consists  below  of  volcanic  ashes,  carried 
as  sediment  and  deposited  in  the  lake,  and 


630 


JRough  Notes  of  a  Yosemite   Camping   Trip. 


[Dec. 


is  therefore  a  true  lake  deposit.  Above  this 
is  a  drift  pebble  deposit,  the  pebbles  con- 
sisting of  granite  and  slate  from  the  Sierras. 
Above  this  again  are  volcanic  ashes  and 
sand,  unstratified,  probably  blown  ashes  and 
sand,  or  else  ejected  since  the  drift.  We 
have  here,  therefore,  certain  evidence  of  erup- 
tions before  the  drift,  and  possibly  also 
after. 

In  the  picture  of  the  view  from  Mono 
Lake,  I  have  yet  said  nothing  about  the 
Sierras.  The  general  view  of  these  moun- 
tains from  this,  the  Mono  side,  is  far  finer 
than  from  the  other  side.  The  Sierras  rise 
gradually  on  the  western  side  for  fifty  or 
sixty  miles.  On  the  Mono,  or  eastern  side, 
they  are  precipitous,  the  very  summit  of  the 
range  running  close  to  the  valley.  From 
this  side,  therefore,  the  mountains  present  a 
sheer  elevation  of  six  thousand  to  seven  thou- 
sand feet  above  the  plain.  The  sunset  view 
of  the  Sierras,  from  an  eminence  near  our 
camp,  this  evening,  was,  it  seems  to  me,  by 
far  the  finest  mountain  view  I  have  ever  in 
my  life  seen.  The  immense  height  of  the 
chain  above  the  plain,  the  abruptness  of  the 
declivity,  the  infinitely  diversified  forms,  and 
the  wonderful  sharpness  and  ruggedness  of 
the  peaks,  such  as  I  have  seen  nowhere  but 
in  the  Sierras,  and  all  this  strongly  relieved 
against  the  brilliant  sunset  sky,  formed  a  pic- 
ture of  indescribable  grandeur.  As  I  turn 
around  in  the  opposite  direction,  the  regular 
forms  of  the  volcanoes,  the  placid  surface  of 
Lake  Mono  with  its  picturesque  islands,  and 
far  away  in  the  distance  the  scarcely  visible 
outlines  of  the  White  Mountains,  pass  in 
succession  before  the  eye.  I  enjoyed  this 
magnificent  panoramic  view  until  it  faded 
away  in  the  darkness. 

After  supper  I  again  went  out  to  enjoy  the 
scene  by  night.  As  I  gazed  upon  the  ab- 
rupt slope  of  the  Sierras,  rising  like  a  wall 
before  me,  I  tried  to  picture  to  myself  the 
condition  of  things  during  the  glacial  epoch. 
The  long,  western  slope  of  the  Sierras  is 
now  occupied  by  long,  complicated  valleys, 
broad  and  full  of  meadows,  while  the  eastern 
slope  is  deeply  graven  with  short,  narrow, 
steep  ravines.  During  glacial  times,  there- 


fore, it  is  evident  that  the  western  slope 
was  occupied  by  long,  complicated  glaciers, 
with  comparatively  sluggish  current ;  while 
on  the  east,  short,  parallel  ice-streams  ran 
down  the  steep  slope,  and  far  out  on  the  level 
plain.  On  each  side  of  these  protruded, 
icy  tongues,  the  debris  brought  down  from 
the  rocky  ravines  was  dropped  as  parallel 
moraines.  Down  the  track  of  one  of  these 
glaciers,  and  between  the  outstretched  mor- 
aine arms,  our  path  lay  this  morning. 

August  14 — Sunday. — I  have  not  before 
suffered  so  much  from  cold  as  last  night; 
yet  yesterday  the  sun  was  very  hot.  No 
grand  forest  to  protect  us  from  wind  and  fur- 
nish us  with  logs  for  camp-fire ;  only  sage- 
brush on  the  plains,  and  small  willows  on 
the  stream  banks.  The  winds  blow  furiously 
from  the  Sierras  down  the  canons,  upon  the 
plains.  After  breakfast,  went  to  visit  the 
volcanic  cones  in  the  vicinity.  The  one  we 
visited  was  one  of  the  most  perfect  and  at  the 
same  time  one  of  the  most  accessible.  It 
was  not  more  than  one  hundred  and  fifty  or 
two  hundred  feet  above  the  level  of  the  sandy 
plain  on  which  it  stands. 

I  was  very  greatly  interested  in  this  vol- 
cano. It  seems  to  me  that  its  structure 
clearly  reveals  some  points  of  its  history. 
It  consists  of  two  very  perfect  cones  and 
craters,  one  within  the  other.  The  outer 
cone,  which  rises  directly  from  the  level 
plain  to  a  height  of  two  hundred  feet,  is 
composed  wholly  of  volcanic  sand,  and  is 
about  one  mile  in  diameter.  From  the  bot- 
tom and  center  of  its  crater  rises  another 
and  much  smaller  cone  of  lava  to  a  little 
greater  height.  We  rode  up  the  outer  sand 
cone,  then  around  on  the  rim  of  its  crater, 
then  down  its  inner  slope  to  the  bottom  ; 
tied  our  horses  to  sage-brush  at  the  base  of 
the  inner  lava-cone,  and  scrambled  on  foot . 
into  its  crater.  As  one  stands  on  the  rim  of 
this  inner  crater,  the  outer  rises  like  a  ram- 
part on  every  side. 

I  believe  we  have  here  a  beautiful  example 
of  cone-and-rampart  structure,  so  common 
in  volcanoes  elsewhere  ;  the  rampart  or  out- 
er cone,  being  the  result  of  an  older  and 
much  greater  eruption,  within  the  wide,  yawn- 


1885.] 


jKough  Notes  of  a  Yosemite  Camping  Trip. 


631 


ing  crater,  of  which,  by  subsequent  lesser 
eruption,  the  lesser  cone  was  built.1 

Mr.  Muir  is  disposed  to  explain  it  differ- 
ently. He  thinks  that  this  was  once  a  much 
higher  single  cone,  lava  at  top  and  sand  on 
the  slopes,  like  most  of  the  larger  cones  in 
this  vicinity  ;  and  that  after  its  last  eruption, 
it  Buffered  engitlfment ;  i.  e.,  its  upper,  rocky 
portion  has  dropped  down  into  its  lower, 
sandy  portion. 

The  lava  of  this  volcano  is  mostly  pumice 
and  obsidian,  sometimes  approaching  tra- 
chyte. It  is  of  all  shades  of  color  from  black 
to  white,  sometimes  beautifully  veined,  like 
slags  of  an  iron  furnace  ;  and  of  all  physical 
conditions,  sometimes  vesicular,  sometimes 
glassy,sometimes  stony.  Wrinkled  fusion  sur- 
faces were  also  abundant.  Again  :  I  believe  I 
can  fix  the  date  of  the  last  eruption  of  this 
volcano.  I  found  on  the  outer,  or  ash  cone, 
several  unmistakable  drift  pebbles  of  granite. 
At  first,  I  thought  that  they  might  be  the  re- 
sult of  accidental  deposits.  But  I  found, 
also,  several  within  the  lava  crater.  These 
were  reddened  and  semi-fused  by  heat. 
There  can  be  no  doubt,  therefore,  that  the 
last  eruption  of  this  volcano  was  since  the 
drift;  it  broke  through  a  layer  of  drift  depos- 
it and  threw  out  the  drift  pebbles.  Some 
fell  back  into  the  crater. 

Mr.  Muir  took  leave  of  us  within  the  crater 
of  this  volcano.  He  goes  today  to  visit 
some  of  the  loftier  cones.  I  was  really  sorry 
to  lose  Mr.  Muir  from  our  party.  I  have 
formed  a  very  high  opinion  of  and  even  a 
strong  attachment  for  him.  He  promises  to 
write  me  if  he  observes  any  additional  facts 
of  importance. 

Several  Indians  visited  us  while  at  dinner. 
This  is  a  favorite  time  for  such  visits.  They 
know  they  will  get  something  to  eat.  Two 
younger  Indians  were  full  of  life  and  good 
nature,  but  one  old  wrinkled  fellow  was  very 
reticent,  and  stood  much  upon  his  dignity. 
We  put  up  some  bread,  and  the  younger 
ones  shot  for  it,  but  the  old  Indian  would 
take  no  notice  of  it,  and  even  seemed  to 
treat  the  idea  with  contempt.  He  evidently 

1  I  have  more  recently  (1875)  again  visited  this  region. 
My  observations  on  several  of  the  volcanoes  confirm 
my  first  impressions. 


belongs  to  the  Old  Regime.  He  remembers 
the  time  when  the  noble  red  man  had  undis- 
puted possession  of  this  part  of  the  country. 

About  two  P.  M.,  we  started  for  Alliton's, 
a  small  house  on  the  west  side  of  the  lake, 
and  about  twelve  miles  distant.  The  trail 
runs  close  along  the  margin  of  the  lake, 
sometimes  in  the  very  water,  sometimes  rising 
on  the  slopes  of  the  steep  mountains,  which 
come  down  to  the  very  water's  edge.  From 
the  sides  of  these  mountains,  the  view  of  the 
lake  and  mountains  was  very  fine.  The  vol- 
canic character  of  the  islands  in  the  lake  was 
very  evident,  and  their  craters  were  quite 
distinct.  It  is  said  that  evidences  of  feeble 
volcanic  activity  still  exist  in  the  form  of 
steam  jets,  hot  springs,  etc. 

On  my  way  along  the  shores  of  the  lake,  I 
observed  thousands  of  birds — blackbirds, 
gulls,  ducks,  magpies,  stilts,  and  sandpipers. 
The  sandpipers  I  never  saw  alight  on  the 
shore,  but  only  on  the  water.  They  swam, 
rose  in  flocks,  settled  on  the  water,  exactly 
like  true  ducks.  Will  not  these  in  time  under- 
go a  Darwinian  change  into  web-footers? 
These  birds  seem  to  collect  in  such  numbers 
to  feed  upon  the  swarms  of  flies  that  frequent 
the  shores.  The  numbers  of  these  are  in- 
credible. I  saw  them  in  piles  three  or  four 
inches  thick  on  the  water,  and  in  equal  piles 
thrown  up  dead  on  the  shore.  The  air  stank 
with  them.  These  flies  come  here  to  spawn. 
Their  innumerable  larva;  form,  I  understand, 
the  principal  food  of  the  Indians  during  a 
portion  of  the  year.2  All  about  the  margin 
of  the  lake,  and  standing  in  the  water  near 
the  shore,  I  observed  irregular  masses  of 
rough,  porous  limestone,  evidently  deposited 
from  the  water  of  the  lake,  or  else  from  old 
limestone  springs. 

Soon  after  camping,  we  went  in  swimming 
in  the  lake.  The  water  is  very  buoyant,  but 
the  bathing  is  not  pleasant.  The  shores  are 
flat  and  muddy,  and  swarm  with  flies.  These 
do  not  trouble  one,  but  their  appearance  is 
repulsive.  The  water  contains  large  quanti- 

2  I  have  since  (1875)  observed  the  gathering  of  the  lar- 
vae, or  rather  pupae,  of  these  flies.  About  the  first  of  Ju- 
ly, the  pupae  are  cast  ashore  in  immense  quantities.  They 
are  then  gathered,  dried,  rubbed  to  break  off  the  shell, 
and  kept  for  use,  under  the  name  of  Koo-cha-bee. 


632 


Rough  Notes  of  a  Yosemite  Camping  Trip. 


[Dec. 


ties  of  carbonate  of  soda,  a  little  carbonate 
of  lime,  and  probably  some  borax.  It  is 
therefore  very  cleansing,  but  makes  the  skin 
feel  slimy,  and  lathers  the  head  and  beard 
like  soap.  The  presence  of  volcanic  rocks 
and  volcanic  sand,  all  around,  and  also  of 
soda  granite,  in  the  Sierras,  sufficiently  ex- 
plains why  this  lake  is  alkaline,  instead  of 
salt. 

We  bought  here  a  little  butter,  cheese,  and 
corned  beef.  We  have  gotten  out  of  the  re- 
gion of  mutton.  With  the  exception  of 
patches  of  rich  meadow,  formed  by  the 
streams  from  the  Sierras,  everywhere  is  sage, 
sage,  sage.  The  water,  however,  is  delicious. 
The  streams  are  formed  by  the  melting  snows 
of  the  Sierras,  and  these  are  so  near  by  that 
the  water  is  very  abundant  and  ice-cold. 
Close  by  our  camp  there  issues  from  a  large, 
rough,  limestone  rock,  a  magnificent  spring 
of  ice-cold  water,  which  runs  off  as  a  large 
brook. 

Most  of  our  party  concluded  to  sleep  here 
in  a  hay-loft.  Hawkins  and  I  preferred  a 
hay-cock.  We  put  our  blankets  together, 
and  had  a  deliciously  soft,  warm,  and  fra- 
grant bed,  under  the  star-lit  sky. 

I  desired  very  much  to  visit  the  islands 
from  this  point,  but  there  was  no  boat. 
These  islands,  I  understand,  are  the  resort 
of  millions  of  gulls,  which  deposit  their  eggs 
there  in  immense  quantities.  These  eggs 
are  an  important  article  of  food  and  of 
traffic  for  the  Indians.  Mono  Lake  is 
about  fifteen  miles  long,  and  twelve  miles 
across. 

August  15. — Soon  after  leaving  our  camp, 
this  morning,  we  passed  a  rude  Indian  vil- 
lage, consisting  of  a  few  huts.  The  Indian 
huts  in  this  vicinity  are  nothing  but  a  few 
poles,  set  up  together  in  a  conical  form,  and 
covered  with  boughs.  We  bought  from  these 
Indians  several  quarts  of  pine  nuts  (nuts  of 
the  Pinus  monophylla.}  They  are  about  the 
size  and  nearly  the  shape  of  ground- pea  ker- 
nels. We  found  them  very  sweet  and  nice. 
On  leaving  Mono,  we  struck  out  nearly  north- 
west. We  were  therefore  soon  among  the 
foothills|of  the  Sierras  again,  and  consequent- 
ly in  the'mining  regions.  Saw  many  evi- 


dences of  superficial  mining.  The  debris  of 
these  washings  by  the  whites  are  washed 
over  by  the  Chinese.  Passed  quite  a  village 
of  Chinese  engaged  in  this  way.  The  di- 
minutive mud  huts  were  strung  along  a  little 
stream — Virginia  Creek — in  the  bottom  of 
a  ravine,  for  a  considerable  distance.  The 
whites  call  this  Dog  Town.  I  observed  ev^n 
here  almost  every  hut  had  its  little  irrigated 
garden  patch  attached  to  it. 

After  making  about  twelve  miles  this 
morning,  we  camped  for  noon  at  Big  Mead- 
ows. This  is  a  beautiful  grassy  plain,  six  or 
seven  miles  long,  and  three  or  four  miles 
wide,  on  which  graze  hundreds  of  cattle  and 
horses.  The  view  from  this  meadow  is  su- 
perb. Now,  as  I  sit  here  at  our  noon  camp, 
I  am  surrounded  on  every  side  by  mountains. 
Behind  me,  to  the  east,  are  the  foothills  we 
have  just  crossed;  in  front  stretches  the 
green  meadow,  and  beyond  rise  the  lofty 
Sierras.  The  nearer  mountains  are  immense, 
somewhat  regular  masses,  smooth  and  green 
to  the  very  summits,  except  where  covered 
with  patches  of  snow.  Behind  these,  and 
seen  through  gaps,  is  the  most  magnificent 
group  of  singularly  sharp  and  jagged  peaks, 
tinged  with  blue  by  their  distance,  with  great 
masses  of  snow  in  the  deepest  hollows  on 
their  precipitous  faces.  The  appearance  of 
these  great  amphitheaters,  with  precipitous 
walls,  suggested  at  once  that  these  were  the 
wombs  from  which  once  issued  great  gla- 
ciers. 

We  are  in  want  of  supplies.  Some  of 
the  party  are  sadly  in  want  of  shoes.  So 
also  are  some  of  the  horses.  While  three  of 
the  young  men  go  to  Bridgeport — a  small 
town  on  Big  Meadows,  and  but  a  little  out 
of  the  way — the  rest  of  the  party  went  on, 
intending  to  make  camp  before  the  foragers 
arrived. 

Started  about  four  p.  M.,  intending  to  go 
about  seven  miles,  and  then  camp  in  a  canon 
which  we  see  emerging  into  Big  Meadows 
on  the  northwest — "Tamarack  Canon."  As 
the  sun  went  down  behind  the  Sierras,  the 
view  became  more  and  more  splendid,  and 
the  coolness  of  the  evening  air  increased  our 
enjoyment  of  it.  The  delight  of  that  even- 


1885.] 


Rough  Notes  of  a  Yosemite  Camping  Trip. 


633 


ing  ride,  and  the  glory  of  that  mountain  view, 
I  shall  never  forget. 

About  6.30,  found  a  place  in  the  canon 
where  the  grazing  was  very  fine,  and  water 
abundant,  the  grass  and  clover  fresh,  tall,  and 
juicy,  and  a  little  stream  gurgling  close  by. 
Here  we  camped,  turned  our  horses  loose 
to  graze,  with  lariats  trailing,  intending  to 
stake  them  securely  before  going  to  bed.  In 
the  meantime,  it  became  very  dark,  and 
our  companions  not  yet  arrived.  When  at 
last  they  did  come,  which  was  about  nine  P. 
M.,  they  came  shouting  and  yelling,  and  hur- 
rahing at  the  sight  of  the  blazing  fire.  The 
noise  stampeded  our  horses,  and  they  ran 
affrighted  and  snorting  up  the  steep  sides  of 
the  canon,  over  the  mountains,  and  away 
into  the  impenetrable  darkness  of  night. 
We  could  trace  them  only  by  their  shrill 
snorting,  and  now  and  then  by  the  flitting 
form  of  my  old  gray.  After  some  fruitless 
attempts  to  recover  them,  which  only  in- 
creased their  fright,  the  night  being  very 
dark,  and  the  mountains  very  rough,  we  con- 
cluded to  give  it  up  till  morning. 

We  have  been  today  on  the  first  road  we 
have  seen  since  we  left  Clark's. 

August  16. — At  daybreak  two  of  the  party 
went  after  the  horses.  By  the  time  breakfast 
was  ready  they  returned  with  them.  They 
had  tracked  them  over  the  mountains  back 
to  Big  Meadows,  where  they  found  them 
quietly  feasting.  We  started  off  about  eight 
A.  M.,  and  for  eight  or  ten  miles  more  trav- 
eled on  the  Sonora  road,  along  the  same 
narrow  canon  in  which  we  had  camped. 
This  canon  is  not  more  than  one  hundred 
yards  wide,  flanked  on  each  side  by  very 
steep  hills  and  precipices,  yet  the  bottom  is 
quite  level  and  the  road  good.  Passed  im- 
mense masses  of  trap — ancient  lava  flows ; 
in  some  places  finely  columnar;  mostly  por- 
phyritic  lava  and  amygdaloid. 

About  ten  miles  from  our  camp  we  reached 
Warm  Springs.  These  are  very  fine  and 
large  springs.  A  considerable  brook  runs 
directly  from  the  principal  spring.  There 
are,  moreover,  several  springs,  having  differ- 
ent properties.  The  waters  seem  to  be  vio- 
lently boiling,  but  this  is  the  result  of  escap- 


ing carbonic  acid,  rather  than  steam.  The 
temperature  of  the  water  seems  to  be  about 
150°  to  160°.  We  have  here  still  another 
evidence  of  the  decay  of  the  mines  in  this 
region.  This  was  once  a  flourishing  water- 
ing place,  or  at  least  expected  to  become  so, 
but  it  is  now  entirely  abandoned.  Several 
parties  are  now  stopping  here  to  make  use 
of  the  baths,  and  to  hunt  and  fish  in  the  vi- 
cinity. They  bring,  of  course,  their  own 
provisions.  Sage  hens  are  very  abundant 
in  the  brush,  and  trout  in  the  streams,  in 
this  region.  I  observe  limestone  now  depos- 
iting from  these  carbonated  springs ;  also, 
near  by,  immense  rough  masses  of  the  same, 
which  have  been  similarly  deposited  at  some 
previous  epoch.  The  immense  lava  streams 
in  this  immediate  vicinity,  in  fact,  all  around, 
sufficiently  account  for  the  heat  of  the 
springs. 

After  examining  the  springs,  we  rode  on, 
leaving  the  Sonora  road,  and  taking  a  trail 
for  Antelope  Valley.  We  reached  a  ridge 
overlooking  Antelope  Valley  about  sunset. 
Before  us  the  valley  lay  spread  out  at  our 
feet  (but  ah,  how  far  below  us  we  found  to 
our  cost  that  night),  behind  us  the  magnifi- 
cent Sierras,  and  the  sun  setting  behind 
them.  We  stopped,  and  gazed  first  at  one, 
and  then  at  the  other. 

"Antelope  Valley  is  but  a  step;  what  is 
the  use  of  hurrying  ?  " 

"  Nevertheless,  we  had  better  go  on  ;  re- 
member Laddsville  and  Chowchilla  Moun- 
tain." 

On  we  rode ;  presently  a  canon,  right 
across  the  way — and  such  a  canon  ! 

"  Surely,  it  is  impossible  to  cross  that!" 

A  thousand  feet  deep,  and  less  than  one 
thousand  feet  wide  at  the  top,  and  the  sides 
seemingly  perpendicular.  But  across  it  we 
must  go.  Already  we  see  the  advanced 
guard  near  the  top,  on  the  other  side.  We 
speak  to  them  across  the  yawning  chasm. 

The  trail  wound  backward  and  forward, 
down  one  side,  across  the  foaming  stream, 
and  then  backward  and  forward  up  the  other 
side ;  we  followed  the  trail,  though  it  led  us 
on  the  dizzy  edge  of  fearful  precipices.  We 
have  become  accustomed  to  this  sort  of 


634 


Rough  Notes  of  a  Yosemite  Camping  Trip. 


[Dec. 


thing,  and  so  have  our  horses.  Onward  we 
pushed,  next  across  an  inextricable  tangle  of 
sagebrush  and  trap  boulders;  then  down 
another  canon,  and  across  another  ridge, 
then  down,  down,  down,  then  over  another 
ridge,  and  then  darkness  overtook  us.  Then 
down,  down,  down.  We  lost  the  trail;  scat- 
tered about  to  find  it.  "Here  it  is!"  found 
again;  lost  again;  scatter;  found  again  ;  and 
so  on  ;  but  always  still  down,  down,  down. 

At  last  we  reached  the  plain,  after  descend- 
ing at  least  four  thousand  feet.  In  the  val- 
ley at  last!  but  alas,  no  meadow;  nothing 
but  sage,  sage,  sage.  Very  dark  —  neither 
moon  nor  stars.  Onward  we  push,  guided 
only  by  lights  we  see  in  the  valley.  "  Hello ! 
where  are  you  ? "  we  hear  from  behind. 
"  Here  we  are !  come  on,"  we  answer.  We 
stop  awhile  until  laggers  come  up.  Onward 
again  we  urge  our  tired  horses,  winding 
through  the  sagebrush.  Onward,  still  on- 
ward, straining  our  eyes  to  peer  through  the 
thick  darkness.  Onward,  still  onward,  five 
long  miles  through  the  interminable  sage 
desert,  without  trail,  and  guided  only  by  the 
lights.  One  by  one  the  lights  disappear. 

"  What  shall  we  do  ?  " 

"  Can't  stop  here ;  push  on." 

At  last  we  reached  some  Indian  huts. 
"  How  far  to  white  man's  house  ?" 

"  Leetle  ways." 

"  How  many  miles  ?  " 

"  No  sabe." 

"  One  mile  ?  two  miles  ?  half  mile  ?  " 

"  No  sabe." 

Onward,  still  onward.  In  despair  we  stop- 
ped to  consult.  At  the  Indian  huts  we  had 
struck  a  road,  but  it  was  leading  us  away 
from  the  direction  in  which  we  had  seen  the 
lights.  We  again  struck  into  the  pathless 
sage.  Hawkins  is  reconnoitering  a  little  in 
advance.  "  Here  we  are,"  we  heard  him 
cry.  "  Whoop  !  a  barley  field  ! "  It  was 
without  a  fence.  We  determined  to  ride  in, 
unsaddle,  make  our  camp,  allow  our  horses 
to  eat  their  fill  of  standing  barley,  and  make 
it  good  by  paying  in  the  morning.  It  was 
ten  p.  M.  Some  of  the  party  were  so  tired 
and  sleepy  that  they  preferred  to  go  to  bed 
supperless,  and  therefore  immediately  threw 


themselves  on  the  ground  and  went  to  sleep. 
Five  of  us,  however,  determined  to  build  a 
fire  and  cook  supper.  Ah,  what  a  glorious 
fire  sagebrush  makes !  Ah  what  a  splendid 
supper  we  cooked  that  night!  Ah,  how  we 
laughed  in  our  sleeves  at  the  mistake  that 
the  sleepers  had  made !  Comforted  and  hap- 
py, and  gazing  complacently  yet  compassion- 
ately on  the  prostrate  forms  of  our  compan- 
ions, moaning  in  their  sleep  with  the  pangs 
of  hunger,  we  went  to  bed  at  11.30?.  M.,  and 
slept  sweetly  the  sleep  of  the  innocent.  If 
we  are  trespassing,  it  is  time  enough  to  think 
of  that  in  the  morning. 

August  17. — This  valley  can't  be  more 
than  three  thousand  to  four  thousand  feet 
high  :  last  night  was  the  warmest  we  have 
felt  since  we  left  Yosemite.  I  was  sitting  on 
my  blankets,  putting  on  my  shoes,  and  think- 
ing repentantly  of  our  trespass.  The  sun 
was  just  rising.  Yonder  comes  swift  retribu- 
tion in  the  shape  of  a  tall,  rough-looking 
mountaineer,  with  rifle  on  shoulder  and  pis- 
tol in  belt,  galloping  straight  towards  us. 
As  he  comes  nearer,  he  looks  pale,  and  his 
lips  are  tightly  compressed.  He  stops  be- 
fore me  suddenly. 

"  You  seem  to  have  had  a  good  thing  here 
last  night." 

"Why,  yes,  rather — but  we  intend,  of 
course,  to  pay  for  it." 

"  I  am  glad  to  hear  it." 

He  was  evidently  greatly  provoked  by  our 
trespass,  but  after  we  had  explained  the  cir- 
cumstances, and  had  paid  him  four  dollars, 
he  seemed  very  well  satisfied,  bade  us  good- 
rnorning,  put  spurs  to  his  horse,  and  rode  off 
as  rapidly  as  he  had  come. 

This  valley  being  so  de  ep,  of  course  we 
had  to  climb  very  high  to  get  out  of  it. 
The  road  is,  however,  tolerably  good.  We 
nooned  about  ten  miles  from  Antelope  Val- 
ley, at  Silver  King,  a  deserted  mining  town. 
This  is  a  good  example  of  many  similar 
towns  in  the  mining  districts  of  California. 
They  are  rapidly  built  up — property  rising  to 
a  fabulous  price — then  as  rapidly  decay. 
This  one  seems  to  have  flashed  up  and  gone 
out  more  suddenly  than  usual.  There  are 
several  rather  pretentious  but  unfinished 


1885.] 


Rough  Notes  of  a  Tosemite   Camping  Trip. 


635 


buildings — hotels,  stores,  etc.  Evidences  of 
mining  operations  close  by.  I  examined 
these,  but  saw  no  evidence  of  any  special 
value.  Rode  rapidly  this  evening,  and 
camped  at  a  meadow  in  Bagsley's  Valley. 
After  supper  we  all  gathered  about  the  camp- 
fire,  and  I  gave  the  party  a  talk  on  the  sub- 
jects of  Bloody  Canon  and  its  glacier,  the 
volcanoes  of  Mono,  and  the  lava  flows  and 
warm  carbonated  springs  we  saw  yesterday ; 
but  as  the  substance  of  what  I  then  said 
is  scattered  about  among  these  notes,  I  omit 
it  here. 

August  18. — This  morning,  when  I  woke 
up,  my  blanket,  hair,  and  bed  were  covered 
with  a  heavy  frost.  The  meadow  was  white 
with  the  same.  The  water  left  overnight  in 
our  tin  canister  was  frozen. 

All  along  the  road  from  Monitor  to  Mar- 
kleeville,  and  in  Markleeville  itself,  I  have 
seen  sad  evidences  of  the  effects  of  the  spec- 
ulative spirit — sad  evidences  of  time  and 
money  and  energies  wasted.  Deserted 
houses  and  deserted  mines  in  every  direc- 
tion. The  Indians,  of  whom  there  are  a 
large  number  about  Markleeville,  occupy 
these  deserted  houses.  Some  of  the  mines 
which  I  have  seen  seem  to  have  been  under- 
taken on  an  expensive  scale.  They  are 
mostly  quartz  mines. 

By  invitation  of  Mr.  Hawkins,  we  went  on 
this  afternoon  only  three  miles,  and  camped 
at  a  ranch  belonging  to  his  brother.  This 
is,  indeed,  a  most  delightful  place.  While 
the  horses  graze,  and  I  sit  in  the  shade  and 
write  this,  the  young  men  are  playing  ball 
on  the  smooth-shaven  green.  The  meadow 
is  surrounded  by  high,  almost  perpendicular, 
and  apparently  impassable  mountains  on 
every  side,  except  that  by  which  we  came. 
In  such  a  secluded,  beautiful  dell,  deep  sunk 
in  a  mountain  top,  might  a  Rasselas  dream 
away  his  early  life.  Over  those  apparently 
impassable  cliffs  must  we  climb  tomorrow  if 
we  would  go  on  to  Tahoe. 

August  19. — Heavy  frost  again  this  morn- 
ing. Water  and  milk  left  from  supper  last 
night  frozen. 

The  trail  from  this  place  into  Hope  Val- 
ley is  one  of  the  steepest  we  have  yet  at- 


tempted. It  is  a  zigzag  up  an  almost  per- 
pendicular cliff.  In  many  places  there  can 
be  no  doubt  that  a  false  step  would  have 
been  certainly  fatal  to  man  and  horse.  In 
the  steepest  part  we  dismounted,  and  led  the 
horses  a  great  portion  of  the  way  up.  In 
many  places  there  was  no  detectable  trail  at 
all.  When  we  were  once  up,  however,  the 
trail  was  very  good.  From  the  top  of  this 
ridge  I  saw  many  fine  peaks  of  columnar 
basalt,  evidently  the  remnants  of  old  lava 
streams.  The  descent  into  Hope  Valley  is 
much  more  gentle.  This  valley  is  a  famous 
resort  for  fishing  and  hunting  parties.  After 
resting  here  two  hours,  we  started  on  our  way 
to  Tahoe.  We  now  proceeded  by  a  good 
wagon  road,  and  therefore  quite  rapidly,  and 
camped  at  seven  p.  M.  in  a  fine  grove  of 
tamaracks,  on  the  very  borders  of  a  lake. 

We  have,  I  observed  this  evening,  passed 
through  the  region  of  slate  (mining  region), 
and  the  region  of  lava  flows,  and  are  again 
in  the  region  of  granite.  The  granite  about 
Tahoe,  however,  is  finer-grained  than  that 
about  Yosemite  and  Tuolumne  meadows,  es- 
pecially the  latter. 

August  20. — After  breakfast  we  hired  a 
sail-boat,  partly  to  fish,  but  mainly  to  enjoy 
a  sail  on  the  beautiful  lake.  Oh,  the  exquis- 
ite beauty  of  this  lake  !  Its  clear  waters, 
emerald  green  and  the  deepest  ultra-marine 
blue ;  its  pure  shores,  rocky  or  cleanest 
gravel — so  clean  that  the  chafing  of  the 
waves  does  not  stain,  in  the  least,  the  bright 
clearness  of  the  water ;  the  high  granite 
mountains  with  serried  peaks,  which  stand 
close  around  its  very  shore  to  guard  its  crys- 
tal purity;  this  lake,  not  among,  but  on  the 
mountains,  lifted  six  thousand  feet  towards 
the  deep  blue,  over-arching  sky,  whose  image 
it  reflects.  We  sailed  some  six  or  eight 
miles,  and  landed  in  a  beautiful  cove  on  the 
Nevada  side.  Shall  we  go  in  swimming  ? 
Newspapers  in  San  Francisco  say  there  is 
something  peculiar  in  the  water  of  this  high 
mountain  lake ;  it  is  so  light,  they  say,  that 
logs  of  timber  sink  immediately,  and  bodies 
of  drowned  animals  never  rise  ;  that  it  is  im- 
possible to  swim  in  it ;  that,  essaying  to  do 
so,  many  good  swimmers  have  been  drowned. 


636 


Rough  Notes  of  a  Yosemite   Camping  Trip. 


[Dec. 


These  facts  are  well  attested  by  newspaper 
scientists,  and  therefore  not  doubted  by 
newspaper  readers.  Since  leaving  Oakland 
I  have  been  often  asked,  by  the  young  men, 
the  scientific  explanation  of  so  singular  a 
fact.  I  ha.ve  uniformly  answered  : 

"  We  will  try  scientific  experiments  when 
we  arrive  th'ere." 

The  time  had  come.  "  Now,  then,  boys," 
I  cried,  "  for  the  scientific  experiment  I 
promised  you." 

I  immediately  plunged  in  head-foremost, 
and  struck  out  boldly.  I  then  threw  my- 
self on  my  back,  and  lay  on  the  surface 
with  my  limbs  extended  and  motionless  for 
ten  minutes,  breathing  quietly  the  while. 
All  the  good  swimmers  quickly  followed.  It 
is  as  easy  to  swim  and  float  in  this  as  in  any 
other  water.  Lightness  from  diminished 
atmospheric  pressure  !  Nonsense  !  In  an 
almost  incompressible  liquid,  like  water,  the 
diminished  density  produced  by  diminished 
pressure  would  be  more  than  counterbal- 
anced by  increased  density  produced  by  cold. 

After  our  swim  we  again  launched  the 
boat,  and  sailed  out  into  the  very  middle  of 
the  lake.  The  wind  had  become  very  high, 
and  the  waves  quite  formidable.  We  shipped 
wave  after  wave,  so  that  those  of  us  who  were 
sitting  in  the  bow  got  drenched.  About  two 
p.  M.  we  concluded  it  was  time  to  return,  and 
therefore  tacked  about  for  camp.  The  wind 
was  now  dead  ahead,  and  blowing  very  hard; 
the  boat  was  a  very  bad  sailer,  so,  perhaps, 
were  we.  Finally,  having  concluded  we 
should  save  time  and  patience  by  doing  so, 
we  ran  ashore  on  the  beach,  about  a  mile 
from  camp,  and  towed  the  boat  home.  The 
owner  of  the  boat  told  us  that  he  would  not 
have  risked  the  boat  or  his  life  in  the  middle 
of  the  lake  on  such  a  day.  "  Where  igno- 
rance is  bliss,  't  is  folly  to  be  wise." 

August  2ist,  Sunday. — Sunday  at  Tahoe  ! 
At  noon  I  went  out  alone,  and  sat  on  the 
shore  of  the  lake,  with  the  waves  breaking 
at  my  feet.  How  brightly  emerald  green  the 
waters  near,  and  how  deeply  and  purely  blue 
in  the  distance.  The  line  of  demarcation  is 
very  distinct,  showing  that  the  bottom  drops 
off  suddenly.  How  distinct  the  mountains 


and  cliffs  all  around  the  lake  !  only  lightly 
tinged  with  blue  on  the  farther  side,  though 
more  than  twenty  miles  distant. 

How  greatly  is  one's  sense  of  beauty  af- 
fected by  association  !  Lake  Mono  is  sur- 
rounded by  much  grander  and  more  varied 
mountain  scenery  than  this  ;  its  waters  are 
also  very  clear,  and  it  has  the  advantage  of 
several  picturesque  islands;  but  the  dead 
volcanoes,  the  wastes  of  volcanic  sand  and 
ashes,  covered  only  by  interminable  sage- 
brush ;  the  bitter,  alkaline,  dead,  slimy  waters, 
in  which  nothing  but  worms  live ;  the  insects 
and  flies  which  swarm  on  its  surface,  and 
which  are  thrown  upon  its  shore  in  such 
quantities  as  to  infect  the  air — all  these  pro- 
duce a  sense  of  desolation  and  death,  which 
is  painful  ;  it  destroys  entirely  the  beauty  of 
the  lake  itself ;  it  unconsciously  mingles  with 
and  alloys  the  pure  enjoyment  of  the  incom- 
parable mountain  scenery  in  its  vicinity.  On 
the  contrary,  the  deep  blue,  pure  waters  of 
Lake  Tahoe,  rivaling  in  purity  and  blueness 
the  sky  itself;  its  clear,  bright,  emerald  shore 
waters,  breaking  snow-white  on  its  clear  rock 
and  gravel  shores ;  the  lake-basin,  not  on  a 
plain,  with  mountain  scenery  in  the  distance, 
but  countersunk  in  the  mountain's  top  itself; 
these  produce  a  never-ceasing  and  ever-in- 
creasing sense  of  joy,  which  naturally  grows 
into  love.  There  would  seem  to  be  no  beauty 
except  as  associated  with  human  life,  and  con- 
nected with  a  sense  of  fitness  for  human  hap- 
piness. Natural  beauty  is  but  the  type  of 
spiritual  beauty. 

I  observe  on  the  lake,  ducks,  gulls,  terns, 
etc.,  and  about  it  many  sand-hill  cranes — 
the  white  species.  The  clanging  cry  of  these 
sounds  pleasant  to  me  by  early  association. 

August  2jd. — All  in  high  spirits,  for  we 
start  for  home  today.  We  wish  to  make  Sac- 
ramento in  three  days.  The  distance  is  one 
hundred  and  ten  miles,  or  more.  Our  route 
lay  over  Johnson's  Pass  and  by  Placerville. 
We  rode  rapidly,  alternately  walking  and  gal- 
loping, and  made  twenty  miles  by  twelve 
o'clock.  About  ten  miles  from  Tahoe,  we 
reached  the  summit.  We  turned  about  here, 
and  took  our  last  look  at  the  glorious  lake, 
set  like  a  gem  in  the  mountains.  From  the 


1885.] 


Rough  Notes  of  a  Yosemite   Camping  Trip. 


637 


summit  we  rode  rapidly  down  the  splendid 
canon  of  the  South  Fork  of  the  American  riv- 
er, here  but  a  small  brook,  and  stopped  for 
noon  on  a  little  grassy  patch  on  the  hillside, 
"close  by  a  softly  murmuring  stream."  Here 
we  cooked  and  ate  dinner,  and  "  lolled  and 
dreamed "  for  three  hours,  and  then  again 
saddled  up  and  away. 

.  Every  pleasure  has  its  pain,  and  every  rose 
its  thorn  :  we  are  in  the  region  of  good  roads 
again,  but  oh,  the  dust  !  It  is  awful.  About 
four  p.  M.  saw  a  wagon  coming  ;  our  instincts 
told  us  it  was  a  fruit  wagon.  With  a  yell  we 
rushed  furiously  upon  the  bewildered  old 
wagoner.  "I  surrender!  I  surrender !"  he 
cried,  while,  with  a  broad  grin,  he  handed 
out  fruit,  and  filled  our  extended  hats. 
"  A-a-ah  !  peaches  !  grapes  !  apples  !  "  How 
delicious  on  this  hot,  dusty  road.  Rode  this 
evening  eleven  or  twelve  miles,  the  canon  be- 
coming finer  as  we  advanced,  until,  at  Sugar- 
loaf  Gorge,  it  reaches  almost  Yosemite  gran- 
deur. Camped  near  an  inn  called  "  Sugar- 
loaf,"  on  account  of  a  remarkable  rock,  sev- 
eral hundred  feet  high,  close  by.  No  good 
ground  to  sleep  on  here.  Alas,  alas !  no 
more  grassy  meadows,  no  more  huge,  leap- 
ing camp-fires ;  only  dusty  roads,  dirty  vil- 
lages, and  stable  lofts  and  stalls. 

I  have  been  observing  the  canon  down 
which  we  came  today.  Johnson's  Pass,  like 
Mono  Pass,  was  a  glacial  divide.  One  gla- 
cier went  down  on  the  Tahoe  side,  a  tribu- 
tary to  the  Tahoe  glacier ;  but  a  much  larger 
glacier  came  down  the  American  canon. 
Sugar-loaf  Rock  has  been  enveloped  and 
smoothed  by  it.  This  great  glacier  may  be 
traced  for  twenty-five  miles. 

August  24. — As  we  get  into  the  region  of 
civilization  again,  incidents  are  less  numer- 
ous. I  observed,  both  yesterday  and  today, 
very  many  deserted  houses.  This  was  the 
overland  stage  road.  Two  years  ago  the 
amount  of  travel  here  was  immense.  I  think 
I  heard  that  there  were  twelve  to  fifteen 
stages  a  day.  Now  the  travel  is  small,  the 
railroad,  of  course,  taking  the  travelers.  The 
road  is,  however,  splendidly  graded,  but  the 
toll  is  heavy.  This  morning  the  road  ran 
all  the  way  along  the  American  River,  some- 


times near  the  water's  edge,  but  mostly  high 
up  the  sides  of  the  great,  precipitous  canon 
formed  by  the  erosive  power  of  the  river. 
The  scenery  all  the  way  yesterday  and  today 
is  fine,  but  especially  along  the  American 
River,  it  is  really  very  fine.  If  we  had  not 
already  drunk  so  deep  of  mountain  glory,  we 
should  call  it  magnificent.  Again  this  morn- 
ing, walking  and  galloping  alternately,  we 
made  easily  twenty  miles  by  twelve  o'clock. 
Stopped  for  noon  at  a  roadside  inn ;  here 
we  sold  "  Old  Pack  "  for  twenty  dollars,  ex- 
actly what  we  gave  for  him  ;  left  our  cooking 
utensils  (our  supplies  were  just  exhausted), 
and  determined  hereafter  to  take  our  meals 
at  the  inns  on  the  roadsides,  or  in  the  vil- 
lages. Disencumbered  of  our  pack  we  could 
ride  more  rapidly.  This  afternoon  we  rode 
sixteen  miles,  thirteen  to  Placerville,  then 
through  Placerville  and  three  miles  beyond, 
to  Diamond  Springs.  On  approaching  Pla- 
cerville, I  observed  magnificent  orchards, 
cultivated  by  irrigation.  I  never  saw  finer 
fruit.  Saw  everywhere  about  and  in  .Placer- 
ville abundant  evidences  of  placer  mining. 
The  streams  are  also  extensively  used  for 
this  purpose,  and  are,  therefore,  all  of  them 
very  muddy.  Placerville  is  by  far  the  largest 
and  most  thriving  village  I  have  seen  since 
leaving  Oakland.  It  probably  contains  two 
thousand  or  three  thousand  inhabitants.  The 
houses  are  stuck  about  along  the  streams 
and  on  the  hillsides  in  the  most  disorderly 
manner,  their  position  being  determined 
neither  by  regularity  nor  beauty  nor  pictur- 
esque effect,  but  chiefly  by  convenience  in 
mining  operations.  The  streets  are  few,  very 
long,  very  irregular,  very  narrow.  Never- 
theless, the  general  effect  is  somewhat  pic- 
turesque. 

August  25. —  Rode  rapidly,  and  made 
twenty-one  miles  by  11:30  A.  M.  In  the  af- 
ternoon we  rode  fourteen  miles.  We  are 
again  on  the  plains  of  the  Sacramento,  but 
we  no  longer  find  the  heat  oppressive.  We 
have  been  all  along  mistaken  for  horse  or 
cattle  drovers,  or  for  emigrants  just  across 
the  plains.  We  were  often  greeted  with, 
"  Where's  your  drove  ?  "  or  "  How  long  across 
the  plains  ?  "  We  have  been  in  camp  nearly 


638 


Shasta  Lilies. 


[Dec. 


six  weeks,  and  ridden  five  hundred  or  six 
hundred  miles.  Burned  skin,  dusty  hair  and 
clothes,  flannel  shirt,  breeches  torn,  and 
coarse,  heavy  boots; — the  mistake  is  quite 
natural. 

August  26. — "  Home  today ! "  We  rode 
into  Sacramento,  ten  miles,  in  one  and  a 
half  hours,  galloping  nearly  the  whole  way. 
We  went  at  a  good  gallop  in  the  regular  or- 
der— double  file — through  the  streets  of  Sac- 
ramento, the  whole  length  of  the  city,  down 
to  the  wharf,  and  there  tied  our  horses. 
Everybody  crowded  around,  especially  the 
little  boys  about  the  wharf,  curious  to  know 
"  who  and  what  were  these  in  strange  at- 
tire." 

On  board  the  boat  for  San  Francisco  every- 
body looked  at  us  with  interest  and  surprise. 
"  Who  are  they  ? "  Gradually  it  became 
known  who  we  were,  and  we  were  treated 
with  courtesy,  and  even  became  lions.  San 
Francisco  at  last!  We  all  went  in  a  body 
ashore.  The  cabmen  thought  here  was  a 
prize  of  green-horn  mountaineers.  They 
came  around  us  in  swarms.  "  Lick  House  ?  " 
"American  Exchange?"  "Cosmopolitan?" 
"Who  wants  a  hack?"  was  screamed  into 
our  ears.  The  young  men  screamed  back: 


"What  Cheer  House!"  "Russ  House!" 
"  Occidental ! "  "  This  way,  gentlemen  ! "  etc. 
They  soon  saw  they  had  better  let  us  alone. 
We  mounted  and  dashed  off  to  the  Oakland 
wharf.  Not  open  yet;  we  will  ride  about 
town.  Our  glorious  party  is,  alas,  dissolving. 
Three  left  us  here.  The  rest  of  us  now  rode 
down  again  to  the  wharf,  and  found  the  gate 
open :  1 1.30,  got  on  board  the  boat  for  Oak- 
land. Landed  at  the  pier,  we  galloped  along- 
side the  swift-moving  cars,  the  young  men 
hurrahing.  The  race  was  kept  up  pretty 
evenly  for  a  little  while,  but  soon  the  old 
steam  horse  left  us  behind,  and  screamed 
back  at  us  a  note  of  defiance.  We  went  on, 
however,  at  a  sweeping  gallop,  through  the 
streets  of  Oakland,  saluted  only  by  barking 
dogs;  dismounted  at  the  stable;  bade  each 
other  good  night,  and  then  to  our  several 
homes;  and  our  party — our  joyous,  glorious 
party — is  no  more.  Alas,  how  transitory  is 
all  earthly  joy.  Our  party  is  but  a  type  of 
all  earthly  life;  its  elements  gathered  and 
organized  for  a  brief  space,  full  of  enjoyment 
and  adventure,  but  swiftly  hastening  to  be 
again  dissolved  and  returned  to  the  common 
fund  from  which  it  was  drawn.  But  its 
memory  still  lives:  its  spirit  is  immortal. 
Joseph  Le  Conte. 


SHASTA  LILIES. 


THE  country  schools  of  Shasta  County 
open  for  their  six  or  eight  months'  annual 
session  pretty  well  on  in  the  fall ;  but  it  was 
late,  even  for  them,  when  John  Rawlins, 
school-teacher,  called  on  the  county  superin- 
tendent to  make  inquiries  about  a  place. 
Yes,  there  was  one  school  in  need  of  a  teacher 
— but  it  was  a  pretty  hard  position. 

"  I  have  had  some  experience,"  said  Raw- 
lins, "  and  somehow  I  manage  to  get  along 
with  schools  that  are  called  hard.  In  fact, 
I  rather  like  the  fun  of  them.  I  guess  you 
needn't  be  afraid  to  send  me  there." 

The  district  was  far  east  in  the  pine  region, 
the  superintendent  said.  It  was  in  hot  wa- 
ter most  of  the  time.  Teachers  seldom  staid 


over  a  month,  and  never  had  the  support  of 
more  than  half  the  people.  The  trouble  had 
begun  in  political  differences  between  the 
leading  trustees,  Michenay  and  Kester,  and 
it  furnished  sensational  pabulum  for  the  east- 
ern half  of  the  county.  Yet  if  only  a  treaty 
of  peace  could  be  negotiated  between  the 
opposing  factions,  there  need  be  no  trouble 
with  the  school — it  was  a  pleasant  one  in 
every  other  respect. 

Rawlins  was  disposed  to  try  the  experi- 
ment. He  hired  a  pinto  mustang,  rode  out  of 
the  picturesque  mountain  town,  and  through 
a  narrow  canon,  whose  stones  were  now  in 
furrows  by  years  of  staging  and  teaming. 

Broad   and   clear   the   Sacramento   river 


1885.] 


Shasta  Lilies. 


639 


swayed  from  bluff  to  bluff,  and  the  captain  of 
the  ferry-boat  was  named  Flora  Wilson.  A 
handsome,  dark-eyed  girl  she  was,  modestly 
affable  and  chatty  as  she  turned  the  steer- 
ing wheel.  She  had  a  bit  of  crochet  work 
to  take  up  as  soon  as  the  boat  was  set  at 
the  right  angle  against  the  current,  and  a 
rustic  chair  to  do  it  in,  hemmed  about  by 
flowers. 

When  darkness  came,  Rawlins  was  riding 
across  a  broken,  rolling  plain  of  red  gravel, 
thickly  set  with  scrub-oak,  pine,  and  thorny 
bushes.  Dogs  began  to  bark  ;  it  was  Miche- 
nay's  clearing.  He  slowly  skirted  it,  mak- 
ing a  wide  detour,  and  reaching  the  branch 
road  half  a  mile  distant,  for  he  was  bound  to 
Kester's  first.  More  than  two  miles  it  was, 
and  the  bridle  paths  were  hard  to  follow; 
at  last  he  rode  up  to  a  rail  fence,  and  a  faint 
light  gleamed  from  a  cabin  beyond. 

"  Hallo  the  house,"  he  shouted  in  pioneer 
phrase. 

"  Hullo  yourself,"  came  back  in  stentorian 
tones. 

"  How  far  is  it  to  Millburn  ?  " 

"Twenty  good  miles,  stranger." 

"  Can  I  stay  here  all  night  ?  Able  to  pay 
my  own  way." 

"All  right,  stranger.  Hitch  the  hoss  in 
the  shed,  an'  come  in." 

The  Missourian  pioneer  of  the  Pacific 
coast  is  a  much  criticised  individual,  but  un- 
less you  irretrievably  offend  some  of  his 
numerous  prejudices,  he  is  as  garrulous  and 
mild-mannered  a  mortal  as  this  planet  holds. 
It  did  not  take  long  for  Rawlins  to  get  on 
comfortable  terms  with  the  Kesters;  a  few 
bits  of  Shasta  news,  and  a  hope  that  the 
mines  would  soon  begin  operation,  and  so 
make  times  more  lively,  were  quite  sufficient. 
Pretty  soon  a  little  school  talk  began,  engi- 
neered by  the  wily  Rawlins  : 

"  Here  is  a  bright  lad,"  he  said.  "  I  hope 
he  has  a  good  school  to  attend." 

Kester  flung  himself  out  of  his  chair,  and 
rose  to  his  full  height  of  six  feet  four. 

"  Mister,  we  orter,  thet's  a  fact.  But  we've 
had  infernal  poor  schools.  I  hain't  sent  the 
children  for  'most  a  term.  School  hed  orter 
begin  now,  but  there's  a  cross-tongued,  black 


Republican  Kanuck  down  on  the  crick,  an' 
he  an'  I  cain't  pull  together  nohow.  Besides 
old  Mish'nay,"  contined  Kester,  "  I  hate  the 
sight  of  that  fool  nevew  of  his." 

The  oldest  daughter,  a  girl  of  seventeen 
or  eighteen,  who  had  been  sitting  so  far  back 
in  the  shadows  that  Rawlins  had  only  seen 
the  dimly  outlined  figure,  rose  silently,  went 
to  the  door,  and  slipped  out  into  the  dark- 
ness. She  was  a  very  pretty  girl,  fair  and 
sweet-faced. 

After  the  smaller  children  had  gone  to  bed, 
Kester  grew  more  confidential :  Michenay 
had  "hired  the  last  fool  of  a  teacher,"  but 
he  should  not  hire  the  next  one,  "  nor  have 
anything  to  say  about  it."  No  shadow  of 
suspicion  that  Rawlins  belonged  to  the  ped- 
agogic order  of  creatures  crossed  the  Mis- 
sourian mind. 

The  next  morning  the  young  man  sat  on 
a  rawhide-bottomed  chair,  tipping  it  back 
against  the  bole  of  a  giant  white  oak;  ate 
grapes  that  one  of  the  tow-headed  youngsters 
brought  in  his  straw  hat,  and  opened  fire  on 
Kester  as  he  mended  his  broken  wagon- 
tongue. 

"  Now,  let  us  talk  business,"  he  said.  "  I 
am  a  school  teacher,  and  willing  to  take 
your  school,  but  it  must  be  on  my  own 
terms." 

"You  don't  say  so!  Well,  what  sort  of  a 
proposition  hev'  ye  ?  " 

"  This  :  I  will  teach  a  week  for  nothing  ; 
then,  if  I  do  not  like  the  school  or  the  trus- 
tees I  shall  leave.  If  I  stay,  you  must  pay 
me  what  you  did  the  last  teacher — no  more, 
no  less." 

Kester  at  once  acceded  to  these  terms. 
"  But  ye  cain't  persuade  old  Michenay,"  he 
said,  as  Rawlins  mounted  his  horse.  "  We're 
powerful  anxious  ter  hev  ye,  but  he'll  make 
trouble  so  soon's  he  knows  I've  hired  ye." 

Rawlins  crossed  the  creek  near  Kester's, 
rode  a  mile  east,  turned  south,  crossed  anoth- 
er stream,  and  reached  Michenay's  from  quite 
a  different  direction.  The  grizzled  old  man 
was  dry-plowing,  to  sow  his  wheat  before  the 
rains,  and  clouds  of  dust  followed  his  creak- 
ing gang  plow.  Rawlins  drew  rein,  talked 
crops  and  county  politics,  and  was  invited 


640 


Shasta  Lilies. 


[Dec. 


to  dinner.  The  old  man  sat  like  a  patriarch 
at  the  head  of  a  family  of  nine  children,  of 
whom  all  but  two  were  girls. 

After  dinner,  they  sat  on  the  porch,  smoked 
the  pip  e  of  mutual  goodwill,  and  discussed 
Canada — "  ze  bes'  country  on  ze  globe," — 
while  a  barefoot  girl  swung  on  the  well  curb, 
and  two  or  three  more  on  the  porch  rail,  to 
listen  to  and  watch  the  stranger. 

"  And  so  your  cattle  ranges  go  five  miles 
beyond  that  peak ?"  said  Rawlins.  "There 
is  enough  for  all  your  children,  and  you  must 
manage  to  give  them  good  educations." 

"  Ah,  kind  sir,"  cried  Michenay,  "  It  ees 
not  poseeble,  not  now !  Ze  school  is  forever 
a  despair."  He  pointed  excitedly  towards 
Kester's  ranch.  "Zare  ees  a  man  zat  knows 
not'ing  at  all.  A  democrat,  a  seceshioner. 
I  vote  not  with  him.  I  send  not  my  children 
with  his." 

Knitting  his  dark  brows,  the  old  man 
drove  his  heavy  staff  into  the  soil,  uprooting 
one  of  his  daughter's  gillyflowers;  and,  even 
as  the  earth  flew  there  was  a  rattle  and  scurry 
in  the  nearest  clump  of  pines  on  the  hill. 
Out  of  the  forest,  a  hundred  yards  distant, 
sprang  a  great  yellow  horse  and  a  blue-shirted 
rider.  They  came  down  upon  the  house 
like  a  tornado — the  fierce,  ugly,  splendid- 
eyed,  broad-chested,  mighty-limbed  creature 
struggling  with  his  bit  and  striving  to  throw 
his  master,  a  swarthy  youth  of  twenty.  Just 
at  the  frail  gate,  which  a  touch  from  shoul- 
der or  hoof  would  have  shattered,  the  stormy 
onset  ended — the  heavy  Chileno  bit  did  its 
work ;  passionate  onward  motion  changed  in 
absolutely  one  second  to  a  gigantic  effort  to 
check  their  momentum ;  the  unshod  hoofs 
furrowed  the  red  gravel;  and  stormy  action 
was  arrested  in  statuesque  pose.  The  young 
man  lifted  his  hat,  and,  whirling  his  horse, 
disappeared  in  a  dust-cloud. 

"  Mine  brother's  son,  Antoine,"  said  Mich- 
enay. "He  ees  a  good  boy,  but  he  has  a 
temper ;  and  it  ees  like  ze  evil  spirit  he  rides. 
See  !  he  did  stop  zat  horse,  Roland,  in  thirty 
feet,  from  a  gallop." 

Rawlins  resumed  the  interrupted  conversa- 
tion, and  within  one  hour  had  engaged  the 
school  from  Michenay,  who  advised  him 


"not  to  go  near  zat  ignoramus  Kester." 
Then  the  new  teacher  made  a  frank  avowal. 
Kester's  consent  had  already  been  obtained. 

Michenay  was  angry ;  but  the  thought  of 
getting  a  week's  free  teaching  appealed  to 
his  ideas  of  political  economy,  and  he  agreed 
to  let  Rawlins  have  his  way ;  so  one  of  his 
boys  rode  over  the  district  that  afternoon  to 
inform  everyone  that  the  trustees  had  hired 
a  teacher. 

The  next  morning  the  triumphant  plotter 
wrote  a  letter  to  the  genial  county  superin- 
tendent. It  read  thus: 

"  PINE-LAND,  October  i6th. 
'"'•Dear  Friend  of  Missionary  Teachers: 
This  forlorn  district  has  been  treated  to  a 
sensation.  The  first  battles  were  fought  by 
the  classic  Stillwater;  the  next  will  be  in  the 
school-house.  We  captured  the  Missourian 
with  palaver  about  the  first  fam'lies  of  Kain- 
tuck,  and  corralled  the  Canadian  because  of 
some  knowledge  of  the  cliffs  of  the  Saguenay. 
Decorative  art  in  greenery  and  Laboulaye's 
fairy  tales  have  made  the  children  anxious 
for  school,  and  now  the  only  problem  is  :  Will 
both  the  trustees  attend  the  first  day  ?  But 
I  think  they  will.  Wait  a  month,  and  then 
come  and  see  us.  Come  any  way  you  like, 
through  the  window,  or  down  the  stove-pipe, 
or  as  any  kind  of  a  surprise  party.  I  may 
be  remonstrating  with  a  young  lady  upon 
her  too  frequent  curl  papers  and  too  scanty 
compositions,  or  explaining  Grimm's  Law  to 
the  primer  class,  or  thrashing  a  trustee — but 
come,  nevertheless,  and  you  shall  be  heartily 
welcome.  Yours  rejoicingly, 

"  J.  M.  R." 

One  by  one  the  kinks  disentangled  them- 
selves, and  the  social  instincts  of  a  rustic 
community  began  to  rule.  When  the  wom- 
en folks  of  the  two  families  renewed  their 
Sunday  afternoon  visits,  harmony  was  con- 
sidered reasonably  secure.  Each  party  con- 
sidered itself  victorious.  Once  or  twice 
Michenay  heard  that  Kester  bragged  to  his 
Churn  Creek  cronies — square-built  quick- 
silver miners,  who  came  to  his  farm  oc- 
casionally— that  he  had  put  an  end  to  the 
Michenay  domination;  once  or  twice  Kes- 


1885.] 


Shasta  Lilies. 


641 


ter  suspected  that  Michenay  claimed  con- 
quest of  him  when  his  Canadian  friends — 
loggers  from  the  Shingleville  pineries — asked 
about  the  school.  But  these  slight  difficul- 
ties were  easily  remedied.  And  it  proved 
true  that  in  other  respects  it  was  a  blameless 
school ;  it  was  so  amenable  to  authority,  so 
confiding  and  affectionate.  Little  Arcadian 
simpletons  they  were,  everyone.  He  taught 
them  new  games  by  the  dozen,  went  fishing 
and  botanizing  with  them  on  Saturdays,  and 
could  make  any  one  of  them  cry  with  a  se- 
vere word  or  look. 

In  spring,  toward  the  close  of  the  term, 
Rawlins  got  up  an  old-fashioned  spelling- 
match,  a  novelty  in  that  country.  It  took 
the  public  fancy,  and  people  rode  or  drove 
from  farm-houses  and  pioneer  cabins  miles 
away  when  the  evening  came. 

The  dark-eyed  young  lady  of  the  ferry- 
boat came  under  escort  of  Antoine  Michenay, 
who  did  not  leave  her  side  the  entire  even- 
ing. He  was  jauntily  dressed,  and  in  high 
spirits  ;  the  girl  seemed  troubled  and  ill  at 
ease  as  the  evening  wore  on. 

Mary  Kester  was  expected  to  carry  off  the 
spelling  honors,  as  a  matter  of  course ;  but, 
much  to  everyone's  surprise,  and  her  father's 
intense  disgust,  she  missed  one  of  the  first 
words,  ajid  Adele  Michenay  won  an  unwont- 
ed victory. 

After  the  entertainment  was  over,  the 
girls  went  outside  in  the  clear  moonlight, 
and  laughed  and  chatted,  while  the  boys 
carried  the  benches  back  into  the  school- 
room, and  arranged  them  as  usual. 

"  Please  have  another  spelling-match  soon, 
Mr.  Rawlins,"  cried  Amelia  Dryden,  and  a 
chorus  followed,  "  O  do,  do  ;  nobody  else 
has  them,  and  we  all  love  to  come."  Wag- 
on after  wagon  was  driven  away,  and  soon 
the  last  of  the  merry  group  had  left  the 
door.  Mr.  Rawlins  straightened  the  desks, 
rubbed  off  the  blackboard,  blew  out  the  can- 
dles, locked  the  schoolhouse,  and  started  for 
Michenay's,  along  the  wood-path,  haunted 
with  an  indescribable  exhilarating  fragrance, 
a  mingling  of  sweet  and  spicy  odors  from 
blossoms,  leaves,  stems,  from  pines  overhead 
and  grass  blades  close  to  the  joyous  earth. 
VOL.  VI.— 41. 


At  the  foot  of  the  hill  the  path  widened 
into  a  grassy  opening.  Over  it  the  full  moon 
hung,  making  it  so  light  that  one  could  see 
the  brown  specks  on  the  drooping  bells 
of  the  carnelian-colored  wild  lilies  the  girls 
had  for  many  days  watched  and  guarded. 
Beside  the  lily  stems,  all  in  a  pitiful  little 
heap,  with  her  head  on  a  mossy  log,  was 
Mary  Kester,  crying  as  if  her  heart  would 
break. 

Now  Mary  was  the  most  modest  and  gen- 
erous girl  in  the  world,  and  no  lost  spelling- 
school  honors  would  have  made  her  cry  that 
way. 

It  was  impossible  to  leave  a  girl  alone  at 
night,  crying  in  the  forest  a  mile  from  home. 
Rawlins  went  up  close  to  her,  and  spoke 
kindly,  leaning  over  to  take  her  hand.  "Come, 
Mary,  you  must  not  stay  here.  I  will  walk 
home  with  you." 

She  started  when  he  spoke,  but  almost  at 
once  controlled  her  sobs,  rose  without  a 
word,  and  took  his  arm.  They  turned  back 
across  the  clearing.  In  a  few  moments  she 
said  apologetically  :  "  I  thought  every  one 
went  round  by  the  road,  teacher ;  I  thought 
no  one  crossed  this  way." 

They  were  walking  from  the  moonlit  circle 
into  the  forest  again,  as  Mary  said  this ;  but 
before  Rawlins  could  reply  they  heard  voices 
in  the  path  before  them — Antoine's  and 
Flora  Wilson's. 

The  girlish  form  onRawlins's  arm  trembled 
perceptibly;  a  little  hand  urged  him  still 
further  back  in  the  shadow.  But  they  could 
not  escape,  for  the  steep  bank  of  a  dry  bar- 
ranca curved  behind  them. 

"You  shall  listen  to  me,"  Antoine  was 
saying  excitedly. 

"  I  will  not  listen  any  more,"  Flora  cried. 
"  Ye  have  had  your  answer  already,"  she 
went  on,  a  touch  of  her  Scotch  father's  bor- 
derland burr  coming  into  her  voice.  She 
took  her  hand  from  his  arm  and  faced  him 
angrily.  "  Ye've  treated  Mary  ill,  and  ye 
know  it ;  but  'twas  no  doing  of  mine.  I 
never  wanted  ye." 

Antoine  broke  into  a  passionate  and  inco- 
herent appeal. 

"Take  me  home.     O,  take  me  home.     I 


642 


Shasta  Lilies. 


[Dec. 


won't  hear  any  more,"  cried  the  perplexed 
and  angry  girl. 

Antoine  threw  himself  down  in  an  aban- 
donment of  grief  on  a  log.  Flora,  both  in- 
dignant and  troubled,  stood  beside  him. 

"  This  is  hard  on  us  both,"  she  said  pres- 
ently, more  kindly.  "I'll  be  friends  with 
you  still,  but  you  must  take  me  home  now, 
and  give  this  all  up." 

He  sprang  wildly  to  his  feet.  "  No !  No  ! " 
he  shouted.  "Curse  your  soft  words.  I 
shall  die  because  of  you." 

Lifting  both  hands  to  his  mouth  he  gave 
a  loud,  shrill  whistle,  three  times  repeated. 
The  far-off  neigh  of  a  horse  answered  him. 
Antoine  whistled  again,  stamped  his  feet, 
and  cried  loudly:  "  Roland  !  here,  Roland  ! " 
Another  wild  neigh  sounded,  nearer,  but  still 
on  the  farther  bank  of  the  deep  and  rapid 
river ;  then  a  splash,  the  sound  of  swimming, 
the  rattle  of  stones,  the  snap  and  dull  swish 
of  branches  thrust  aside,  and  into  the  clearing 
ran  the  great  yellow  stallion.  Antoine  seized 
him  by  the  mane  and  turned  to  Flora. 

"  Go  home,"  he  said.  "  I  shall  ride  to  my 
death  tonight.  You  don't  know  the  moun- 
tain boys  yet.  I  ought  to  take  you  along." 

He  caught  her  by  the  wrists  roughly,  but 
before  she  could  scream,  his  manner  changed, 
and  he  kissed  her  hand  with  a  sudden  heredi- 
tary French  courtliness.  He  leaped  upon  Ro- 
land's dripping  back.  Mary  screamed,  but 
neither  Antoine  nor  Flora  heard  her  voice, 
for  Roland  sprang  forward  like  a  huge  stone 
from  a  medieval  catapult,  crashed  through 
the  chapparal,  down  the  slope,  and  into  the 
river  again.  They  heard  him  breasting  the 
steep  beyond,  snorting  as  he  ran  through 
frightened  bands  of  sheep  and  droves  of  cat- 
tle, while  more  terrific  still,  Antoine  raised 
his  voice  in  a  half  insane  shout:  "  Goodbye, 
love." 

A  few  seconds  later  there  came  a  yet  louder 
shout,  then  a  sudden  crash,  as  the  manada 
of  horses  in  the  farther  pasture  ran  shrieking 
against  the  rail  fence,  tore  it  to  pieces,  and 
fled,  still  shrieking  with  terror,  stampeded 
over  the  hillsides,  while  Antoine  rode  his 
unbridled  whirlwind  on  into  the  deeper  for- 
est. 


Flora  stood  terrified  beside  the  trampled 
mountain  lilies  over  which  Roland  had  passed. 
The  school-teacher  bent  over  and  whispered 
to  Mary:  "  Will  you  do  just  what  I  ask?  " 

"  Yes." 

"Then  sit  here  on  this  flat  rock;  lean 
your  head  against  my  overcoat.  Don't  move 
till  I  come  back." 

He  stepped  out  into  the  clearing,  much  to 
Flora's  surprise. 

"  Miss  Wilson,  do  you  know  the  way  to 
Michenay's  ?  " 

"No,  I  don't;  I  wish  I  did."  She  tried 
to  speak  defiantly,  but  it  was  easy  to  see  she 
was  in  trouble.  "  Mr.  Rawlins,  what  do  you 
know  about  what  has  happened  here  ?  "  she 
asked  abruptly. 

"  I  know  all  about  Antoine,  and  I  am 
going  to  see  that  you  get  home  safely."  She 
turned  without  a  word,  and  walked  beside 
him. 

Soon  they  reached  the  old  stables  and 
barns  of  Michenay.  He  ran  in  and  bridled 
a  horse,  backed  him  out  of  the  stall,  and 
into  the  shafts.  Flora  knew  all  such  toggery, 
and  fastened  at  least  half  the  straps. 

"  Now,  Mr.  Rawlins,"  she  said,  "  I  am 
going  to  drive  myself  home ;  you  must  not 
rouse  the  Michenays.  It  is  only  eight  miles, 
and  I  know  all  the  cross-roads." 

He  hesitated,  thinking  of  the  dilemma. 
The  road  was  dangerous,  and  the  moon  very 
low.  There  might  be  drunken  cattle  herd- 
ers riding  home  after  a  spree. 

"  It  is  not  safe,  Miss  Wilson." 

"Don't  talk  to  me,"  she  cried.  "I'd 
rather  walk  home  than  disturb  any  one  in 
the  house." 

Suddenly  the  way  out  revealed  itself  to 
him.  Mart  Michenay  was  the  brightest  and 
pluckiest  of  fourteen  year  old  boys.  He 
could  keep  a  secret,  and  he  loved  his  teacher 
devotedly. 

"  Wait,"  he  said  to  Flora.  "  Drive  up  to 
yonder  oak,  and  wait  there  till  I  come  back." 
He  sprang  over  the  fence,  ran  to  the  rear  of 
the  house,  and  lifted  Mart's  window,  down 
on  the  first  floor,  in  a  lean-to  addition  of 
split  oak  shakes. 

"  Martin !  Martin  !  " 


1885.] 


Shasta  Lilies. 


643 


"  Who  is  it ! " 

"  Mr.  Rawlins.  Pull  on  your  clothes,  take 
a  blanket,  and  come  out  here  quick.  Don't 
make  a  noise." 

The  boy  was  at  his  side  in  a  minute. 
They  jumped  the  fence  again  and  ran  to  the 
buggy. 

"  Now,  Martin,  jump  in  and  drive  Flora 
Wilson  home.  Get  back  in  bed  before  morn- 
ing, and  don't  whisper  a  word  of  this  to  any 
one." 

"You  can  trust  me,  Mr.  Rawlins." 

Rawlins  shook  the  boy's  hand,  lifted  his 
hat  to  Flora,  and  ran  back,  down  the  hollow, 
splashing  across  the  brook,  straight  up  the 
path.  He  heard  their  wheels  rattle  once, 
and  then  no  more.  Mary  was  sitting  where 
Rawlins  had  left  her,  crying  softly  to  herself. 
She  had  been  scarcely  fifteen  minutes  alone. 

They  walked  on  at  once,  and  he  told  her 
of  Flora's  departure,  praised  Martin,  made 
the  most  cheerful  remarks  he  could  think 
of,  happy  if  he  had  the  slightest  assent  from 
his  companion.  But  presently  she  broke 
out :  "  What  will  become  of  him  ?  " 

"  He  is  a  splendid  rider,  Mary — none  bet- 
ter in  the  region — and  his  horse  will  carry 
him  safely  all  night,  unless — "  The  teacher 
stopped  aghast  at  his  own  stupidity. 

"Unless  what,  sir?"  said  the  trembling 
girl. 

"  It  is  not  likely  to  happen.  They  might 
roll  down  a  hillside,  but  then  that  might  not 
hurt  them  much ;  and  Roland  is  so  sure- 
footed, I  think  we  may  hope  for  the  best." 

"Oh,  sir,"  she  whispered,  "I  am  so  glad 
you  think  so.  I've  always  liked  Antoine," 
she  said  as  simply  as  a  child.  "  We  played 
together  long  ago.  He  saved  my  life  down 
at  the  creek  one  day.  It's  natural  I  should 
like  Antoine." 

"Of  course  it  is ;  and  don't  you  think  he, 
too,  remembers  his  childhood?" 

"  But  perhaps  not  the  same  way." 

"  Perhaps  not,"  said  the  schoolmaster  mus- 
ingly. "  Mary,"  he  went  on  abruptly,  "you 
are  seventeen ;  I  am  thirty  in  years,  and 
more  than  that  in  experience.  I  tell  you 
that  you  can  live  without  Antoine.  Think 
that  I  know  nothing  about  it,  if  you  like — 


but  don't  fail  to  keep  at  the  head  of  your 
classes,  and  do  everything  just  as  you  did 
before." 

Mary  only  began  to  cry  softly  again,  and 
he  felt  compunctiously  that  this  was  rather 
stern  preaching  for  the  little  maiden  sobbing 
at  his  side.  He  put  his  hand  gently  on  hers 
as  it  lay  on  his  arm.  "  I  am  just  as  sorry  as 
I  can  be,  Mary.  You'll  try  to  be  a  brave 
girl,  won't  you  ?  " 

"Yes,  sir,"  she  whispered. 

"  Now,  let  us  talk  of  something  else."  And 
he  talked  to  her  cheerfully  till  they  reached 
the  Kester  cabin. 

He  went  directly  home  to  Michenay's.  No 
use  looking  for  Antoine  until  morning.  Pitch 
dark  it  was,  and  the  schoolmaster  had  to 
feel  his  way  along  the  trail.  The  noises  of 
the  night  played  tricks  with  his  aroused  imag- 
ination. A  night-hawk's  scream,  an  owl's 
cry,  the  laugh  of  a  catamount  on  the  high 
fir  ridge,  the  rush  of  a  startled  steer,  the 
sound  of  a  torrent  over  Bell's  old  mill-dam, 
each  in  succession  seemed  to  be  the  voice 
of  Antoine  in  pitiful  need,  lying  under  his 
struggling  horse,  crushed,  bleeding,  dying, 
praying  for  priestly  absolution  before  he  went 
to  his  rest. 

At  daybreak  the  anxious  teacher  went  to 
Martin's  room  and  called  him.  Only  an 
hour's  sleep  the  boy  had  had,  yet  he  came 
out  ready  and  smiling,  a  boy  of  a  million  for 
an  emergency. 

"  Martin,  did  you  ever  know  Roland  to 
run  away  with  Antoine  ?  " 

"  Yes  indeed,  sir,  but  Antoine  brings  him 
down." 

"  Suppose  he  was  foolish  enough,  just  for 
bravado,  to  jump  on  Roland  unsaddled  and 
unbridled  ?  " 

"  Gracious,  Mr.  Rawlins,  Roland  'ud  run 
to  the  top  of  Mount  Lassen  before  he 
stopped." 

"  You  come  down  to  the  stables,  Martin." 

In  ten  minutes  they  had  caught  and  sad- 
dled the  two  best  colts  in  the  home  maftada; 
in  ten  minutes  more  had  swum  the  river  and 
were  galloping  across  the  pasture  beyond ; 
in.  a  third  ten  minutes  had  found  the  trail — 
as  who,  indeed,  could  help  ?  It  was  like  a 


644 


Shasta  Lilies. 


[Dec. 


blaze  through  a  forest.  Here,  Roland  slipped 
and  staggered ;  there,  he  plowed  through  the 
ground,  flinging  black  mud  far  and  wide; 
this  giant  fallen  pine  he  leaped ;  yonder  he 
swayed  in  sudden  fright.  Martin  asked  no 
questions,  but  he  fully  comprehended  the 
emergency,  and  brought  all  his  woodcraft 
into  play. 

Ah  !  here  Roland  left  the  grassy  lowlands, 
and  took  the  hillside  paths.  He  twisted  like 
a  snake  about  the  pines.  There  he  ran  be- 
tween two  tree  trunks,  and  hardly  a  foot  to 
spare  on  either  side ;  that  is  the  mark  of  An- 
toine's  boot  heel.  Yonder  bough  would 
have  killed  him  had  he  not  been  lying  on  his 
face,  clasping  Roland's  mane. 

"  Martin,  Martin,  it  gets  worse  !  "  cried 
Rawlins.  "  Straight  for  the  Big  Slide,  the 
horse  has  turned.  Ride  faster,  Martin,  fas- 
ter !  We  can  follow  this  trail  at  a  gallop." 

Here  the  cliff  begins,  a  hundred  feet 
down,  and  Roland's  hoof-marks  are  hardly 
three  feet  from  the  edge.  Ah,  he  shied  back 
and  ran  off,  but  Antoine  brings  him  up 
again.  Here  they  approached  the  cliff  once 
more,  at  a  higher  point,  and  brave  Roland 
has  reared,  whirled,  and  again  escaped. 

Martin's  face  grew  suddenly  pallid.  "  Mr. 
Rawlins,"  he  cried,  "  Antoine  did  that  o' 
purpose.  He  tried  to  make  Roland  jump 
off!" 

"  How  do  you  know?" 

"  He  put  a  handkerchief  in  his  mouth, 
back  there  a  piece,  an'  pulled  him  round. 
See  how  steady  he  went  ?  " 

It  was  true.  Antoine  had  gained  partial 
control  of  Roland,  and  twice  had  forced  him 
to  the  precipice,  only  to  be  carried  back  a 
hundred  yards  by  the  resolute  horse.  The 
third  time  he  faces  death  ;  he  brings  Roland, 
perhaps  blindfolded,  up  to  the  verge  where, 
a  quarter  of  a  mile  below,  the  jagged  rocks 
lie.  Great  Heavens  !  The  edge  fairly  crum- 
bled under  his  feet,  but  the  grand  creature 
fought  his  way  backward,  inch  by  inch.  Yes  ! 
he  had  broken  the  improvised  rein,  and 
bounded  off  for  the  lowlands  with  long,  ir- 
regular strides.  Yet  Roland  did  not  know 
what  fear  was.  You  could  ride  him  against 
a  wall  of  fire,  or  into  the  jaws  of  death.  But 


on  this  occasion  he  somehow  had  no  confi- 
dence in  Antoine  ;  he  could  not  yield  abso- 
lute obedience. 

"  Hurrah,  Martin  ! "  cried  Rawlins,  "  Ro- 
land will  save  Antoine  in  spite  of  himself." 

They  rode  down  the  hill  in  a  tearing  gal- 
lop, giving  their  horses  the  rein,  and  shout- 
ing to  urge  them  faster.  At  last,  in  a  belt  of 
sage  brush  barrens,  the  trail  was  lost  for  an 
hour.  When  it  was  picked  up  again,  it  led 
through  a  thorny  tangle  of  chapparal.  Mad- 
dened with  pain,  Roland  had  hurled  himself 
forward  as  if  he  were  charging  a  battery,  and 
had  rent  and  crushed  a  path  into  the  open 
pastures  beyond.  Fluttering  fragments  of 
Antoine's  garments,  and  drops  of  blood  on 
the  rocks,  showed  what  a  passage  it  had  been. 
The  rescuers  followed  fast  on  the  track ; 
such  a  wild  journey  could  not  last  forever. 

Soon  they  passed  a  brush-fenced  wheat 
field  ;  then  heard  the  lowing  of  cattle  among 
the  hills  beyond.  They  were  approaching 
some  house.  A  rod  farther  the  trail  whirled 
about  a  clump  of  oaks  into  a  foot  path  and 
past  a  giant  bowlder ;  from  beyond,  with  sud- 
den distinctness,  came  the  sound  of  falling 
water;  the  ravines,  long  trending  towards 
each  other,  met,  and  disappeared  in  a  quartz- 
walled  valley.  The  end  had  come  here. 
Rawlins  and  Martin  urged  their  horses  on; 
but  they  suddenly  reared  and  snorted  wildly. 

"Antoine  !  Antoine  !  "  both  man  and  boy 
cried  in  a  breath 

Feeble  as  a  baby's  wail,  out  of  the  depths 
of  the  ravine  came  a  human  cry,  piercing  the 
ripple  of  waters  with  its  agonized  appeal. 

They  left  their  horses,  uncoiled  their  lari- 
ats, and  went  down  among  the  rocks.  Ro- 
land's feet  had  slipped  on  the  smooth  ledge  ; 
he  had  crashed  through  a  sycamore  top,  and 
there  he  lay,  more  than  a  hundred  feet  down, 
stark  and  dead. 

"  Antoine,  Antoine,  where  are  you  ?  " 

"I  see,"  cried  Martin,  and  they  soon 
reached  him. 

Brushed  off  by  the  tree-top,  yet  falling 
through  it  to  a  lower  ledge,  Antoine,  though 
in  piteous  plight,  was  not  mortally  hurt ;  his 
leg  was  broken,  and  almost  countless  flesh- 
wounds  and  bruises  added  to  his  misery. 


1885.J 


Shasta  Lilies. 


645 


One  could  not  help  contrasting  this  hollow- 
eyed,  nearly  naked,  sorely  wounded  man, 
lying  in  the  sun-glare,  half  way  down  a  wild 
ravine,  with  the  jaunty,  foppish  Antoine 
of  the  spelling  school  of  a  dozen  hours  be- 
fore. 

And  there,  as  he  lay,  he  looked  straight 
down  on  dead  Roland,  eighty  feet  below  ; 
for  hours  he  had  heard,  he  told  them,  break- 
ing down  into  sobs,  the  brave  creature's  dy- 
ing moans;  had  called,  and  heard  the  horse 
whinny  back  his  fond  and  last  recognition. 
The  gray  dawn  broke  overhead  as  Roland 
died ;  then  the  sun  rose,  and,  though  An- 
toine crawled  out  of  its  fiercest  rays,  the  heat 
was  terrible. 

They  lifted  him  to  an  easier  position, 
making  pillows  of  their  coats,  and  gave  him 
a  drink. 

"  Martin,"  said  the  school-master,  "climb 
the  hill  and  get  our  bearings;  we  must  have 
help  here,  and  soon." 

He  only  waited  till  the  boy  was  gone  to 
turn  upon  Antoine.  He  had  no  scruple 
about  sparing  him  for  the  sake'of  his  condi- 
tion, for  he  knew  his  man.  The  hot-headed 
Canadian  would  scarcely  have  listened  in 
less  extremity. 

"  Antoine,"  he  began,  "  this  is  the  worst 
business  I  ever  heard  of.  Do  you  know 
what  you  have  done?" 

"  Broken  myself  all  into  damn  bits  and 
pieces." 

"  That  is  nothing ;  you  will  soon  get  well. 
But  you  have  forfeited  one  girl's  respect  and 
friendship,  have  trifled  with  another  girl's 
heart,  have  played  the  fool  and  the  mad- 
man. Worst  of  all,  you  have  murdered  the 
horse  that  loved  and  trusted  you,  your  beau- 
tiful Roland,  who  three  times  last  night  saved 
you  from  suicide,  and  would  have  carried 
you  safely  to  the  end,  had  it  been  in  the  pow- 
er of  flesh  and  blood.  Don't  you  think  Ro- 
land should  be  up  here,  and  you  there,  on 
that  blood-stained  quartz  ?  " 

Antoine  broke  out  furiously,  "  It's  no  one's 
business — 

"  Antoine,"  said  the  school-master,  "  If  I 
had  not  known  of  these  things,  and  had  not 
followed  your  track,  you  would  perish  here, 


in  unspeakable  agonies  of  thirst  and  pain. 
And  your  unshrived  skeleton  would  bleach 
white  on  these  rocks.  Do  you  wish  I  had 
not  come?" 

"  I  thought  I  would  rather  die  than  give 
her  up,"  muttered  the  young  fellow. 

"Because  you  did  not  love  her.  When  a 
man  really  loves  a  woman,  he  wooes  her 
with  patience  and  courage,  more  by  deeds 
than  by  words;  it  would  be  utterly  impossi- 
ble for  him  to  frighten  her,  threaten  suicide, 
dash  off  into  the  darkness,  and  leave  her 
alone  in  the  forest.  You  never  really  loved 
Flora.  You  have  never  loved  anyone  but 
yourself.  Love  is  self-forgetfulness." 

Antoine  lay  a  moment  in  silence ;  then, 
surrendering  with  the  completeness  of  his 
temperament,  he  looked  up  with  his  dark 
and  beautiful  eyes  full  of  penitence,  just  as 
Martin  came  down  the  hill  shouting,  "They're 
coming,  and  we'll  have  him  up  in  a  hurry." 

"  Who  are  coming  ?  "  asked  Rawlins. 

"  Kester  and  his  hired  men.  That's  Kes- 
ter's  dairy  ranch,  three  miles  from  his  farm. 
It's  seven  miles  back  to  father's,  an'  we've 
rode  nigh  twelve  miles,  counting  the  turns. 
I  met  Kester,"  he  went  on  as  he  came  to 
the  school-master's  side;  "he  comes  over 
here  every  Saturday — and  I  told  him  Roland 
ate  loco-weed,  got  mach'e,  spang  crazy,  sir, 
and  run  off  with  Antoine." 

It  was  a  brilliant  explanation;  no  one  in 
all  that  mountain  land  would  doubt  it.  But 
looking  at  the  death  scene  below,  at  the 
gathering  vultures  slow  wheeling  above  their 
prey,  remembering  Roland's  faithfulness  to 
the  end,  this  last  requirement,  this  staining 
his  royal  memory  to  shield  his  "  mache  " 
master,  smote  Rawlins's  heart  with  pity  and 
sorrow. 

"  And  what  did  Kester  say,  Martin  ?  " 

The  boy  laughed  :  "  He  said  Roland  was 
the  best  horse  on  Churn  Creek,  but  that  An- 
toine wasn't  no  favorite  of  his." 

Antoine's  face  flushed  red.  "Take  me 
home,"  he  cried.  "  I  won't  go  to  Kester's.' 

"  You  must,  my  dear  fellow;  it  is  the  only 
way,"  said  Rawlins.  "  Every  minute  is  pre- 
cious. You  have  lain  here  since  daybreak. 
Now,  Martin,  ride  for  a  surgeon." 


646 


Is  Modern  Science  Pantheistic  ? 


[Dec. 


Down  the  hill  they  ran  a  few  minutes 
later,  six  healthy,  big-hearted  men,  Kester 
foremost.  When  he  saw  Antoine,  the  tears 
sprang  to  his  eyes  and  his  voice  trembled. 

"  It's  blame  rough.  Never  mind  the  hard 
things  I've  said  of  ye,  Antoine.  Jest  look  at 
thet  horse!  Antoine,  ye  did  hev  an  orful 
ride.  Now,  boys,  chop  off  them  tree-tops, 
an'  whack  up  a  litter,  an'  run  for  some  blan- 
kets ;  an'  you,  Ad,  skit  out  on  the  teacher's 
hoss  an'  bring  Mary,  an'  the  ol'  woman  to  the 
dairy  ranch.  Darn  it,  hurry  up  !  work  live- 
lier !  Who  ever  saw  so  cussed  lazy  a  crowd  ! " 
And  Kester  pushed  one  of  his  men  aside, 
seized  a  hatchet,  and  began  hewing  a  path 
through  the  bushes. 

It  took  a  long  time  to  bring  Antoine  to 
the  top  of  the  ravine,  and  then  he  had  to  be 
carried  across  the  fields  with  great  gentle- 
ness, for  the  pain  of  his  hurts  was  increasing. 
Before  the  party  reached  the  rude  cabin 
door,  Mrs.  Kester  and  Mary  had  arrived  on 
horseback — for  every  one  rides  in  the  moun- 
tains. 

Mary,  quiet  and  serious-eyed,  was  deftly 
helping  everywhere,  bringing  cool  water  from 
the  spring,  smoothing  the  pillows,  moving 
noiselessly  about,  the  model  of  a  nurse.  A 
look  of  bewilderment  yet  rested  in  her  eyes 
at  the  strangeness  of  this  sudden  call,  but 
the  tone  in  which  she  spoke  to  Antoine  was 
serene,  sympathetic,  judicious.  She  had  come 
there  to  nurse,  not  Antoine  Michenay— not 
the  man  she  loved— but  a  wounded  and 


suffering  fellow-mortal.  The  girlishness  was 
gone;  she  was  a  woman,  and  able  to  keep 
her  secrets. 

Rawlins  left  Shasta  at  the  end  of  that  term 
of  school.  Changes  came  in  his  own  per- 
sonal affairs,  and  he  never  saw  again  its  green 
valleys,  its  rushing  rivers,  its  snowy  peaks, 
its  genial  pioneers  in  camp  and  cabin :  but 
he  wrote  to  his  old  pupils,  and  had  letters 
from  them  ;  and  after  half  a  dozen  years,  in 
one  of  these  letters  occurred  the  following 
paragraph  : 

"We  have  a  little  church  now,  and  it  was 
dedicated  yesterday  by  the  ministers  from 
Millburn  and  Shasta.  It  is  built  in  the  small 
clearing,  near  where  that  splendid  lot  of 
mountain  lilies  used  to  grow.  Some  of  the 
girls  filled  a  pitcher  with  them,  and  set  it  on 
the  pulpit,  and  the  minister  spoke  about 
them  in  his  sermon.  But  after  the  sermon, 
what  do  you  think  happened  ?  Antoine 
Michenay  walked  over  and  gave  his  arm  to 
Mary  Kester ;  then  they  went  right  up  the 
aisle,  and  stood  before  the  minister,  and 
were  married.  There  were  no  bridesmaids, 
but  it  looked  as  pretty  as  a  picture.  We  all 
like  Antoine  better  now  than  we  used  to;  he 
has  been  nicer  and  nicer  ever  since  he  was 
hurt  so,  and  crippled  so  long;  and  every- 
body knows  Mary  Kester  is  the  best  and 
prettiest  girl  east  of  the  Sacramento.  An- 
toine is  building  a  house,  and  planting  an 
orchard  in  the  big  field  across  the  river  from 
the  old  Michenay  place." 

Charles  Howard  Shinn. 


IS  MODERN  SCIENCE   PANTHEISTIC? 

[A  Paper  presented  at  the  Concord  School  of  Philosophy,  July  3ist,   I885-1] 


IN   turning   over  the  foregoing   question 
for  several  months,  I  have  become  more  and 

1  The  present  article  was  written  as  an  introduction  to 
a  "  Symposium  "  on  the  question,  "  Is  Pantheism  the 
legitimate  outcome  of  Modern  Science?"  The  other 
contributors  were  Mr.  John  Fiske,  Dr.  F.  E.  Abbot, 
Rev.  Dr.  A.  P.  Peabody,  Dr.  W.  T.  Harris,  and  Dr. 
Edmund  Montgomery.  The  first  part  of  Mr.  Fiske's 
contribution  appeared  in  the  "Atlantic  Monthly  "  for 
November,  entitled  "  The  Idea  of  God." 


more  impressed  with  the  conviction  that  any 
satisfactory  answer  to  it  depends  upon  a  clear 
apprehension  of  the  meaning  of  its  terms. 
What  is  pantheism  ?  And  what  features  are 
there  in  modern  science  that  can  give  color 
to  the  supposition  that  pantheism  is  its  proper 
result?  Or,  if  such  a  supposition  is  well 
founded,  why  should  the  result  be  received 
as  undesirable? — if  science  establishes,  or 


1885.] 


Is  Modern  Science  Pantheistic  f 


647 


clearly  tends  to  establish,  the  pantheistic 
view  of  the  universe,  why  should  this  awaken 
alarm  ?  What  hostility  to  the  vital  interests 
of  human  nature  can  there  be  in  such  a 
view  ?  Can  there  be  a  possible  antagonism 
between  the  truth  and  the  real  interests  of 
man  ? 

The  question  before  us  probably  does  not 
convey  to  most  minds  the  depth  and  inten- 
sity of  interest  which  is  so  manifestly  con- 
veyed by  the  question  of  Immortality  recently 
discussed; — at  least,  not  on  its  surface.  Yet 
a  consideration  of  it  in  the  detail  of  the  sub- 
sidiary questions  that  have  just  been  men- 
tioned, will  not  only  secure  the  clearness 
requisite  to  an  intelligent  answer,  but  will 
bring  the  real  depth  of  its  interest  into  view, 
and  will  show  this  to  be  no  less  profound, 
while  it  is  far  more  comprehensive,  than 
that  of  the  former  problem.  It  is  for  this 
reason  that  I  venture  to  offer  the  reflections 
that  have  passed  in  my  own  mind,  in  the 
endeavor  to  clear  up  the  detailed  questions 
that  the  general  problem  involves.  In  the  hope 
of  contributing  something  towards  that  defi- 
nite apprehension  of  its  bearings  which  is 
indispensable  to  any  real  and  permanent 
effect  of  its  discussion,  I  will  proceed  to  con- 
sider those  questions  in  their  proper  suc- 
cession. 

WHAT  PANTHEISM  is. 

•Of  the  several  questions  that  I  have  speci- 
fied, perhaps  none  is  surrounded  with  such 
vagueness  and  obscurity  as  the  first — What  is 
pantheism  ?  The  generally  recognized  de- 
fenders of  religion,  the  theologians  who 
speak  with  the  hoary  authority  and  with  the 
weight  of  presumptive  evidence  that  the  tra- 
ditional and,  indeed,  historic  bodies  of  or- 
ganized and  instituted  religion  naturally  im- 
part, are  in  the  habit  of  drawing  a  sharp 
verbal  distinction  between  theism  and  pan- 
theism, as  they  also  do  between  theism  and 
deism  ;  but  when  the  independent  and  un- 
biased thinker,  anxious  for  clearness  and 
precision,  inquires  after  the  real  distinction 
intended  by  these  names,  he  hardly  finds  it 
in  any  sense  that  awakened  thought  will  rec- 
ognize as  at  once  intelligible  and  reasonable. 


We  constantly  hear  that  theism  is  contra- 
dicted by  both  deism  and  pantheism :  by  the 
one,  through  its  assertion  of  the  divine  per- 
sonality at  the  expense  of  the  divine  revela- 
tion and  providence ;  by  the  other,  through 
its  assertion  of  the  divine  omnipresence  at 
the  expense  of  the  separateness  of  the  divine 
personality  from  the  world.  We  hear  con- 
stantly, too,  that  theism,  to  be  such,  must 
teach  that  there  is  a  being  who  is  truly  God, 
or  that  the  First  Principle  of  the  universe  is  a 
HOLY  PERSON,  who  has  revealed  his  nature 
and  his  will  to  his  intelligent  creatures,  and 
who  superintends  their  lives  and  destinies 
with  an  incessant  providence  that  aims,  by 
an  all  pervading  interference  in  the  events 
of  the  world,  to  secure  their  obedience  to 
his  will  as  the  sole  sufficient  condition  of 
their  blessedness.  All  this,  however,  is  but 
an  abstract  and  very  vague  formula,  after  all. 
Of  the  quomodo  for  reconciling  the  contra- 
diction whose  extremes  are  represented  by 
the  deism  and  the  pantheism  which  it  con- 
demns, it  has  nothing  to  say.  How  the  di- 
vine personality  is  to  be  thought  so  as  to  corn- 
port  with  the  divine  omnipresence,  or  how 
the  omnipresent  providence  of  God  is  to  be 
reconciled  with  his  distinctness  from  the 
world,  the  general  proclamation  of  orthodox 
theism  has  no  power  to  show.  And  when 
we  pass  from  the  general  formula  to  the.  de- 
sired details,  we  are  too  often  then  made 
aware  that  the  professedly  theistic  doctrine 
is  hampered  up  with  a  mass  of  particulars 
which  are,  in  truth,  profoundly  at  variance 
with  its  own  principle;  that  confusion  or 
contradiction  reigns  where  clearness  ought 
to  be;  that  merely  anthropomorphic  and  me- 
chanical conceptions  usurp  the  place  of  the 
required  divine  and  spiritual  realities.  We 
discover,  for  instance,  that,  in  the  mechan- 
ical interpretation  of  theism,  every  doctrine 
is  construed  as  deism  that  refuses  its  assent 
to  a  discontinuous  and  special  providence, 
or  to  an  inconstant,  limited,  and  contranat- 
ural  revelation;  and  that,  on  the  other  hand, 
every  theory  is  condemned  as  pantheism  that 
denies  the  separation  of  God  from  the  world, 
and  asserts  instead  his  omnipresent  imma- 
nence in  it.  And  we  even  find  that,  in  the 


648 


Is  Modern  Science  Pantheistic  ? 


[Dec. 


hands  of  such  interpreters,  theism  is  identi- 
fied with  the  belief  in  mechanical  and  arti- 
ficial theories  of  the  quomodo  of  atonement, 
or,  as  such  writers  are  fond  of  calling  it, 
of  "  the  plan  of  salvation."  Into  the  right- 
ful place  of  the  sublime  fact  of  the  all-per- 
vading providence  and  all-transforming  grace 
that  makes  eternally  for  righteousness,  are 
set  hypothetical  explanatory  schemes,  of  ex- 
piation by  sacrifice,  of  appeasal  by  the  suf- 
fering of  the  innocent^  of  ransom  by  blood, 
of  federal  covenant  and  imputation,  of  salva- 
tion by  faith  alone ;  and  the  theories  of  the 
divine  nature  and  administration  which  omit 
these  details,  or  refuse  to  take  them  literally, 
are  stamped  as  deism  or  as  pantheism,  even 
though  the  omission  or  refusal  be  dictated 
by  a  perception  of  the  incompatibility  of  the 
rejected  schemes  with  the  fundamental  prin- 
ciples of  ethics,  and,  therefore,  with  the  very 
nature  of  divine  revelation.  And  thus,  in 
the  end,  by  mere  confusion  of  thought,  and 
by  inability  to  rise  above  conceptions  couched 
in  the  limited  forms  of  space  and  of  time, 
the  original  theistic  formula,  which,  in  its 
abstract  setting  off  of  theism  against  deism 
and  pantheism,  is  quite  unobjectionable,  and 
indeed,  so  far  as  it  goes,  entirely  correct,  is 
brought  into  contradiction  with  its  own 
essential  idea. 

Still,  it  must  never  be  forgotten  that  these 
ill-grounded  efforts  at  the  completer  defini- 
tion of  theism  are  made  in  behalf  of  a  real 
distinction.  We  shall  not  fail  to  find  it  true, 
I  think,  that  there  is  a  view  of  the  world  for 
which  deism  may  be  a  very  proper  name,  and 
another  view  which  may  most  appropriately 
be  called  pantheism  ;  that  these  are  radically 
distinct  from  theism,  defined  as  the  doctrine 
of  a  personal  Creator  who  reveals  himself  by 
omnipresent  immanence  in  the  world,  to  the 
end  of  transforming  it,  through  the  agencies 
of  moral  freedom,  into  his  own  image,  and 
of  establishing  a  realm  of  self-determining 
persons,  who  freely  and  immortally  do  his 
will.  Nor,  as  I  believe,  shall  we  fail  to  find 
that  the  doctrines  named  deism  and  panthe- 
ism are  historic  doctrines  ;  that  they  are  not 
merely  conceivable  abstractions,  but  have 
been  advocated  by  actual  men,  of  a  very 


real  persuasion  and  a  very  discernible  in 
fluence.  Nor  can  I  doubt  that  these  two 
doctrines,  in  their  deviations  from  the  theis- 
tic theory,  will  be  recognized  by  our  sound 
judgment  as  defects,  and  consequently  be 
reckoned  as  injurious  opinions.  Only  it 
must  be  understood  that  the  sole  ground  of 
this  judgment  is  to  be  our  untrammeled  ra- 
tional conviction  ;  and  that  if  we  were  to  find 
this  conviction  on  the  side  of  deism  or  of 
pantheism,  we  ought  none  of  us  to  hesitate 
to  take  the  bne  or  the  other  as  the  sounder 
and  more  commendable  view. 

In  asking,  now,  what  pantheism  exactly  is, 
we  may  avail  ourselves  of  a  useful  clue,  for  a 
beginning,  in  the  apparent  meaning  of  the 
name  itself.  The  derivation  of  this  from  the 
two  Greek  words  pan,  all,  and  theos,  God, 
would  seem  to  make  it  mean  either  (i)  that 
the  All  is  God,  or  else  (2)  that  God  is  all — 
that  God  alone  really  exists.  The  name, 
then,  hints  at  two  very  distinct  doctrines  :  it 
signifies  either  (i)  that  the  mere  total  of  par- 
ticular existences  is  God,  in  other  words,  that 
the  universe,  as  we  commonly  call  it,  is  itself 
the  only  absolute  and  real  being ;  or  (2)  that 
God,  the  absolute  Being,  is  the  only  real  being 
— all  finite  existence  is  merely  his  transitory 
form  of  appearance,  and  is  thus,  in  truth,  il- 
lusion. We  might  convey  the  one  or  the 
other  of  these  diverse  doctrines  by  the  name, 
according  as  we  should  pronounce  it,  pan- 
theism  or  pan-//^ism.  In  either  way,  the 
word  may  be  made  to  cover  an  absolute  iden- 
tification of  God  and  the  universe.  In  the 
former  way,  God  is  merged  in  the  universe  ; 
in  the  latter,  the  universe  is  merged  in  God. 

And,  in  fact,  pantheism,  as  an  historic 
theory,  has  actually  presented  itself  in  these 
two  forms.  The  doctrine  has  come  forward 
in  a  considerable  variety  of  expressions  or 
schemes  of  exposition,  such  as  those  of 
Heraclitus,  Parmenides,  and  the  Stoics,  in 
ancient  times,  not  to  speak  of  the  vast  sys- 
tems lying  at  the  basis  of  the  Hindu  religions; 
or  those  of  Bruno  and  Vanini,  Schelling  (in 
his  early  period),  Oken,  Schopenhauer,  and 
Harttnann,  in  our  modern  era.  But  various 
as  are  these  schemes,  they  may  all  be  recog- 
nized as  falling  into  one  or  the  other  of  the 


1885.] 


Is  Modern  Science  Pantheistic  ? 


649 


two  comprehensive  forms  which  we  have  just 
seen  to  be  suggested  by  the  common  name. 
These  two  forms  may  evidently  be  styled, 
respectively,  the  atheistic  and  the  acosmic 
forms  of  pantheism,  as  the  one  puts  the  sen- 
sible universe  in  the  place  of  God,  and  thus 
annuls  his  being,  while  the  other  annuls  the 
reality  of  the  cosmos,  or  world  of  finite  exist- 
ences, by  reducing  the  latter  to  mere  modes  of 
the  being  of  the  one  and  only  Universal  Sub- 
stance.    Both  forms  are  manifestly  open  to 
the  criticism  visited  upon  pantheism  by  the 
standard  defenders  of  theism,  namely,  that 
it  contradicts  the  essence  of  the  divine  nature 
by  sacrificing  the  distinctness  of  the  divine 
personality  to  a  passion  for  the  divine  omni- 
presence :  the  sacrifice  of  the  distinctness,  at 
any  rate,  is  obvious,  even  if  the  incompati- 
bility of  such  a  loss  of  distinct  being  with  the 
true  nature  of  a  godhead  be  not  at  first  so 
evident;  though  that  this  loss  z> incompatible 
with  a  real  divinity    will,   I  think,  present- 
ly appear.     And  both  forms  of  pantheism 
are,  in  the  last  analysis,  atheisms  ;  the  one 
obviously,  the  other  implicitly  so.     The  one 
may   be   more   exactly    named    a    physical 
or  theoretical  atheism,  as  it  dispenses  with 
the  distinct  existence  of  God  in  his  function 
of  Creator  ;  the  other  may  properly  be  called 
a  moral  or  practical  atheism,  as,  in  destroy- 
ing the  freedom  and  the  immortality  of  the 
individual,    it   dispenses    with    God   in    his 
function  of  Redeemer.     Under  either  form, 
the  First  Principle  is  emptied  of  attributes 
that  are  vital  to  deity  :  in  the  first  the  entire 
proper   and    distinct   being   of  God  disap- 
pears ;   in  the  second,  all    those   attributes 
are  lost  that  present  God  in    his   adorable 
characters   of  justice  and  love,  and  in  the 
ultimate  terms  of  his  omniscience  and  omni- 
potence.     Perfect   omniscience  and   omni- 
potence are  only  to  be  realized  in  the  com- 
plete control  of  free  beings,  and  the  creation 
in  them  of  the  divine  image  by  moral  instead 
of  physical  influences. 

THE  RELATION  OF  PANTHEISM  TO  MATERI- 
ALISM AND  IDEALISM. 

IT  will  aid  us  in  a  correct  apprehension 
of  pantheism,  if  we  appreciate  its  relations 


to  other   anti-theistic  forms  of  philosophy, 
particularly  to    materialism,  and  to  what  is 
known  as  subjective  idealism.     It  will  be- 
come clear  that  it  forms  a  higher  synthesis  of 
thought  than  either  of  these.     Its  concep- 
tion of  the  world  may  be  read  out  either  in 
materialistic  or  idealistic  terms;  and  this  is 
true  whether  we  take  it  in  its  atheistic  or  its 
acosmic  form.      Yet,  on  a  first  inspection, 
this  hardly  seems  to  be  the  case.     On  the 
contrary,  one  is  at  first  quite  inclined  to  iden- 
tify its  first  form  with  materialism  outright, 
and  to  recognize  in  its  second  form  a  species 
of  exaggerated  spiritualism  ;  and  hence  to 
contrast  the  two  forms  as  the   materialistic 
and  the  idealistic.   Further  reflection  does  not 
entirely  do  away  with  this  mistake.     For  the 
apparent    identity    of   atheistic    pantheism 
with  materialism  is  very  decided;  and  the 
only  correction  in  our   first  judgment  that 
we  next  feel  impelled  to  make,  is  to  recog- 
nize the  double  character  of  acosmic  panthe- 
ism.   The  one  and  only  Universal  Substance, 
in  order  to  include  an  exhaustive  summary  of 
all  the  phenomena  of  experience,  must  be 
taken,  no  doubt,  as  both  extending  and  be- 
ing  conscious.     But  is  the  Universal  Sub- 
stance an  extended  being  that  thinks  ?  or  is 
it  a   thinking   being  that  apprehends   itself 
under  a    peculiar   mode    of   consciousness 
called  extension  ?     In  other  words,    is  the 
thinking    of    the    one    Eternal    Substance 
grounded  in  and  mediated  by  its  extended 
being?  or  has  its  extension  existence  only  in 
and  through  its  thinking  ?     Which  attribute 
is  primary  and  essential,  and  makes  the  oth- 
er its  derivative  and  function  ?     Under  the 
conception  of  the  sole  existence  of  the  Ab- 
solute, the  question  is  inevitable,  irresistible, 
and  irreducible.     It  thus  becomes  plain  that, 
to  say  nothing  of  a  third  hypothesis  of  the 
mutually  independent  parellelism  of  the  two 
attributes,  acosmic  pantheism  may  carry  ma- 
terialism as  unquestionably  as  it  carries  ideal- 
ism, though  not,  indeed,  so  naturally  or  co- 
herently.    And  sharper  inquiry  at  last  makes 
it  equally  clear  that  atheistic  pantheism  will 
carry  idealism  as  consistently  as  it  carries 
materialism,  if  doubtless  less  naturally.     For, 
although  in  the  sum-total  of  the  particular 
existences  there  must  be  recognized  a  grada- 


650 


Is  Modern  Science  Pantheistic  ? 


[Dec. 


tion  from  such  existences  as  are  unconscious 
up  to  those  that  are  completely  conscious, 
and  although  it  would  be  the  more  natural 
and  obvious  view,  to  read  the  series  as  a  de- 
velopment genetically   upward    from  atoms 
to  minds,  still  the  incomprehensibility  of  the 
transit   from    the    unconscious  to  the  con- 
scious   cannot  fail  to    suggest  the   counter 
hypothesis,  and  the    whole   series    may    be 
conceived  as  originating  ideally  in  the  per- 
ceptive constitution  and  experience  of  the 
conscious  members  of  it.     There   is,  how- 
ever, a  marked  distinction  between  the  two 
orders  of  idealism  given  respectively  by  the 
acosmic  pantheism  and  by  the  atheistic  :  the 
former,  grounded  in  the  consciousness  of  the 
Universal  Substance,  has  naturally  a  univer- 
sal, and  in  so  far,  an  objective  character ;  the 
latter  has  no  warrant  except  the  thought  in  a 
particular  consciousness,  and  no  valid  means 
of  raising  this  warrant  even  into  a  common 
or  general  character,  much  less  into  univer- 
sality ;  it  is  accordingly  particular  and  sub- 
jective.    Pantheism,  then,  in  both  its  forms, 
is  not  only  a  more  comprehensive  view  of  the 
world  than  either  materialism  or  any  one- 
sided idealism,  whether  abstractly  universal 
or  only  subjective,  inasmuch   as   it    makes 
either  of  them   possible ;   but  it  is  also   a 
deeper  and  more   organic  view,  because  it 
does  bring  in,  at  least  in  a  symbolic  fashion, 
the  notion    of  a    universal   in   some  vague 
sense  or  other.     This  advantage,  however,  it 
does  not  secure  with  any  fullness  except  in 
the    acosmic    form.      Indeed,   the  atheistic 
form  is  so  closely  akin  to  the  less  organic 
theories  of  materialism  and  subjective  ideal- 
ism, that  we  may  almost  say  we  do  not  come 
to  pantheism  proper  until  we  pass  out  of  the 
atheistic  sort,  and  find  ourselves  in  the  acos- 
mic.   An  additional  gain  afforded  by  panthe- 
ism, and  eminently  by  acosmic  pantheism,  is 
the  conception  of  the  intimate  union  of  the 
First  Principle  with  the  world  of  particular 
phenomena  :  the  creative  cause  is  stated  as 
spontaneously  manifesting  its  own  nature  in 
the  creation ;  it   abides  immanently  in  the 
latter,  and  is  no  longer  conceived  as  separ- 
ated from  it  and  therefore  itself  specifically 
limited  in  space  and   in  time,  as  it  is  con- 


ceived in  the  cruder  dualistic  and  mechani- 
cal view  of  things,  with  which  human  efforts 
at  theological  theory  so  naturally  begin. 

THE  CONTRAST  BETWEEN  PANTHEISM  AND 
DEISM. 

AT  this  point,  we  strike  the  eminent  merit 
of  pantheism,  as  contrasted  with  deism.  By 
the  latter  name,  it  has  been  tacitly  agreed  to 
designate  that  falling-short  of  theism  which 
stands  counter  to  pantheism.  As  the  latter 
is  defective  by  confounding  God  and  the 
world  in  an  indistinguishable  identity,  so  de- 
ism comes  short  by  setting  God  in  an  isolat- 
ed and  irreducible  separation  from  the 
world.  Deism  thus  falls  partly  under  the 
same  condemnation  of  materiality  which  a 
rational  judgment  pronounces  upon  sensuous 
theism — with  its  physically  anthropomorphic 
conceptions  of  the  Creator,  dwelling  in  his 
peculiar  quarter  of  space  called  Heaven, 
and  its  mechanical  theory  of  his  communi- 
cation with  the  world  by  way  of  "  miracle  " 
alone — by  way,  that  is,  independent,  and 
even  subversive,  of  the  ordered  process  of 
means  and  end  in  nature.1  But  while  thus 
suffering  from  mechanical  limitations  in 
thought,  deism  must  still  be  allowed  its  rela- 
tive merit,  too.  That  merit  is  the  criticism 
which  it  makes  upon  the  mechanical  method 
of  physically  anthropomorphic  theism.  If, 
in  the  interest  of  distinguishing  the  Creator 
from  the  creation,  God  is  to  be  thought 
as  capable  of  existing  without  a  world,  and 
as  separated  from  the  creation,  then,  as  deism 
justly  says,  it  is  purely  arbitrary  to  declare  the 
separation  overcome  by  means  of  mechanical 
miracle.  Consistency,  and,  in  so  far,  ration- 
ality, would  rather  require  that  the  separation 
be  kept  up ;  and  the  folly  of  the  anthropo- 
morphic dualism  is  made  to  display  itself 
in  the  deistic  inference,  which  it  cannot  con- 
sistently refute,  that  the  divine  revelation 
and  providence,  without  which  the  practical 
religion  indispensable  to  the  reality  of  the- 

1 1  must  be  understood  here  as  reflecting  only  upon 
the  popular  thaumaturgical  conceptions  of  the  super- 
natural. The  genuine  doctrine  of  miracle  has,  to  my 
mind,  a  speculative  truth  at  its  basis,  profound  and  irre- 
fragable. 


1885.] 


Is  Modern  Science  Pantheistic? 


651 


ism  cannot  have  being,  are  by  the  separate- 
ness  of  the  divine  existence  rendered  impos- 
sible. 

THE  PERMANENT  INSIGHT  CONTAINED  IN 
PANTHEISM. 

IN  approaching,  then,  the  question,  Why 
should  pantheism  be  regarded  as  a  doctrine 
to  avoid  ?  we  must  be  careful  not  to  neglect 
the  fact  that  it  plays  a  valuable  and,  indeed, 
an  indispensable  part  in  the  formation  of  a 
genuine  theological  theory.  It  is  the  transi- 
tional thought  by  which  we  ascend  out 
of  the  idolatrous  anthropomorphism  of  sensu- 
ous theism  into  that  complete  and  rational 
theism  which  has  its  central  illumination  in 
the  realized  truth  of  the  divine  omnipres- 
ence. In  the  immanence  of  God  in  the 
world,  it  finds  the  true  basis — the  rational 
theory — of  the  divine  perpetual  providence; 
in  his  indwelling  in  the  creature,  as  "  the 
Light  which  lighteth  every  man  that  cometh 
into  the  world,"  it  finds  a  like  basis  and  the- 
ory for  the  universal  and  perpetual  divine 
revelation.  Indeed,  in  this  realized  and  now 
fully  uttered  omnipresence  of  God,  and  in 
God's  active  indwelling  in  the  inmost  spirit 
of  man,  it  lays  the  rational  foundation  for 
the  Perpetual  Incarnation,  the  doctrine  of  the 
Divine  Humanity;  and  when  Christianity 
sets  the  doctrine  of  the  Triune  God  in  the 
very  center  of  practical  religion,  pantheism 
prepares  the  way  to  vindicate  it  as  the  genu- 
ine interpreter  of  a  rational  theism.  That 
the  Eternal  eternally  generates  himself  in 
our  higher  human  nature  ;  that  this  Son  of 
Man  is  truly  and  literally  the  Son  of  God, 
and  the  Son  only  begotten  ;  that,  by  the 
discipline  of  life  in  worlds  of  imperfection, 
men,  and  through  them  the  whole  creation, 
ascend  by  devout  faith  (or  fidelity)  toward 
this  Son,  and  by  his  life,  immortally  unto 
God  in  the  Holy  Spirit— this,  the  epit- 
ome and  essence  of  Christian  theism,  first 
becomes  apprehended  as  a  rationally  nat- 
ural truth  in  the  insight  which  pantheism 
brings  with  it,  that  God  is  not  separate 
from  the  world  but  immediately  present 
in  it,  and  that  the  distinction  between  the 


Creator  and  the  creature,  between  the  human 
soul  and  its  redeeming  God,  can  never  be 
truly  stated  as  a  distinction  in  place  and  time, 
as  a  separation  in  space  and  by  a  period. 
And  it  is  not  until  the  pantheistic  insight 
has  been  realized  in  our  minds,  whether  by 
name  or  no  it  matters  not,  that  we  discover 
clearly  that  this  fundamental  religious  truth, 
which  none  of  us,  upon  reflection,  would 
think  of  denying,  and  which  in  some  sense 
we  may  rightly  say  we  have  always  known, 
is  effectually  violated  by  our  ordinary  an- 
thropomorphic conceptions. 

THE    PERMANENT  DEFECT  OF  PANTHEISM. 

BUT  while  this  permanent  insight  of  pan- 
theism must  be  carried  up  into  all  genuine 
theistic  thought,  it  remains  also  true  that  it 
falls  seriously  short  of  the  theological  con- 
ception demanded  by  the  highest  practical 
religion.  For  the  possibility  of  religion  as  a 
practical  power  in  human  life — the  very  con- 
ception of  theism  as  an  operative  force  in 
the  spirit — depends  not  merely  on  the  om- 
nipresent existence  and  work  of  God,  but 
upon  the  freedom  (that  is,  the  unqualified 
reality)  and  the  immortality  of  man.  In- 
deed, if  the  space  permitted,  it  might  clearly 
be  shown  not  only  that  man  cannot  be  prop.- 
erly  man  apart  from  freedom,  immortality, 
and  God,  but  that  God  cannot  be  properly 
God  apart  from  man  and  man's  immortality 
and  freedom  ;  in  other  words,  that  the  self- 
existent,  free  perfection  of  the  Godhead,  by 
virtue  of  its  own  nature,  demands  for  its 
own  fulfilment  the  establishment  and  the 
control  of  a  world  that  is  God's  own  image; 
the  divine  creation  must  completely  reflect 
the  divine  nature,  and  must  therefore  be  a 
world  of  moral  freedom,  self-regulating  and 
eternal.  But  this  demand  of  a  genuine  the- 
ism, pantheism  cannot  meet.  Its  theory, 
whether  in  the  atheistic  or  in  the  acosmic 
form,  lies  in  the  very  contradiction  of  human 
freedom  and  immortality.  Indeed,  we  may 
say,  summarily,  that  the  distinction  between 
theism  and  pantheism,  in  the  loftiest  form  of 
the  latter,  lies  just  in  this — that  theism,  in 
asserting  God,  asserts  human  freedom  and 


652 


7s  Modern  Science  Pantheistic? 


[Dec. 


immortality ;  but  that  pantheism,  while  ap- 
parently asserting  God  to  the  extreme,  de- 
nies his  moral  essence  by  denying  the  im- 
mortality and  the  freedom  of  man. 

WHY  PANTHEISM  is  A  DOCTRINE  TO  BE 
DEPRECATED. 

AND  now  we  see  why  pantheism  is  at  war 
with  the  permanent  interests  of  human  na- 
ture. Those  interests  are  wholly  identified 
with  the  vindication  of  freedom  and  immor- 
tal life ;  and  this,  not  on  the  ground  of  the 
mere  immediate  desire  we  have  for  freedom 
and  permanent  existence,  which  would,  in- 
deed, be  shallow  and  even  unworthy  of  a 
rational  being,  but,  on  the  profound  and  nev- 
er-to-be-shaken foundation  laid  by  reason  in 
in  its  highest  form  of  conscience.  For  when 
this  highest  form  of  reason  is  thoroughly  in- 
terpreted, we  know  that  the  value  of  freedom 
and  immortality  lies  in  their  indispensable- 
ness  to  our  discipline  and  growth  in  divine 
life.  To  no  theory  of  the  world  can  man, 
then,  give  a  willing  and  cordial  adhesion,  if 
it  strikes  at  the  heart  of  his  individual  real- 
ity, and  contradicts  those  hopes  of  ceaseless 
moral  growth  that  alone  make  life  worth  liv- 
ing. Not  in  its  statement  of  the  Godhead 
as  the  all  and  in  all,  taken  by  itself,  but  in 
its  necessarily  consequent  denial  of  the  real- 
ity of  man — of  his  freedom  and  immortal 
growth  in  goodness — is  it  that  pantheism  be- 
trays its  insufficiency  to  meet  the  needs  of 
the  genuine  human  heart.  It  is  true,  to  be 
sure,  that  this  opposition  between  the  doc- 
trine of  the  One  Sole  Reality  and  our  natu- 
ral longings  for  permanent  existence,  or  our 
natural  bias  in  favor  of  freedom  and  respon- 
sibility, in  itself  settles  nothing  as  to  the 
truth  or  falsity  of  the  doctrine.  It  might  be 
that  the  system  of  nature— it  might  be  that 
the  Author  of  nature — is  not  in  sympathy 
or  accord  with  "  the  bliss  for  which  we  sigh." 
But  so  long  as  human  nature  is  what  it  is  ;  so 
long  as  we  remain  prepossessed  in  favor  of 
our  freedom,  and  yearn  for  a  life  that  may 
put  death  itself  beneath  our  feet :  so  long  will 
our  nature  reluctate,  and  even  revolt,  at  the 
prospect  of  having  to  accept  the  pantheistic 


view  ;  so  long  shall  we  inevitably  draw  back 
from  that  vast  and  shadowy  Being,  who,  for 
us  and  for  our  highest  hopes,  must  be  verily 
the  Shadow  of  Death.  Nay,  we  must  go  far- 
ther, and  say  that  even  should  thescienceof  ex- 
ternal nature  prove  pantheism  true,  this  would 
only  array  the  interests  of  science  against 
the  interests  of  man — the  interests  that  man 
can  never  displace  from  their  supreme  seat 
in  his  world,  except  by  abdicating  his  inmost 
nature  and  putting  his  conscience  to  an  open 
shame.  The  pantheistic  voice  of  science 
would  only  proclaim  a  deadlock  in  the  sys- 
tem and  substance  of  truth  itself,  and  herald 
an  implacable  conflict  between  the  law  of 
nature  and  the  law  written  indelibly  in  the 
human  spirit.  The  heart  on  which  the  vis- 
ion of  a  possible  moral  perfection  has  once 
arisen,  and  in  whose  recesses  the  still  and 
solemn  voice  of  duty  has  resounded  with  ma- 
jestic sweetness,  can  never  be  reconciled  to 
the  decree,  though  this  issue  never  so  authen- 
tically from  nature,  that  bids  it  count  respon- 
sible freedom  an  illusion,  and  surrender  ex- 
istence on  that  mere  threshold  of  moral  de- 
velopment which  the  bound  of  our  present 
life  affords.  Such  a  defeat  of  its  most  sacred 
hopes,  the  conscience  can  neither  acquiesce 
in  nor  tolerate.  Nor  can  it  be  appeased  or 
deluded  by  the  pretext  that  annihilation  may 
be  devoutly  accepted  as  self-sacrifice  in  be- 
half of  an  infinite  "  fullness  of  life  "  for  the 
universe — a.  life  in  which  the  individual  con- 
science is  to  have  no  share.  In  defense  of 
this  pantheistic  piety,  quoting  the  patriarch 
of  many  tribulations,  in  his  impassioned  cry: 
"Though  He  slay  me,  yet  will  I  trust  in 
Him  !  "  is  as  vain  as  it  is  profane.  This  is 
only  to  repeat  the  fallacious  paradox  of  those 
grim  and  obsolete  sectarians  who  held  that 
the  test  of  a  state  of  grace  was  "willingness  to 
be  damned  for  the  glory  of  God."  The  spirit 
that  truly  desires  righteousness  longs  with  an 
unerring  instinct  for  immortality  as  the  indis- 
pensable condition  of  entire  righteousness, 
and,  when  invited  to  approve  its  own  immo- 
lation for  the  furtherance  of  the  divine  glory, 
will  righteously  answer  as  a  noble  matron, 
applying  for  admission  to  the  church,  once 
answered  the  inquisitorial  session  of  her  Cal- 


1885.] 


Is  Modern  Science  Pantheistic  ? 


653 


vinistic  society  :  "  I  am  assuredly  not  willing 
to  be  damned  for  the  glory  of  God ;  were  I 
so,  I  should  not  be  here  !  " 

THE  PROFOUND  INTEREST  OF  THE  PANTHE- 
ISTIC PROBLEM. 

THIS  is  what  makes  the  question  of  pan- 
theism, as  a  possible  outcome  of  science,  of 
such  vital  concern.  Science  is  thus  made  to 
appear  as  the  possible  utterer  of  the  doom  of 
our  most  precious  hopes,  the  quencher  of 
those  aspirations  which  have  hitherto  been 
the  soul  of  man's  grandest  as  well  as  of 
his  sublimest  endeavors,  the  destroyer  of 
those  beliefs  which  are  the  real  foundation 
of  the  triumphs  of  civilization — of  all  that 
gives  majesty  and  glory  to  history.  To  pre- 
sent universal  nature  as  the  ocean  in  which 
man  and  his  moral  hopes  are  to  be  swallowed 
up,  is  to  transform  the  universe  for  man  into 
a  system  of  radical  and  irremediable  evil,  and 
thus  to  make  genuine  religion  an  impossibil- 
ity ;  and  not  only  genuine  religion,  but  also 
all  political  union  and  order,  which  stands, 
among  the  affairs  and  institutions  of  this 
world  of  sense,  as  the  outcome  and  the  image 
of  the  religious  vision.  Belief  in  the  radical 
and  sovereign  goodness  of  the  universe  and 
its  Author  and  Sustainer,  is  the  very  es- 
sence of  religious  faith  and  of  political  fealty. 
It  is  impossible  that  either  faith  or  fealty 
can  continue  in  minds  that  have  once  corne 
to  the  realizing  conviction  that  the  whole  of 
which  we  form  a  part,  and  the  originating 
Principle  of  that  whole,  are  hostile,  or  even 
indifferent,  not  merely  to  the  permanent  ex- 
istence of  man,  but  to  his  aspirations  after 
the  fullness  of  moral  life.  A  professed  God 
who  either  cannot  or  will  not  bring  to  ful- 
filment the  longing  after  infinite  moral  growth 
that  has  arisen  in  his  creature,  is  not,  for  such 
a  creature,  and  cannot  be,  true  God  at  all : 

"  The  wish  that  of  the  living  whole 

No  life  may  fail  beyond  the  grave — 
Derives  it  not  from  what  we  have 
The  likest  God  within  the  soul  ? 

"And  he,  shall  he, 

"  Man,  the  last  work,  who  seemed  so  fair, 
Such  splendid  purpose  in  his  eyes, 
Who  rolled  the  psalm  to  wintry  skies, 
Who  built  him  fanes  of  fruitless  prayer — 


"  Who  trusted  God  was  love  indeed, 
And  love  Creation's  final  law, 
Though  Nature,  red  in  tooth  and  claw 
With  ravine,  shrieked  against  his  creed — 

"  Who  loved,  who  suffered  countless  ills, 
Who  battled  for  the  True,  the  Just — 
Be  blown  about  the  desert  dust, 
Or  sealed  within  the  iron  hills  ? 

"No  more? — A  monster  then,  a  dream, 
A  discord  !     Dragons  of  the  prime, 
That  tare  each  other  in  their  slime, 
Were  mellow  music,  matched  with  him  ! " 

It  is  this  profound  feeling,  which  Tennyson 
has  thus  so  faithfully  expressed,  that  gives  to 
the  question  before  us  in  these  days  its  anx- 
ious import.  Let  us  not  fail  to  realize  that 
pantheism  means,  not  simply  the  all-perva- 
sive interblending  and  interpenetration  of 
God  and  the  creation,  but  the  sole  reality  of 
God,  and  the  obliteration  of  freedom,  of  moral 
life  and  of  immortality  for  man. 

WHY  SHOULD  MODERN  SCIENCE  GIVE 
ALARM  OF  PANTHEISM? 

IT  is  urgent,  then,  to  inquire  if  there  is 
anything  in  the  nature  of  modern  science 
that  really  gives  color  to  the  pantheistic  view. 
It  is  obvious  enough  that  there  are  not  want- 
ing philosophers,  or  even  schools  of  philoso- 
phy, who  read  pantheism  in  science  as  sci- 
ence appears  to  them.  But  the  real  question 
is :  Is  such  a  reading  the  authentic  account 
of  the  teachings  of  science  itself?  Here,  we 
must  not  mistake  the  utterances  of  men  of 
science  for  the  unadulterated  teachings  of 
science;  for,  on  this  borderland  of  science  and 
philosophy,  it  need  not  be  surprising  if  men 
familiar  with  only  that  method  of  investiga- 
tion which  science  pursues,  and  not  at  home  in 
the  complex  and  varied  history  of  philosoph- 
ical speculation,  should  sometimes,  or  even 
often,  be  inclined  to  a  hasty  inference  when 
the  borderland  is  reached,  and,  overlooking 
the  fact  that  their  science  and  its  method 
have  necessary  limits,  take  that  view  in  phi- 
losophy which  the  illegitimate  extension  of 
their  method  would  indicate.  Disregarding, 
then,  the  mere  opinions  of  certain  cultivators 
ot  science,  we  are  here  to  ask  the  directer, 
more  searching  and  more  pertinent  question, 
What  is  there — if,  indeed,  there  be  anything 


Is  Modern  Science  Pantheistic  f 


[Dec. 


— in  the  nature  of  science  itself,  as  science  is 
now  known — what  are  the  elements  in  it  and 
in  its  method,  that  might  be  taken  to  point 
toward  a  pantheistic  interpretation  of  the 
universe  and  its  Source  ? 

And  to  this  it  must  in  all  candor  be  an- 
swered, that  both  in  the  method  of  modern 
science,  and  in  the  two  commanding  princi- 
ples that  have  legitimately  resulted  from  that 
method,  there  is  that  which  unquestionably 
suggests  the  pantheistic  view.  Nothing  less 
than  the  most  cautious  discrimination,  found- 
ed on  a  precise  and  comprehensive  knowl- 
edge of  the  course  of  philosophical  inquiry, 
can  detect  the  exact  reach,  the  limits,  and 
the  real  significance  of  this  suggestion,  or 
expose  the  illegitimacy  of  following  it  with- 
out reserve.  The  trait  to  which  I  am  now 
referring  in  the  method  of  science  is  its  rigor- 
ously experimental  and  observational  char- 
acter; indeed,  its  strictly  empirical  or  tenta- 
tive character.  And  the  two  commanding 
results,  which  now  in  turn  play  an  organizing 
part  in  the  subsidiary  method  of  all  the  sci- 
ences, are  (i)  the  principle  of  the  conserva- 
tion of  energy,  and  (2)  the  principle  of  evo- 
lution manifesting  itself  in  the  concomitant 
phenomenon  of  natural  selection — the  strug- 
gle of  each  species  with  its  environment  for 
existence,  and  the  survival  of  the  fittest.  The 
apparent  implications  of  this  method  and  of 
these  two  principles  accordingly  deserve, 
and  must  receive,  our  most  careful  present 
attention. 

How,  then,  does  the  experimental,  or, 
more  accurately,  the  empirical,  method  of 
science  suggest  the  doctrine  of  pantheism? 
By  limiting  our  serious  belief  to  the  evidence 
of  experience — exclusively  to  the  evidence 
of  the  senses.  The  method  of  science  de- 
mands that  nothing  shall  receive  the  high 
credence  accorded  to  science,  except  it  is 
attested  by  the  evidence  of  unquestionable 
presentation  in  sensible  experience.  All  the 
refinements  of  scientific  method — the  cau- 
tions of  repeated  observation,  the  probing 
subtleties  of  experiment,  the  niceties  in  the 
use  of  instruments  of  precision,  the  principle 
of  reduction  to  mean  or  average,  the  allow- 
ance for  the  "  personal  equation,"  the  final 


casting  out  of  the  largest  mean  of  possible 
errors  in  experiment  or  observation,  by  such 
methods,  for  instance,  as  that  of  least  squares 
— all  these  refinements  are  for  the  single 
purpose  of  making  it  certain  that  our  basis 
of  evidence  shall  be  confined  to  what  has 
actually  been  present  in  the  world  of  sense ; 
we  are  to  know  beyond  question  that  such 
and  such  conjunctions  of  events  have  actually 
been  present  to  the  senses,  and  precisely 
what  it  is  that  thus  remains  indisputable  fact 
of  sense,  after  all  possible  additions  or  mis- 
constructions of  our  mere  thought  or  imagi- 
nation have  been  cancelled  out.  Such  con- 
junctions in  unquestionable  sense-experience, 
isolated  and  purified  from  foreign  admixture 
by  carefully  contrived  experiment,  we  are 
then  to  raise  by  generalization  into  a  tentative 
expectation  of  their  continued  recurrence  in 
the  future; — tentative  expectation,  we  say, 
because  the  rigor  of  the  empirical  method 
warns  us  that  the  act  of  generalization  is  a 
step  beyond  the  evidence  of  experience,  and 
must  not  be  reckoned  any  part  of  science, 
except  as  it  continues  to  be  verified  in  sub- 
sequent experience  of  the  particular  event. 
Thus  natural  science  climbs  its  slow  and 
cautious  way  along  the  path  of  what  it  calls 
the  laws  of  nature ;  but  it  gives  this  name 
only  in  the  sense  that  there  has  been  a  con- 
stancy in  the  conjunctions  of  past  experience, 
a  verification  of  the  tentative  generalization 
suggested  by  this,  and  a  consequent  contin- 
uance of  the  same  tentative  expectancy, 
which,  however,  waits  for  renewed  verifica- 
tion, and  refrains  from  committing  itself  un- 
reservedly to  the  absolute  invariability  of  the 
law  to  which  it  refers.  Unconditional  uni- 
versality, not  to  say  necessity,  of  its  ascer- 
tained conjunctions,  natural  science  neither 
claims  nor  admits. 

Now,  to  a  science  which  thus  accepts  the 
testimony  of  experience  with  this  undoubting 
and  instinctive  confidence  that  never  stops 
to  inquire  what  the  real  grounds  of  the  pos- 
sibility of  experience  itself  may  be,  or  whence 
experience  can  possibly  derive  this  infallibil- 
ity of  evidence,  but  assumes,  on  the  con- 
trary, that  the  latter  is  underived  and  imme- 
diate— to  such  a  science  it  must  seem  that  we 


1885.] 


Js  Modern  Science  Pantheistic  ? 


655 


have,  and  can  have,  no  verifiable  assurance 
of  any  existence  but  the  Whole — the  mere 
aggregate  of  sense-presented  particulars  hith- 
erto actual  or  yet  to  become  so.  Thus  the 
very  method  of  natural  science  tends  to  ob- 
literate the  feeling  of  the  transcendent,  or 
at  least  to  destroy  its  credit  at  the  bar  of 
disciplined  judgment,  and  in  this  way  to 
bring  the  votary  of  natural  investigation  to 
regard  the  Sum  of  Things  as  the  only  reality. 

On  this  view,  the  outcome  of  the  scientific 
method  might  seem  to  be  restricted  to  that 
form  of  pantheism  which  I  have  named  the 
atheistic.  Most  obviously,  the  inference 
would  be  to  materialism,  the  lowest  and 
most  natural  form  of  such  pantheism ;  yet 
subtler  reasoning,  recognizing  that  in  the 
last  resort  experience  must  be  consciousness, 
sees  in  the  subjective  idealism  which  states 
the  Sum  of  Things  as  the  aggregate  of  the 
perceptions  of  its  conscious  members,  the 
truer  fulfillment  of  the  method  that  pre- 
supposes the  sole  and  immediate  validity  of 
experience.  But  beyond  even  this  juster 
idealistic  construction,  of  atheistic  panthe- 
ism— beyond  either  form  of  atheistic  pan- 
theism, in  fact — the  mere  method  of  nat- 
ural science  would  appear  to  involve  con- 
sequences which,  even  granting  the  legiti- 
macy of  belief  in  the  transcendent,  would 
render  the  transcendent  God  the  sole  reality; 
that  is,  would  bring  us  to  acosmic  pantheism. 
For  the  empirical  method,  so  far  from  vindi- 
cating either  the  freedom  of  the  personal 
will  or  the  immortality  of  the  soul,  withholds 
belief  from  both,  as  elements  that  can  never 
come  within  the  bounds  of  possible  experi- 
ence ;  so  that  the  habit  of  regarding  nothing 
but  the  empirically  attested  as  part  of  science 
dismisses  these  two  essential  conditions  of 
man's  reality  beyond  the  pale  of  true  knowl- 
edge, and  into  the  discredited  limbo  of  un- 
supported assumptions. 

It  is,  however,  not  until  we  pass  from  the 
bare  method  of  natural  science  to  its  two 
great  modern  consequences,  and  take  in  their 
revolutionary  effect  as  subsidiaries  of  method 
in  every  field  of  natural  inquiry,  that  we  feel 
the  full  force  of  the  pantheistic  strain  which 
pulls  with  such  a  tension  in  many  modern 


scientific  minds.  It  is  in  the  principle  of 
the  conservation  of  energy,  and  in  that  of 
evolution,  particularly  as  viewed  under  its 
aspect  of  natural  selection,  that  we  encounter 
the  full  force  of  the  pantheistic  drift.  And 
it  seems,  at  the  first  encounter,  irresistible. 
That  all  the  changes  in  the  universe  of  ob- 
jective experience  are  resolvable  into  mo- 
tions, either  molar  or  molecular ;  that  in 
spite  of  the  incalculable  variety  of  these 
changes  of  motion,  the  sum-total  of  move- 
ment and  the  average  direction  of  the'  mo- 
tions is  constant  and  unchangeable ;  that  an 
unvarying  correlation  of  all  the  various 
modes  of  motion  exists,  so  that  each  is  con- 
vertible into  its  correlate  at  a  constant  nu- 
merical rate,  and  so  that  each,  having  passed 
the  entire  circuit  of  correlated  forms,  returns 
again  into  its  own  form  undiminished  in 
amount :  all  this  seems  to  point  unmistak- 
ably to  a  primal  energy — a  ground-form  of 
moving  activity — one  and  unchangeable  in 
itself,  immanent  in  but  not  transcendent  of 
its  sum  of  correlated  forms,  while  each  in- 
stance of  each  form  is  only  a  transient  and 
evanescent  mode  of  the  single  reality.  Nor, 
apparently,  is  this  inference  weakened  by  the 
later  scholium  upon  the  principle  of  the  con- 
servation of  energy,  known  as  the  principle 
of  the  dissipation  of  energy.  On  the  con- 
trary, the  pantheistic  significance  of  the  form- 
er principle  seems  to  be  greatly  deepened  by 
this.  Instead  of  a  constant  whole  of  mov- 
ing activity,  exhibited  in  a  system  of  corre- 
lated modes  of  motion,  we  now  have  a  vaster 
correlation  between  the  sum  of  actual  ener- 
gies and  a  vague  but  prodigious  mass  of  po- 
tential energy — the  "waste-heap,"  as  the 
physicist  Balfour  Stewart  has  pertinently 
named  it,  of  the  power  of  the  universe.  In- 
to this  vast  "waste-heap"  all  the  active  en- 
ergies in  the  world  of  sense  seem  to  be  con- 
tinually vanishing,  and  to  be  destined  at 
last  to  vanish  utterly :  we  shift,  under  the 
light  of  this  principle  of  dissipation,  from  a 
primal  energy,  immanent,  but  not  transcend- 
ent, to  one  immanent  in  the  sum  of  corre- 
lated actual  motions,  and  also  transcendent 
of  them.  Very  impressive  is  the  view  that 
here  arises  of  a  dread  Source  of  Being  that 


656 


Is  Modern  Science  Pantheistic  ? 


engulfs  all  beings  ;  it  is  Brahm  again,  issuing 
forth  through  its  triad  Brahma,  Vishnu,  and 
Siva — creation,  preservation,  and  annihila- 
tion— to  return  at  last  into  its  own  void, 
gathering  with  it  the  sum  of  all  its  transitory 
modes.  And  let  us  not  forget  that  the  con- 
ceptions out  of  which  this  image  of  the  One 
and  All  is  spontaneously  formed,  are  the  as- 
certained and  settled  results  of  the  science 
of  nature  in  its  exactest  empirical  form. 

When  to  this  powerful  impression  of  the 
principle  of  conservation,  as  modified  by 
that  of  dissipation,  we  now  add  the  proper 
effect  of  the  principle  of  evol  ution,  the  pan- 
theistic inference  appears  to  gather  an  over- 
powering weight,  in  no  way  to  be  evaded. 
As  registered  in  the  terms  of  a  rigorous  em- 
pirical method,  evolution  presents  the  pic- 
ture of  a  cosmic  Whole,  constituted  of  varying 
members  descended  from  its  own  primitive 
form,  by  differentiations  so  slight  and  gradual 
as  not  to  suggest  difference  of  origin  or  dis- 
tinction in  kind,  but,  on  the  contrary,  to  in- 
dicate clearly  their  kinship  and  community 
of  origin.  Still,  these  differentiations  among 
the  members,  and  the  consequent  differences 
in  their  adaptation  to  the  Whole,  involve  a 
difference  in  their  power  to  persist  amid  the 
mutual  competition  which  their  common 
presence  in  the  Whole  implies.  In  this  silent 
and  unconscious  competition  of  tendencies 
to  persist,  which  is  called,  by  a  somewhat 
exaggerated  metaphor,  the  struggle  for  exist- 
ence, the  members  of  the  least  adaptation  to 
the  Whole  must  perish  earliest,  and  only  those 
of  the  highest  adaptation  will  finally  survive. 
So,  by  an  exaggeration  akin  to  that  of  the 
former  metaphor,  we  may  name  the  resulting 
persistence  of  the  members  most  suited  to 
the  Whole  the  survival  of  the  fittest;  and  as 
it  is  the  Whole  that  determines  the  standard 
of  adaptation,  we  may  also,  by  figuratively 
personifying  the  Whole,  call  the  process  of 
antagonistic  interaction  through  which  the 
survivors  persist  a  process  of  natural  selection. 
Here,  now,  the  points  of  determinative  im- 
port for  inference  are  these :  that  the  "  sur- 
vival "  is  only  of  the  fittest  to  the  Whole  ;  that 
it  is  the  Whole  alone  that  "  selects  "  ;  that  no 
"  survival,"  as  verified  to  the  strictly  empiri- 


cal method,  can  be  taken  t  ,c,  but 

that  even  the  latest  must  be'ivi,. ,  Jied  as  cer- 
tified only  to  date,  with  a  reservation,  at  best, 
of  "  tentative  expectancy  "  for  hope  of  con- 
tinuance ;  that  "  natural  selection,"  as  empir- 
ically verified,  is  a  process  of  cancellation,  a 
selection  only  to  death  ;  and  that  the  Whole 
alone  has  the  possibility  of  final  survival. 
The  "  tentative  expectation  "  founded  on  the 
entire  sweep  of  the  observed  facts,  and  not 
extended  beyond  it,  would  be  that  the  latest 
observed  survivor,  man,  is  destined  like  his 
predecessors  to  pass  away,  supplanted  by 
some  new  variation  of  the  Whole,  of  a  higher 
fitness  to  it.  And  so  on,  endlessly. 

This  clear  pointing,  by  an  empirically  es- 
tablished and  empirically  construed  doctrine 
of  evolution,  toward  the  One  and  All  that 
swallows  all,  seems  to  gain  farther  clearness 
still  when  the  principles  of  conservation  and 
of  evolution  are  considered,  as  they  must  be, 
in  their  inseparable  connection.  They  work 
in  and  through  each  other.  Conservation 
and  correlation  of  energy,  and  their  "rider" 
of  dissipation,  are  in  the  secret  of  the  mech- 
anism of  the  process  of  natural  selection,  with 
its  deaths  and  its  survivals;  evolution  is  the 
field,  and  its  resulting  forms  of  existence, 
more  and  more  complex,  are  the  outcome,  of 
the  operations  of  the  correlated,  conserved, 
and  dissipated  energies ;  and  in  its  principle 
of  struggle  and  survival,  evolution  works  in 
its  turn  in  the  very  process  of  the  correlation, 
dissipation,  and  conservation  of  energy.  It 
therefore  seems  but  natural  to  identify  the 
potential  energy — the  "waste  heap"  of  power 
— of  correlation  with  the  Whole  of  natural  se- 
lection. And  thus  we  appear  to  reach,  by  a 
cumulative  argument,  the  One  and  Only  in 
which  all  shall  be  absorbed. 

If  we  now  add  to  these  several  indications, 
both  of  the  method  and  of  the  two  organic 
results  of  modern  science,  the  further  weighty 
discredit  that  the  principles  of  conservation 
and  evolution  appear  to  cast  upon  the  belief 
in  freedom  and  immortality,  the  pantheistic 
tone  in  modern  science  will  sound  out  to 
the  full.  This  discredit  comes,  for  human 
free-agency,  from  the  closer  nexus  that  the 
correlation  of  forces  seems  plainly  to  estab- 


1885.1 


/s  Modern  Science  Pantheistic 


657 


lish  bet.  possible   human    action 

and  the  an.  -~nt  or  environing  chain  of 
events  in  nature  out  of  which  the  web  of  its 
motives  must  be  woven ;  and  from  the 
pitch  and  proclivity  that  must  be  trans- 
mitted, according  to  the  principle  of  evolu- 
tion, by  the  heredity  inseparable  from  the 
process  of  descent.  For  immortality,  the 
discredit  comes,  by  way  of  the  principle  of 
evolution,  through  its  indication,  under  the 
restrictions  of  the  empirical  method,  of  the 
transitoriness  of  all  survivals,  and  through 
its  necessary  failure  to  supply  any  evidence 
whatever  of  even  a  possible  survival  beyond 
the  sensible  world,  with  which  empirical  ev- 
olution has  alone  to  do  ;  while,  by  way  of 
the  principle  of  the  conservation  and  dissi- 
pation of  energy,  the  discredit  comes  from 
the  doom  that  manifestly  seems  to  await  all 
forms  of  actual  energy,  taken  in  connection 
with  the  general  discredit  of  everything  un- 
attested  by  the  senses,  which  the  persistent 
culture  of  empiricism  begets. 

In  short,  while  the  empirical  method  ig- 
nores, and  must  ignore,  any  supersensible 
principle  of  existence  whatever,  thus  tending 
to  the  identification  of  the  Absolute  with  the 
Sum  of  Things,  evolution  and  the  principle  of 
conservation  have  familiarized  the  modern 
mind  with  the  continuity,  the  unity,  and  the 
uniformity  of  nature  in  an  overwhelming  de- 
gree. In  the  absence  of  the  conviction,  upon 
independent  grounds,  that  the  Principle  of 
existence  is  personal  and  rational,  the  sci- 
ences of  nature  can  hardly  fail,  even  upon  a 
somewhat  considerate  and  scrutinizing  view, 
to  convey  the  impression  that  the  Source  of 
things  is  a  vast  and  shadowy  Whole,  which 
sweeps  onward  to  an  unknown  destination, 
"regardless,"  as  one  of  the  leaders  of  mod- 
ern science  has  said,  "of  consequences,"  and 
unconcerned  as  to  the  fate  of  man's  world 
of  effort  and  hope,  apparently  so  circum- 
scribed and  insignificant  in  comparison. 

MODERN  SCIENCE  is,  STRICTLY,  NON- 
PANTHEISTIC. 

BUT  now  that  we  come  to  the  closer  ques- 
tion, whether  this  impression  is  really  war- 
VOL.  VI. — 42. 


anted,  we  stand  in  need  of  exact  discrimina- 
tion. With  such  discrimination,  we  shall 
find  that,  decided  as  the  inference  to  panthe- 
ism from  the  methods  and  principles  just 
discussed  seems  to  be,  it  is,  after  all,  illegiti- 
mate. 

Our  first  caution  here  must  be,  to  remem- 
ber that  it  is  not  science  in  its  entire  com- 
pass that  is  concerned  in  the  question  we  are 
discussing.  It  is  only  "modern  science," 
popularly  so  called — that  is,  science  taken  to 
mean  only  the  science  of  nature ;  and  not 
only  so,  but  further  restricted  to  signify  only 
what  may  fitly  enough  be  described  as  the 
natural  science  of  nature  ;  that  is,  so  much 
of  the  possible  knowledge  of  nature  as  can 
be  reached  through  the  channels  of  the  sens- 
es ;  so  much,  in  short,  as  will  yield  itself  to 
a  method  strictly  observational  and  empiri- 
cal. 

Hence,  the  real  question  is,  whether  em- 
pirical science,  confined  to  nature  as  its- 
proper  object,  can  legitimately  assert  the 
theory  of  pantheism.  And  with  regard  now, 
first,  to  the  argument  drawn  with  such  appar- 
ent force  from  the  mere  method  of  natural 
science,  it  should  be  plain  to  a  more 
scrutinizing  reflection,  that  shifting  from 
the  legitimate  disregard  of  a  supersensible 
principle,  which  is  the  right  of  the  empirical 
method,  to  the  deliberate  assumption  that 
there  is  no  such  principle,  because  there  is 
and  can  be  no  sensible  evidence  of  it,  is 
an  abuse  of  the  method  in  question — an 
unwarrantable  extension  of  its  province  to 
decisions  lying  by  its  own  terms  beyond 
its  ken.  This  shifting  is  made  upon  the 
assumption  that  there  can  be  no  science 
founded  on  any  other  than  empirical  evi- 
dence. That  there  is,  and  can  be,  no  sci- 
ence deserving  "the  name,  except  that  which 
follows  the  empirical  method  of  mere  natu- 
ral science,  is  a  claim  which  men  of  science 
are  prone  to  make,  but  which  the  profound- 
est  thinkers  the  world  has  known— such  minds 
as  Plato,  or  Aristotle,  or  Hegel — have  cer- 
tainly pronounced  a  claim  unfounded,  and, 
indeed,  a  sheer  assumption,  contradicted  by 
evidence  the  clearest,  if  oftentimes  abstruse. 
When,  instead  of  blindly  following  experi- 


658 


Is  Modern  Science  Pantheistic  ? 


[Dec. 


ence,  we  raise  the  question  of  the  real  nature 
and  the  sources  of  experience  itself,  and  push 
it  in  earnest,  it  then  appears  that  the  very 
possibility  of  the  experience  that  seems  so 
rigorously  to  exclude  supersensible  princi- 
ples, and  particularly  the  rational  personality 
of  the  First  Principle,  is  itself  dependent  for 
its  existence  on  such  Principle  and  principles; 
that,  in  fact,  these  enter  intellectually  into 
its  very  constitution.  But,  in  any  case,  this 
question  of  the  nature  of  experience,  of  the 
limits  of  possible  knowledge,  and  whether 
these  last  are  identical  with  the  former,  is 
one  in  the  taking  up  of  which  we  abandon 
the  field  of  nature,  and  enter  the  very  differ- 
ent field  of  the  theory  of  cognition.  In  this, 
the  pursuer  of  natural  science,  as  such,  has 
not  a  word  to  say.  Here  his  method  is  alto- 
gether insufficient  and  unavailing;  if  the 
problem  can  be  solved  at  all,  it  can  only  be 
by  methods  that  transcend  the  bounds  of 
merely  empirical  evidence. 

So,  again,  in  the  inferences  to  pantheism 
from  the  conservation  of  energy  and  the  prin- 
ciple of  evolution.  Strong  as  the  evidence 
seems,  it  arises  in  both  cases  from  violating 
the  strict  principles  of  the  natural  scientific 
method.  All  inferences  to  a  whole  of  poten- 
tial energy,  or  to  a  whole  determinant  of  the 
survivals  in  a  struggle  for  existence,  are  really 
inferences — passings  beyond  the  region  of  the 
experimental  and  sensible  facts  into  the  em- 
pirically unknown,  empirically  unattested, 
empirically  unwarranted  region  of  super- 
sensible principles.  The  exact  scientific 
truth  about  all  such  inferences,  and  the 
supposed  realities  which  they  establish,  is, 
that  they  are  unwarranted  by  natural  science ; 
and  that  this  lack  of  warrant  is  only  the  ex- 
pression by  natural  science  of  its  incompe- 
tency  to  enter  upon  such  questions. 

Natural  science  may  therefore  be  said  to 


be  silent  on  this  question  of  pantheism  ;  as 
indeed  it  is,  and  from  the  nature  of  the  case 
must  be,  upon  all  theories  of  the  supersensi- 
ble whatever — whether  theistic,  deistic,  or 
atheistic.     Natural    science   has  no  proper 
concern  with  them.  Science  may  well  enough 
be  said  to  be  «0#-pantheistic,  but  so  also  is  it 
non-theistic,  non-deistic,   non-atheistic.     Its 
position,  however,  is  not  for  that  reason  an- 
ti-pantheistic, any  more  than  it  is  anti-theistic, 
or  anti-deistic,  or  anti-atheistic.     It  is  rather 
agnostic,  in  the  sense,  that  is,  of  declining  to 
affect   knowledge  in  the  premises,  because 
these  are  beyond  its  method  and  province. 
In  short,  its  agnosticism  is  simply  its  neutral- 
ity; and  does  not  in  the  least  imply  that  ag- 
nosticism is  the  final  view  of  things.     The 
investigation  of  the   final  view,  the  search 
for  the   First    Principle,    science   leaves   to 
methods  far  other  than  her  own  of  docile 
sense-experience — methods  that   philosophy 
is  now  prepared  to  vindicate  as   higher  and 
far  more  trustworthy.     Yet,  when   once  the 
supersensible  Principle  is  reached,  in  some 
other  way — the  way  of  philosophy,  as  dis- 
tinguished from   that    of  natural   science — 
science  will  then  furnish  the  most  abundant 
confirmations,  the  strongest  corroborations  ; 
the  more  abundant  and  the  stronger,  in  pro- 
portion as  the  First  Principle  presented  by 
philosophy    ascends,     evolution-wise,    from 
materialism,  through  pantheism,  to  rational 
theism.     For  science  accords  most  perfectly 
with  the  latter,  although  she  is,  in  herself, 
wholly  unable  to  attain  the  vision  of  it.     But 
it  must  be  a  theism  that   subsumes   into  its 
conceptions  of  God  and  man  all  the  irrefut- 
able insights  of  materialism,  of  deism,  and, 
eminently,  of  pantheism  ;  of  which,  as  I  will 
hope  this  paper  has  shown,  there  are  those 
of  the  greatest  pertinence  and  reality,  if  also 
of  the  most  undeniable  insufficiency. 

G.  H.  Howison. 


1885.] 


Etc. 


659 


ETC. 


THE  important  events  in  our  Pacific  community, 
such  as  call  for  mention  in  a  periodical  of  THE 
OVERLAND'S  character,  have  of  late  taken  a  remark- 
ably collegiate  turn.  Apart  from  purely  industrial 
events,  such  as  the  convention  of  fruit-shippers,  the 
notable  occurrences  of  the  past  half-dozen  weeks  have 
been  :  the  inauguration  of  President  Sprague  over  the 
new  Mills  College;  the  appointment  of  Professor 
Holden  to  the  presidency  of  the  State  University;  the 
formal  establishment  of  the  great  Stanford  founda- 
tion ;  and  the  renewal  of  the  anti-Chinese  agitation 
on  this  coast.  Of  the  first  two  of  these  events  we 
have  already  spoken,  as  they  occurred :  the  others 
have  fallen  within  the  past  month. 

THE  Stanford  foundation  is  now  so  far  advanced 
as  to  be  a  text  for  almost  endless  comment.  The 
terms  of  the  grant ;  the  probable  effect  of  this  or 
that  provision;  the  new  and  highly  experimental  fea- 
tures, of  which  there  are  several ;  the  way  to  secure 
the  highest  possible  degree  of  cooperation  between  the 
new  group  of  schools  and  those  already  existing  in 
the  State  :  these  are  points  of  the  highest  significance, 
which  should  by  no  means  be  passed  by  with  bare 
mention.  We  are  reluctantly  compelled  to  postpone 
any  discussion  of  them  till  a  later  issue  of  THE  OVER- 
LAND ;  but  we  do  it  with  the  less  reluctance,  because 
the  first  expression  in  view  of  the  fact  of  Mr.  Stan- 
ford's magnificent  gift  must  so  certainly  be  only  of 
gratitude  and  admiration,  that  a  month  may  without 
impropriety  intervene  before  any  critical  consideration 
of  details.  The  splendid  gift  already  made,  with  the 
assurance,  which  seems  to  be  authoritative,  that  this 
is  only  the  beginning;  the  intention  which  is  under- 
stood to  be  settled  in  the  minds  of  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Stan- 
ford, to  devote  the  remainder  of  their  lives  to  the  ser- 
vice of  the  University ;  the  magnificence  and  magnani- 
mity of  all  this  do,  indeed,  incline  those  most  in  sym- 
pathy to  say  least— in  the  spirit  of  Emerson's  lines  : 
"  And  loved  so  well  a  high  behavior 

In  man  or  maid,  that  thou  from  speech  refrained, 

Nobility  more  nobly  to  repay." 

To  those  whose  hearts  are  most  sincerely  in  the  work 
of  education,  or  of  otherwise  helping  humanity  to  a 
higher  stand,  those  who  feel  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Stanford's 
great  gift  almost  as  if  they  had  received  a  rich  per- 
sonal endowment,  who  watch  its  development,  and 
dwell  with  almost  breathless  interest  on  the  probable 
effect  of  each  detail :  to  these,  the  instinctive  thought 
of  the  action  is  not  as  "renunciation,"  but  as  achieve- 
ment. It  is  hard  to  express  adequately  what  a  man 
becomes  by  such  an  act.  Mr.  Stanford  was  al- 
ready, take  it  all  in  all,  the  foremost  citizen  of  the 
State  ;  but  by  the  completion  of  the  present  endow- 


ment, he  will  become  so  to  an  extent  that  it  is  al- 
most impossible  to  find  paralleled  in  modern  times. 
It  is  perhaps  hardly  realized  by  any  one  at  present 
how  far,  a  hundred  or  a  thousand  years  from  now, 
this  University  foundation  will  overshadow  the  rail- 
road achievement,  great  though  that  was  ;  but  if  any 
one  wishes  to  thus  realize  how  far  the  conferring  of  in- 
tellectual benefit  upon  a  community  outlives  and  out- 
weighs the  performance  of  great  industrial  works  for 
it,  let  him  try  to  tell  the  name  of  the  builder  of  any 
one  of  the  great  Roman  roads — works  as  marvelous 
for  their  time,  and  as  valuable  to  the  state,  as  the 
first  great  transcontinental  railroad  is  to  ours ;  and 
then  let  him  think  of  the  undying  fame  of  Maecenas, 
the  patron  of  art  and  literature  and  learning.  But 
greater  even  than  the  achievement  of  lasting  honor 
among  one's  fellow-men  of  later  generations,  is  it  to 
become  a  living  power  among  them  forever.  If  some 
inconceivable  power  should  smite  the  name  of  Stan^J 
ford  absolutely  ont  of  men's  memories,  he  would  still 
possess  that  greater  thing  than  fame — undying  power, 
immortality  of  beneficence  on  earth. 

"Oh,  may  I  join  the  choir  invisible 

Of  those  immortal  dead  who  live  again 

In  lives  made  better  by  their  life  !  " 

was  the  aspiration  of  one  who  believed  in  this  earth- 
ly immortality  only,  and  found  it  great  and  satisfying 
enough  to  make  up  for  the  loss  of  personal  immortal- 
ity. To  one  who  believes  in  the  personal  future  life,  it 
gives  two  immortalities  to  "  live  again  in  lives  made 
better  by  his  life."  This  is  the  aspiration  of  many  ; 
the  achievement  of  many  to  a  greater  or  less  de- 
gree ;  but  it  rarely  happens  to  one  man  and  woman 
to  have  both  the  power  and  the  will  to  thus  live 
after  death  on  a  great  scale,  working  and  shaping 
beneficently  in  the  lives  of  many — not  of  tens  nor  of 
hundreds,  but  of  thousands  and  tens  of  thousands, 
as  the  generations  follow  on.  Herein  is  the  wisdom 
of  money  spent  in  education  rather  than  in  charity 
— that  each  recipient  of  influence  becomes  in  his 
turn  a  center  to  transmit  the  same  in  every  direction, 
so  that  it  multiplies  forever  in  geometric  ratio  ;  while 
charity  stops  and  perishes  with  the  immediate  recipi- 
ent. And  this  power  to  mould  unborn  generations 
for  good,  to  keep  one's  hands  mightily  on  human  af- 
fairs after  the  flesh  has  been  dust  for  years,  seems 
not  only  more  than  mortal,  but  more  than  man — it  is 
like  the  power  of  a  god,  to  kill  and  make  alive  ;  and 
it  is  both  sound  theology  and  sound  philosophy  to 
say  that  in  beneficent  action  a  man  does,  in  fact,  to 
some  extent,  rise  into  participation  in  a  divine  nature 
and  divine  activity,  becoming  "  coworker  with  God  " 
in  the  shaping  of  the  world  to  a  good  outcome.  It 
does  not  often,  in  the  history  of  mankind,  happen  to 


660 


Etc. 


[Dec. 


any  one  to  have  both  the  power  and  the  will  to  do  so 
much  of  this  joint  work  as  in  the  present  instance. 

THERE  is  another  peculiar  felicity,  which  now  falls 
to  the  remarkable  man  who  thus  becomes  a  modern 
Maecenas.  Had  Senator  Stanford's  training  been 
specifically  scholarly,  it  is  highly  probable  that  the 
fascinations  of  one  or  another  branch  of  scholarly  re- 
search would  have  seized  upon  his  active  mind,  and 
that  his  achievements  in  science  or  history  or  econom- 
ic studies  might  have  been  great.  There  is  no  possi- 
ble proof  that  he  might  not  have  become  one  of  the 
great  leaders  of  science  or  other  scholarship.  The 
possibility  of  this  life  (and  those  who  choose  it  unques- 
tionably find  it  more  satisfying,  more  prolific  in  health- 
ful enjoyment,  than  others  find  their  respective  call- 
ings), a  man  absolutely  renounces  in  entering  the  race 
for  wealth  and  industrial  achievement.  There  is  no 
reconciliation:  neither  learning  nor  millions  can  be 
had  by  divided  effort.  What  a  rare  and  remarkable 
outcome,  then,  of  a  man's  life,  that  after  having  ob- 
tained great  success  in  industrial  achievement,  in 
money-getting,  in  politics,  it  should  now  become  pos- 
sible to  him  to  be,  by  proxy,  man  of  science  or  of 
letters ;  for  his  endowment  will  inevitably  create 
•  more  than  one  such  man,  who  would  never  have  been 
such  without  it. 

OF  the  recent  renewal  of  anti-Chinese  demonstra- 
tions in  Washington  Territory  and  this  State,  there  is 
but  one  thing  to  be  said:  and  that  is  that  the  pre- 
tence of  "peaceable  expulsion"  is  a  shame  to  the 
moral  sense  of  whoever  uses  the  phrase.  Expulsion 
under  threat  of  violence  is  to  the  full  as  illegal,  and 
only  a  shade  less  brutal,  than  the  Wyoming  method 
of  sheer  massacre.  That  even  a  touch  of  this  wrong 
has  fallen  on  our  own  State  is  deeply  to  be  regretted. 
Nor  is  there,  to  our  judgment,  any  truth  in  the  as- 
sertion that  the  better  class  of  citizens  have  any- 
where been  concerned  in  this  sort  of  thing.  A 
speaker — himself  a  workman — at  Seattle,  in  the  citi- 
zens' mass-meeting  called  to  protest  against  the  law- 
less proceedings,  said  that  the  cry  at  Tacoma  had  prac- 
tically been,  "The  Americans  must  go";  that  these 
were  no  American  acts.  And  when  in  our  own  State 
we  see  an  Englishman  better  protected  in  his  unques- 
tionable right  to  employ  a  Chinese  servant  than  our 
own  people,  it  certainly  looks  as  if  the  American 
were  being  crowded  very  hard  into  a  corner.  But 
while  we  refuse  to  believe  that  worthy  citizens  have 
been  concerned  in  this  sort  of  illegal  outrage,  it  is 
certain  that  a  very  great  number  of  such  among 
us  regard  the  presence  of  Chinese  here  with  so  ex- 
treme an  antipathy,  that  they  cannot  feel  any  seri- 
ous reprobation  towards  the  lawless  expression  of 
the  same  antipathy  by  men  of  another  sort.  We  are 
not  of  these  ;  yet,  remembering  how  large  a  number 
of  worthy  citizens  have  been  guilty  of  at  least  com- 
plaisance toward  murdering  of  Indians  on  the  fron- 
tier, family  vendettas  in  the  South,  Jew-baiting  in 


Germany,  abolitionist-mobbing  in  the  New  England 
of  not  so  many  decades  ago,  we  submit  that  injustice 
would  be  done  to  our  people  to  judge  them  less  law- 
abiding  than  these.  In  not  one  of  the  cases  we  have 
just  mentioned  has  there  been  so  little  participation 
in  the  wrong,  so  considerable  a  protest  against  it,  by 
the  better  class;  notwithstanding  that  in  not  one  of 
them  has  there  been  so  general  and  deeply  rooted  a 
conviction  that  the  lawlessness  was  provoked  by  real 
and  grave  evil. 

WE  publish  this  month  a  paper  called  out  by  the 
Hon.  A.  A.  Sargent's  in  our  last  number.  It  repre- 
sents the  views  of  a  small  minority  of  our  people,  and 
to  suppress  these,  or  conceal  the  fact  that  they  exist, 
would  be  the  sheerest  dishonesty.  If  anti-Chinese 
sentiment  on  this  coast  needs  the  aid  of  any  sort  of 
terrorism,  it  puts  itself  into  a  bad  light.  We  reiter- 
ate what  we  have  said  before,  that  this  subject  is  the 
better  for  free  discussion,  that  our  press  has  not  per- 
mitted this  to  the  extent  that  it  should,  and  that, 
without  endorsing  the  opinions  of  contributors,  the 
OVERLAND  will  maintain  an  open  forum  on  this,  as 
on  other  questions,  insisting  only  upon  temperance 
and  courtesy  of  expression,  and  sufficient  literary 
merit.  As  it  chances,  for  instance,  neither  Mr.  Sar- 
gent's^nor  "  J's  "  views  exactly  meet  the  OVERLAND'S 
own,  which  were  sufficiently  indicated  a  month  or 
two  since,  in  commenting  upon  the  Wyoming  mat- 
ter, and  will  be  expressed  again,  from  time  to  time, 
hereafter. 

Forget  Me  Not. 
(From  the  French  of  Alfred  de  Musset.} 
Forget  me  not,  what  time  the  timid  Dawn 
Opes  the  enchanted  palace  of  the  Sun  ; 
Forget  me  not,  when  Night  her  starry  lawn 
Throws  o'er  her  pensive  head  when  day  is  done ; 
When  pleasure's  voice  is  heard,  and  all  thy  senses  thrill, 
Or  Eve  with  dewy  dreams  descends  the  heavenly  hill, 

Hark,  from  the  forest's  deep 

Murmurs  a  voice  like  sleep: 
Forget  me  not. 

Forget  me  not,  when  Fate,  despite  our  tears, 
Hath  thrust  our  lives  forevermore  apart, 
When  grief,  and  exile,  and  the  cruel  years 
Have  bruised  and  crushed  this  over-wearied  heart  ; 
Think  of  my  mournful  love,  think  of  our  last  farewell, 
Nor  time  nor  space  is  aught  while  lasts  love's  wizard 
spell. 

While  still  my  heart  shall  beat 

This  word  'twill  e'er  repeat : 
Forget  me  not. 

Forget  me  not,  when  in  the  chilly  clay 

My  broken  heart  forever  shall  repose  ; 

Forget  me  not,  when  at  the  breath  of  May 

A  lonely  flower  shall  o'er  my  tomb  unclose. 

Me  thou  shall  see  no  more,  but  my  immortal  soul, 

For  aye  thy  sister  sprite,  will  seek  thee  as  its  goal. 

List,  through  the  night  profound, 

A  plaintive,  moaning  sound  : 
Forget  me  not. 

Albert  S.  Cook. 


1885.] 


Book  Reviews. 


661 


BOOK  REVIEWS. 


Holiday  and  Children's  Books. 

THE  gift-season  has  so  far  produced  no  books 
equal  in  sumptuousness  to  one  or  two  of  last  year's; 
but  it  is  still  comparatively  early.  The  most  elabor- 
ate production  that  we  have  yet  seen  is  a  heavy  vol- 
ume, large  enough  to  be  taken  at  first  sight  for  a 
handsome  edition  of  Holmes's  complete  works,  which 
proves  to  be  devoted  to  "The  Last  Leaf  "1  and  illustra- 
tions thereof.  With  heavy  card-board  pages,  printed 
on  one  side  only,  and  unlimited  decoration,  the  little 
poem  expands  to  incredible  proportions.  Leaving 
out  of  account  frontispiece,  decorated  title  page,  etc., 
the  contents  begin  with  a  fac-simile  of  the  poem  in 
Dr.  Holmes's  own  hand — not  from  the  original  copy, 
which  has  doubtless  been  long  out  of  existence,  but 
from  a  re-copy  made  expressly  for  this  book.  This  fac- 
simile, enclosed  in  decorative  margins,  occupies  three 
pages  ;  twenty  full  page  illustrations  follow,  each 
faced  by  a  page  containing  a  highly  decorated  pres- 
entation of  the  line  or  word  illustrated;  three  more 
pages  enclose  within  like  margins  a  little  "history  of 
the  poem,"  from  Dr.  Holmes — that  is  to  say,  a  little 
amiable  reminiscence  about  it.  The  illustrations,  by 
George  Wharton  Edwards  and  F.  Hopkinson  Smith, 
are  both  beautiful  and  unique,  making  this  artisti- 
cally an  unusual  gift-book.  Their  appropriateness  is 
sometimes  more  to  be  questioned  than  their  purely 
artistic  merit,  and  the  connection  between  text  and 
picture  occasionally  of  the  shadowiest.  Dr.  Holmes's 
account  of  the  poem  mentions  that  it  "was  suggested 
by  the  sight  of  a  figure  well  known  to  Bostonians," 
in  the  early  thirties,  "  that  of  Major  Thomas  Mel- 
ville, 'the  last  of  the  cocked  hats,'  as  he  was 
sometimes  called  ....  He  was  often  pointed  at  as 
one  of  the  '  Indians  '  of  the  famous  '  Boston  Tea- 
Party  '  of  1774."  It  seems  that  some  readers  have, 
rather  unaccountably,  been  puzzled  by  the  lines 
"  The  last  leaf  upon  the  tree 

In  the  Spring," 

and  Dr.  Holmes  feels  obliged  to  explain  that  "His 
aspect  among  the  crowds  of  the  later  generation  re- 
minded me  of  a  withered  leaf  which  had  held  its 
stem  through  the  storms  of  autumn  and  winter,  and 
finds  itself  still  clinging  to  its  bough,  while  the  new 
growths  of  spring  are  bursting  their  buds  and  spread- 
ing their  foliage  all  around  it."  The  artists  have 
made  no  especial  effort  to  bring  out  this  contrast, 
and,  perhaps  finding  artistic  difficulties  in  introduc- 
ing nineteenth  century  people  to  their  pages  at  all, 
have  kept  the  old  Major  pacing  lonely  streets  and 

1  The  Last  Leaf.  Poem.  Oliver  Wendell  Holmes 
Illustrated  by  George  Wharton  Edwards  and  F.  Hop- 
kinson Smith.  Boston:  Houghton,  Mifflin  &  Co 
1886.  For  sale  in  S?n  Francisco  by  Chilion  Beach. 


lanes,  instead  of  "  among  the  crowds  of  a  later  gen- 
eration." Dr.  Holmes  explains  the  change  of  a 
line  from  the  "  So  forlorn"  of  earlier  editions  to  the 
"Sad  and  wan  "  of  later  ones.  The  words  are  cer- 
tainly less  expressive,  and  although  "  wan — gone  "  is 
a  true  rhyme  according  to  the  dictionaries,  we  be- 
lieve that  most  educated  speakers  outside  of  Boston 
do  not  make  it  so,  but,  on  the  contrary,  a  worse 
rhyme  than  "lorn — gone."  The  pictures  in  this 
book  are  said  to  contain  many  correct  and  excellent 
studies  of  the  old  graveyards,  streets,  and  houses  of 
Boston. 

A  less  ambitious,  but  still  large  and  handsome, 
volume  is  made  by  illustrating  a  dozen  of  Whittier's 
descriptive  poems,  under  the  title  of  "Poems  of 
Nature."2  A  few  ballads,  which  have  a  background 
of  scenery  adapted  to  landscape  illustration,  are  in- 
cluded among  the  descriptive  poems.  The  fifteen 
full-page  illustrations  by  Elbridge  Kingsley  are  of 
such  subjects  as  a  storm  at  sea,  moonlight  on  a  lake, 
wide  views  over  hills  and  valleys,  etc.  They  are  all 
from  nature,  and  a  number  of  them  are  well-known 
New  England  views.  They  are  curiously  ineffective 
in  perspective,  giving  no  impression  of  distance  what- 
ever, and  they  arc  confused  in  the  outlining  of  ob- 
jects :  but  they  are  strong  in  effects  of  light  and 
shadow,  and  very  expressive  of  motion — the  branches 
of  trees  in  a  wind,  the  driving  of  rain,  the  rolling  of 
clouds,  the  waves  of  the  sea. 

Lieutenant  Sch  watka's  book,  Nimrodin  the  North, 8 
was  out  before  the  holiday  season  had  come  very 
near,  and  is  illustrated,  though  profusely,  with  plain 
wood  engravings,  of  medium  quality.  But  its  mat- 
ter, and  especially  its  cover  (whereon,  upon  a  pale 
green  ground,  the  great  letters  of  the  title  drip  with 
silver  gilt  icicles,  and  heads  of  seal  and  musk-ox  and 
other  arctic  decoration  occupy  all  available  space) 
decide  us  to  class  it  among  holiday  books.  As  its 
title  indicates,  it  is  concerned  with  the  sportsman's 
side  of  Arctic  travel — the  hunting  of  the  polar  bear, 
the  seal  and  sea-horse,  the  reindeer,  the  musk-ox, 
the  fox,  the  wolverine,  and  the  various  sea-fowl; 
fishing,  too,  is  made  to  come  under  the  title.  It  is 
not  a  mere  account  of  hunting  experiences,  but  an 
account  of  the  Arctic  animals  and  their  habits,  and 
the  general  subject  of  hunting  them,  merely  illus- 
trated by  the  Lieutenant's  own  exploits.  There  is  as 
much  of  the  naturalist  as  of  the  sportsman  in  it.  Of 

2  Poems  of  Nature.  By  John  Greenleaf  Whittier 
Illustrated  from  Nature,  by  Elbridge  Kingsley.  Bos- 
ton: Houghton,  Mifflin  &  Co.  1886. 

8  Nimrod  in  the  North.  Hunting  and  Fishing  Ad- 
ventures in  the  Arctic  Regions.  By  Lieutenant  Fred- 
erick Schwatka.  New  York:  Cassell  &  Co.  1885. 
For  sale  in  San  Francisco  by  A.  L.  Bancroft  &  Co. 


662 


Book  Reviews. 


[Dec. 


all  Arctic  explorers,  perhaps  none  has  proved  so 
able  to  turn  his  experiences  into  interesting  literature 
as  Lieutenant  Schwatka.  His  magazine  contribu- 
tions have  already  made  most  readers  familiar  with 
his  quality  as  writer. 

To  many  readers,  the  best  book  of  the  holiday 
season  will  be  the  charmingly  illustrated  and  printed 
edition  of  the  Rudder  Grange  papers.1  The  illustra- 
tions are  not  the  same  through  which  we  originally 
made  acquaintance  with  Pomona  and  the  boarder 
and  Lord  Edward,  so  that  it  takes  a  little  mental  re- 
adjustment to  think  of  these  old  friends  under  the 
new  forms;  but  they  are  genuine  illustrations,  not 
decorations.  They  are  unpretentious  enough,  and 
subordinated,  as  they  should  be,  to  the  text.  It  is 
a  real  pleasure  to  have  these  scattered  papers  brought 
together  in  convenient  book  form.  Nothing  more 
delightful  has  ever  been  done  in  the  line  of  domestic 
humor;  if  humor  it  can  be  called — the  subtle  mellow 
quality  that  pervades  Mr.  Stockton's  unique  and  re- 
markable work.  Nothing  of  the  same  quality  has 
ever  been  done  by  any  one  else,  nor  even  thought  of, 
except  of  late  by  his  imitators. 

Miss  Kate  Sanborn  supplies,  in  a  very  handsomely 
printed  volume  (much  in  the  style  of  Miss  Cleveland's 
book)  a  collection  of  illustrations  of  The  Wit  of 
Women."21  It  is  a  familiar  dogma  that  women  are 
lacking  in  sense  of  humor.  Miss  Sanborn  thinks  this 
a  fallacy,  and  has  brought  together  a  book  of  sam- 
ples to  prove  her  point.  That  "women  have  no 
sense  of  humor  "  is  easily  enough  refuted;  that  they 
have,  as  a  whole,  less  than  men,  is  too  certain  to  be 
refuted.  There  seems  no  essential  reason  why  this 
should  be  so,  and  it  is  probably  a  merely  temporary 
phenomenon.  Humor  is  evidently  on  the  increase, 
both  in  literature  and  in  society;  and  men,  who  are 
usually  lighter-hearted  and  in  better  physical  health, 
besides  having  much  more  of  informal  social  inter- 
course in  the  way  of  business,  etc.,  quite  naturally 
learned  it  first.  The  alternation  of  seclusion  with 
conventional  society,  the  more  harassing  and  fretting 
nature  of  her  occupations,  have  retarded  the  devel- 
opment in  woman.  A  confirmation  of  this  view,'  so 
strong  as  almost  to  amount  to  demonstration,  may 
be  had  by  looking  about  us  and  noting  two  facts  :  first, 
that  the  two  great  schools  of  humor  are  the  college, 
and  the  unaffected  intercourse  of  business;  and  sec- 
ond, that  most  of  the  humor  that  goes  back  and  forth 
among  men  on  street  and  train,  in  mining-camp  or 
stock-exchange,  is  merely  jocosity — all  the  percep- 
tion of  subtle  relations  involved  in  it  would  be  possi- 
ble to  most  women,  but  the  light-hearted  enjoyment 
of  the  perception  would  come  very  much  less  easily 
to  them.  One  may  even  go  a  step  farther  in  the 
demonstration,  and  note  the  increase  of  the  jocose 

1  Rudder   Grange.     By   Frank  R.   Stockton.     Illus- 
trated by  A.   B.   Frost.     Published   by  Charles  Scrib- 
ner's  Sons. 

2  The  Wit  of  Women.       By  Kate   Sanborn.      New 
York:  Funk  &  Wagnalls.      1885. 


habit  among  college  girls.  Miss  Sanborn  makes  a 
suggestion  that  sounds  rather  wicked,  but  is  not  abso- 
lutely without  foundation:  that  women  suppress  their 
wit,  and  pretend  to  be  more  stupid  than  they  are,  in 
order  to  flatter  men.  Certainly,  wherever  men  have 
distinctly  indicated  an  admiration  for  witty  women, 
there  has  been  no  lack  in  the  supply.  In  literature, 
women  seem  to  excel  in  the  creation  of  purely  humor- 
ous character  in  fiction,  and  men  in  the  creation  of 
droll  and  farcical  characters,  in  light  humorous  essay, 
and  in  sheer  laughter-compelling  fun — all  of  which 
is  corroborative  testimony  that  the  difference  is  due 
to  the  greater  light-heartedness  of  men. 

The  artists'  competition  for  Prang's  prizes  for  holi- 
day-card designs  has  been  suspended  for  a  year  or 
two,  because  the  artists  objected  to  being  "  mixed 
up  with'"'  so  much  amateur  work.  This  year  it  was 
renewed,  by  the  promise  of  Messrs.  Prang  &  Co.  to 
confine  competition  to  "  a  limited  number  of  artists  of 
recognized  ability  and  mutual  esteem  "  (the  italics  are 
ours,  and  are  intended  to  convey  our  appreciation  of 
some  difficult  steering  that  must  have  fallen  to  the  en- 
terprising publishers).  This  arrangement  produced 
paintings  from  twenty-two  leading  artists.  Prizes  for 
the  four  "  most  popular"  were  awarded  by  vote  of 
the  art  dealers  of  New  York,  and  resulted  as  follows  : 
First  prize  ($1,000)  to  C.  D.  Weldon,  for  a  design 
by  Will  H.  Low,  representing  a  child's  ideal  of 
Christmas  ;  second  prize  ($500)  for  a  design  repre- 
senting the  nativity,  with  singing  angels  ;  third  prize 
($300)  for  a  design  by  Thomas  Moran,  representing 
a  Christmas  angel  hovering  over  a  mediaeval  city  by 
night ;  fourth  prize  ($200)  for  a  design  of  children's 
faces,  by  Fred  Dielman.  The  remaining  designs 
were  then  submitted  in  Boston  to  popular  vote,  and 
the  one  which  received  the  suffrages  there  proved  to 
be  the  same  that  the  New  York  dealers  had  ranked 
next  after  the  four  prize  cards.  It  is  a  figure-card  by 
Miss  Humphreys,  something  in  the  Greenaway  style, 
with  an  exceedingly  happy  child-figure.  It  is  called 
"The  Boston  Card."  Among  the  less  pretentious 
cards,  there  is  a  steady  and  gratifying  increase  in 
artistic  qualities ;  and  in  child  and  animal  groups, 
bird-flights,  and  symbolic  figures,  a  very  considerable 
originality.  It  would  seem  to  be  impossible  to  de- 
vise new  combinations  in  these  lines,  but  it  has  been 
done.  With  flowers,  on  the  contrary,  little  that  is 
at  once  novel  and  pretty  has  proved  possible.  The 
folding  calendars,  all  of  which  illustrate  in  various 
ways  the  four  seasons,  are  very  happy  ;  and  there  is 
the  usual  appendix  to  the  card-collection  of  "art- 
prints  of  satin  " — sachet-cases,  hand-screens,  etc. 

Children,  or  rather  young  boys  and  girls,  are  es- 
pecially well  treated  this  year  by  the  issue  of  a  group 
of  large  and  handsome  books  of  real  interest  and  no 
flimsy  character.  Pliny  for  Boys  and  Girlf  is  the 
last  of  a  trio  of  volumes  selected  from  classical 

8  Pliny  for  Boys  and  Girls.  By  John  S.  White.  New- 
York  and  London:  G.  P.  Putnam's  Sons.  18815.  For 
sale  in  San  Francisco  by  A.  L.  Bancroft  &  Co. 


1885.] 


Book  Reviews. 


663 


writers  by  the  same  editor  for  young  people,  Plu- 
tarch and  Herodotus  being  the  two  preceding 
ones.  Perhaps  of  the  three,  Pliny  is  best  adapt- 
ed to  the  purpose.  Most  of  the  extracts  here  made 
are  zoological;  but  a  few  of  the  miscellaneous  sub- 
jects, such  as  "Mirrors,"  "Artists  who  Painted 
with  the  Pencil,"  "Silver,"  are  included.  Foot- 
notes warn  the  young  reader  wherever  the  author's 
natural  history  is  not  to  be  trusted,  except  in  the 
places  where  it  is  so  preposterous  as  to  need  no  con- 
tradictions. These  would  not  be  warning  enough  for 
little  children,  but  in  older  boys  and  girls  such  a 
book  must  waken  a  sympathetic  interest  in  the  sub- 
jects treated,  and  respect  for  them,  because  of  that 
which  was  taken  in  them  so  long  ago  by  the  fine 
old  Roman  warrior,  statesman,  and  scholar.  The 
two  letters  of  the  younger  Pliny,  the  one  describing 
his  uncle's  habits  of  study,  the  other  giving  Tacitus 
the  account  of  his  death  are  prefixed. 

Another  excellent  book  of  the  same  sort  is  The 
Travels  of  Marco  Polo,^-  The  original  text  has  been 
followed  as  closely  as  possible,  abridgement  of  course 
being  made  wherever  it  seemed  desirable.  The  nec- 
essary notes  of  explanation  and  comment  have  been 
worked  in  by  means  of  a  "Young  Folks'  Reading 
and  Geographical  Society,"  which  is  supposed  to  be 
engaged  in  the  study  of  Marco  Polo.  We  scarcely 
like  these  devices.  It  would  seem  as  if  young  peo- 
ple, like  their  elders,  if  they  are  reading  in  good 
earnest,  ought  to  prefer  to  take  information  frankly 
in  the  form  of  straightforward  notes,  rather  than 
smuggled  in  under  guise  of  what  Frank  asked  and 
the  doctor  answered;  but  it  is  a  matter  of  individual 
taste  ;  and  the  persistent  use  of  the  method,  ever 
since  Mrs.  Barbauld's  days,  would  seem  to  indicate 
that  it  has  been  found  successful.  The  book  contains 
map,  portrait,  and  abundant  pictures. 

Marvels  of  Animal  Life*  contains  accounts  of  the 
curious  and  outlandish  types  among  fishes  and  rep- 
tiles, such  as  dry  land  fishes,  but  also  of  some  of  the 
little-known  marvels  among  our  commoner  species. 
Extinct  species  are  also  described,  where  they  throw 
light  upon  present  ones.  The  sea-serpent  question 
is  discussed,  with  verdict  on  the  whole  favorable  to 
the  existence  of^the  creature  ;  and  also  the  story  of 
snakes  swallowing  their  young  by  way  of  giving 
them  a  temporary  refuge  from  danger.  This  story  is 
vigorously  combated  by  people  who  ought  to  know; 
and  though  the  present  author  makes  quite  a  fair 
showing  of  evidence  as  to  the  swallowing  of  their 
young,  he  does  not  bring  much  on  the  crucial  point 
— that  of  their  coming  out  alive  again  when  the  dan- 
ger is  overpast.  It  is  a  story  which  might  better 
have  been  omitted  from  a  children's  book,  until  eith- 

1  The  Travels  of  Marco  Polo,   for  Boys  and  Girls. 
With  Explanatory  Notes  and  Comments  of  Thomas  W. 
Knox.     New  York  and  London:  G.  P.  Putnam's  Sons. 
For  sale  in  San  Francisco  by  A.  L.  Bancroft  &  Co. 

2  Marvels   of  Animal    Life.      By   Charles    Frederick 
Holder.     New  York:  Charles  Scribner's  Sons.     1885. 
For  sale  in  San  Francisco  by  A.  L.  Bancroft  &  Co. 


er  it  had  been  relegated  to  the  region  of  popular 
myth,  or  its  inherent  incredibility  had  been  crushed 
by  weight  of  unmistakable  evidence.  The  pictures 
throughout  the  book  are  excellent  and  attractive. 

A  series  of  papers  from  one  of  the  young  folks' 
magazines  are  now  collected  into  a  volume  under 
the  title  Historic  Boys?  Beginning  with  Marcus 
Amicus  Verus,  afterwards  the  Emperor  Marcus  Aure- 
lius,  they  come  down  through  the  middle  ages  to 
Ixtlil  of  Tezcuco,  "the  boy  cacique,"  Louis  of  Bour- 
bon, Charles  of  Sweden,  and  Rensselaer,  "the  boy 
patroon."  They  are  thrown  into  narrative  form,  and 
do  not  despise  legend,  nor  refuse  to  adorn  the  out- 
line of  the  story  with  fictitious  conversations  and  in- 
cidents ;  but  as  they  are  expressly  said  to  be  only 
"ba?ed  on  history,"  this  is  entirely  legitimate.  The 
"  dozen  young  fellows  "  selected  are  all  boys  whom 
character  or  circumstance  made  men  of  mark  before 
they  went  out  of  their  teens.  The  pictures  are  es- 
pecially good. 

To  say  that  The  Satin-  Wood  Box  *  is  by  J.  T. 
Trowbridge  is  to  say  that  it  is  a  good  boys'  story. 
Nevertheless,  it  is  not  remarkably  good  as  compared 
with  his  best  work  of  the  sort.  It  is  a  satisfaction  to 
every  real  friend  of  young  boys  and  girls,  to  see  the 
Oliver  Optic  school  yield  place  to  the  Trowbridge 
school  of  writing.  We  fear  the  records  of  libraries 
would  still  show  a  great  preponderance  in  numbers  of 
the  Optic  books  read;  nevertheless,  it  seems  to  casual 
observation  certain  that  the  tide  is  setting  away  from 
them,  and  toward  that  sort  of  story-writing  of  which 
Trowbridge  was  one  of  the  earliest,  and  remains 
one  of  the  very  best  writers.  The  union  of  entire  re- 
finement and  simplicity  with  a  never-failing  ability  to 
entertain,  is  the  distinctive  virtue  of  his  stories. 

In  A  Little  Country  Girl$  Susan  Coolidge  tells  a 
pleasant  story  for  girls,  not  without  incident,  but  en- 
tirely without  plot.  It  is  something  on  the  plan  of 
"An  Old-Fashioned  Girl,"  a  book  whose  popularity 
showed  that  a  definite  "  story"  was  not  at  all  neces- 
sary to  making  a  successful  book  for  young  girls;  but 
that,  precisely  like  their  elders,  who  read  Howells, 
they  read  more  for  the  study  of  life — of  the  life  they 
themselves  live — than  for  narrative  interest.  A  Lit- 
tle Country  Girl  is  a  fair  representative  of  this  sort 
of  story-writing.  It  is  a  story  of  Newport  young-girl 
life;  has  pleasant  people  in  it,  a  good  background  of 
Newport  in  the  season,  and  intelligent  and  refined 
talk. 

The  Joyous  Story  of  Toto&  is  a  rather  bright  med- 
ley, describing  the  conversations  of  Toto  and  his 

3  Historic  Boys.     By  E.  S.   Brooks.     New  York  and 
London:  G.  P.  Putnam's  Sons.     1885.     For  sale  in  San 
Francisco  by  A.  L,  Bancroft  &  Co. 

4  The    Satin-Wood    Box.       By   J.    T.  Trowbridge. 
Boston:  Lee  &  Shepard.     1886. 

6  A  Little  Country  Girl.  By  Susan  Coolidge.  Bos- 
ton: Roberts  Bros.  1885.  For  sale  in  San  Francisco 
by  Strickland  &  Pierson. 

6  The  Joyous  Story  of  Toto.  By  Laura  Richards. 
Boston :  Roberts  Bros.  1885. 


664 


Book  Revieios. 


[Dec. 


grandmother  with  his  friends,  the  bear,  the  coon,  the 
squirrel,  the  dove,  etc.  There  is  something  very 
picturesque  and  pleasant  about  it;  it  has  a  fair  allow- 
ance of  humor,  too,  and  a  touch  of  the  fascination  of 
the  magical  and  mystical  in  its  friendly  and  sociable 
beasts. 

But  the  prettiest  child's  book  of  the  season  is  St. 
Nicholas  Songs.1-  There  are  one  hundred  and  twelve 
of  these  songs,  the  words  selected  from  St.  Nicholas, 
the  music  written  by  several  English  and  American 
composers  of  rank.  Eleven  are  written  by  Homer  N. 
Bartlett,  and  eleven  by  Albert  A.  Stanley  ;  Leopold 
Damrosch  contributes  ten,  and  J.  Remington  Fair- 
lamb,  Arthur  E.  Fisher,  W.  W.  Gilchrist,  and  Sam- 
uel P.  Warren,  each,  seven.  The  binding  and  print 
are  handsome,  the  pages  adorned  with  pictures  from 
St.  Nicholas,  and  the  songs  musically  good.  The 
design  of  the  collection  is  to  replace  much  of  the  chil- 
dren's music  now  in  existence  by  something  which 
shall  be  at  once  of  really  high  quality,  and  specifically 
for  children.  Sentiment  and  pathos  are  avoided  al- 
together, and  child-fancies,  lullabies,  etc.,  have  al- 
most exclusive  place.  By  what  right  Aldrich's 
"Bronze-brown  Eyes"  is  in  the  collection,  we  do 
not  know;  but  no  one  will  grudge  it  the  space.  The 
music  is  intended  to  be,  and  is,  for  the  most  part, 
closely  interpretative  of  the  words.  There  is  not 
much  originality  in  it,  and  a  decided  tone  of  the  Ger- 
man song-writers;  but  that  was  to  be  expected  from 
songs  written  in  this  way. 

"American  Common-wealths." 

THE  earlier  volumes  of  this  series,  "Virginia," 
"Oregon,"  and  "Maryland,"  give  special  promi- 
nence to  certain  historical  episodes.  They  are  writ- 
ten with  clearness  and  force,  particularly  the  first 
two,  but  they  do  not  pretend  to  be  complete  histories 
of  the  commonwealths  in  question.  Two  later  vol- 
umes, Shaler's  Kentucky*  and  Cooley's  Michigan^ 
deal  more  uniformly  with  the  whole  course  of  events 
which  make  up  the  history  of  the  States.  In  "  Vir- 
ginia "  and  "  Maryland  "  are  presented  certain  fea- 
tures of  early  colonial  history;  in  "Oregon,"  the  ac- 
quisition and  settlement  of  the  extreme  Northwest ; 
in  Kentucky  and  Michigan,  the  origin  and  develop- 
ment of  two  of  the  great  States  which  were  formed 
by  the  overflow  of  population  from  the  original  At- 
lantic colonies.  Of  the  last  two  volumes,  the  for- 
mer has  already  received  the  recognition  to  which 
its  excellence  as  a  well-balanced  history  of  a  great 
commonwealth  entitles  it  ;  while  the  latter,  in  the 
name  of  its  writer,  bears  an  adequate  guarantee  that 
it  is  not  only  fitted  for  a  place  in  the  series,  but  that 
it  will  help  to  fix  even  a  higher  standard  for  the  later 
volumes.  Taking  the  idea  of  the  series  to  be  "to 

1  St.  Nicholas  Songs.       Edited  by  Waldo  S.   Pratt. 
New  York:  Century  Company. 

2  Kentucky.     By  N.  S.  Shfiler.     Boston :    Houghton, 
Mifflin  &  Co.  1885.    For  sale  in  S.  F.  by  Chilion  Beach. 

8  Michigan.  By  T.  M.  Cooley.  Boston:  Houghton, 
Mifflin  &  Co.  1885.  For  sale  in  S.  F.  by  Chilion  Bea6h. 


show  the  growth  of  the  commonwealth,  that  is,  the 
growth  of  the  forces,  social  and  political,  that  have 
combined  to  produce  the  several  self-governing  com- 
munities "  that  make  up  the  Union,  Cooley's  Michi- 
gan comes  as  near  the  attainment  of  the  ideal  as 
any  volume  yet  published.  It  is  brief  yet  compre- 
hensive. No  part  overbalances  other  parts.  It  is 
ordered  with  skill,  and  shows  that  remarkable  facility 
of  expression  which  characterizes  the  author's  treat- 
ment of  questions  of  law  and  government. 

A  passage  taken  at  random  from  the  chapter  on 
"The  State  and  its  Elements,"  shows  the  writer's 
ability,  also,  to  describe  in  fitting  language  the  man- 
ners and  morals  of  this  simple  pioneer  society. 
"The  agriculture  of  the  farmers  was  of  the  most 
primitive  character;  the  plow,  except  the  share,  was 
of  wood,  with  a  wooden  wheel  on  either  side  of  the 
long  beam,  the  one  small  to  run  on  the  land  side, 
and  the  other  larger  to  run  in  the  furrow.  Oxen  were 
fastened  to  this  plow  by  a  pole  which  had  a  hinged 
attachment ;  they  were  not  yoked,  but  the  draught 
was  by  thongs  or  ropes  fastened  about  their  horns. 
A  little  two-wheeled  cart,  into  which  was  fastened  a 
pony,  or  perhaps  a  cow  or  steer,  was  the  principal 
farm  vehicle.  The  early  farmers  did  not  appreciate 
the  value  of  manure  in  agriculture,  and  removed  it 
out  of  their  way  by  dumping  it  in  the  river;  but  they 
were  beginning  now  to  learn  in  that  regard  better 
ways.  The  houses,  for  the  most  part,  were  of  a  sin- 
gle story,  with  a  plain  veranda  in  front ;  and  here 
in  pleasant  weather  would  gather  the  household  for 
domestic  labor  and  social  recreation.  The  houses  of 
the  wealthier  classes  were  of  hewed  logs,  with  a 
large  chimney  occupying  the  space  of  a  room  in  the 
center,  and  a  garret  hung  with  festoons  of  drying  or 
dried  fruits,  pumpkins,  garlics,  onions,  and  medici- 
nal and  culinary  herbs.  The  family  washing  was 
done  at  the  river,  and  the  pounding  of  the  clothes 
was  with  a  little  hand  mallet,  after  the  method  of 
their  ancestors  from  time  immemorial.  Everywhere 
the  spinning-wheel  was  in  use,  and  the  madam, 
with  just  pride  in  her  deftness,  ma.de  the  clothing 
for  the  family.  The  kitchen  was  a  common  gather- 
ing room  for  the  family,  who  liked  to  see  the  cooking 
going  on,  with  pots,  and  kettles,  and  spiders,  in  an  open 
fire-place.  Around  many  of  the  old  farm  houses  and 
yards  were  pickets  of  cedar  ten  or  twelve  feet  in  height, 
which  were  originally  planted  for  defense  against 
the  Indians.  But  the  Indians  who  had  their  homes 
about  the  towns  were  no  longer  feared,  and  were 
generally  nominal  Catholics  and  well  treated.  The 
only  fastening  to  the  front  door  of  the  house  was  a 
latch  on  the  inside,  which  was  raised  to  open  the 
door  by  a  strip  of  leather  or  deer's  hide  run  through 
a  hole  in  the  door,  and  hanging  down  on  the  out- 
side." The  farmers  whose  simple  manners  are  thus 
described  were  largely  of  French  descent.  But  in 
the  backwoods,  away  from  the  French  settlements, 
where  the  'coon-hunt,  husking-bees,  raising-bees, 
sleighing  parties,  and  spelling-schools  were  the  sports 


1885.] 


Book  Reviews. 


665 


and  amusements,  we  recognize  our  nearer  kin.  In 
this  society  "the  morals  of  the  people  at  this  time 
were  better  than  appearances  might  indicate.  Coarse 
profanity  and  vulgarity  were  heard  so  often  that  they 
failed  to  shock  the  hearer,  and  treating  at  a  public 
bar  was  common  when  friends  met,  and  on  all  sorts 
of  occasions.  But  domestic  scandals  were  exceed- 
ingly rare,  and  divorces  almost  unknown.  Society 
was  very  primitive,  and  there  was  little  courtesy  and 
less  polish;  but  there  was  no  social  corruption,  and 
parents  had  faith  in  each  other,  and  little  fear  for  the 
morals  of  their  children.  The  general  standard  of 
business  integrity  was  high,  and  as  the  time  had  not 
yet  come  when  great  funds  were  needed  for  the  pur- 
poses of  political  campaigns,  elections  were  honestly 
conducted." 

In  the  closing  chapter  on  "The  State  and  the 
New  Union,"  Professor  Cooley  speaks  from  the  van- 
tage ground  of  a  great  constitutional  lawyer.  Refer- 
ring to  the  rallying  cry  of  the  people,  and  the  plat- 
form on  which  Mr.  Lincoln  proposed  to  found  the 
policy  of  his  administration,  he  ends  with  this  signif- 
icant paragraph  :  "  '  The  constitution  as  it  is,  and  the 
Union  as  it  was,'  can  no  longer  be  the  motto  and  the 
watchword  of  any  political  party.  We  may  preserve 
the  constitution  in  its  every  phrase  and  every  letter, 
with  only  such  modification  as  was  found  essential 
for  the  uprooting  of  slavery;  but  the  Union  as  it  was 
has  given  way  to  a  new  Union  with  some  new  and 
grand  features,  but  also  with  some  grafted  evils  which 
only  time  and  the  patient  and  persevering  labors  of 
statesmen  and  patriots  will  suffice  to  eradicate." 

The  latest  volume  of  the  series,  Professor  Leverett 
W.  Spring's  Kansas^  deals  with  a  phase  of  frontier 
life  which  it  is  not  always  agreeable  to  remember. 
The  early  history  of  other  States,  as  Michigan,  Ken- 
tucky, Virginia,  is  by  no  means  free  from  records  of 
hardship  and  privation,  but  still  the  story  is  rendered 
attractive  by  episodes  of  Arcadian  peace  and  sim- 
plicity. This  volume,  however,  with  the  exception 
of  a  few  introductory  pages  and  a  brief  closing  chap- 
ter, is  wholly  occupied  with  the  struggle  of  two  fa- 
natical factions  for  the  dominion  of  the  territory. 
Even  under  the  most  skillful  treatment,  this  subject 
could  hardly  be  endowed  with  attractive  features. 
But  when  it  is  presented  in  a  manner  becoming  a 
newspaper  report,  not  even  snatches  of  poetry,  though 
scattered,  as  they  are  here,  with  a  profuse  hand,  can 
redeem  the  tale.  But  there  is  much  more  in  the 
subject  than  the  author  has  made  manifest.  What 
appears  here  is  the  bloody  work  of  a  great  tragedy, 
but  no  adequate  motive.  It  is  what  an  eye-witness 
would  set  down;  not  what  an  historian  would  write.. 
The  deep  cause  of  action,  which  makes  action  intel- 
ligible, is  not  revealed.  That  the  importance  of  the 
events  is  sufficiently  appreciated,  maybe  seen  in  that 
they  are  characterized  in  the  sub-title  as  constituting 
"  the  prelude  to  the  war  for  the  Union."  In  view  of 

1  Kansas.  By  Leverett  W.  Spring.  Boston :  Hough- 
ton,  Mifflin  &  Co.  1885.  For  sale  in  S.  F.  by  C.  Beach. 


this,  the  somewhat  superficial  treatment  which  they 
have  received  appears  in  the  light  of  a  serious  defect; 
and  through  a  lack  of  deeper  inquiry,  the  author  has 
been  unable  to  set  them  forth  in  their  true  historical 
perspective.  In  these  respects,  it  falls  conspicuously 
below  the  other  volumes  of  the  series. 

But  notwithstanding  these  imperfections  and  a 
certain  crudeness  of  style,  Professor  Spring's  studies 
have  led  him  sufficiently  far  into  the  details  of  this 
horrible  episode  of  frontier  history,  to  convince  him 
that  the  truth  does  not  appear  from  the  stand-point 
of  either  faction.  He  grasps,  moreover,  with  clever- 
ness, and  states  with  considerable  force,  the  essential 
features  of  some  of  the  leading  characters.  Take,'as 
an  illustration,  his  characterization  of  John  Brown : 
"Whatever  else  may  be  laid  to  his  charge — whatever 
rashness,  unwisdom,  equivocation,  bloodiness  —  no 
faintest  trace  of  self-seeking  stains  his  Kansas  life. 
On  behalf  of  the  cause  which  fascinated  and  ruled 
him,  he  was  prepared  to  sacrifice  its  enemies,  and  if 
the  offering  proved  inadequate,  to  sacrifice  himself. 
He  belonged  to  that  Hebraic,  Old  Testament,  iron 
type  of  humanity,  in  which  the  sentiment  of  justice — 
narrowed  to  warfare  upon  a  single  evil,  pursuing  it 
with  concentrated  and  infinite  hostility,  as  if  it  epit- 
omized all  the  sinning  of  the  universe — assumed  an 
exaggerated  importance.  It  was  a  type  of  humanity 
to  which  the  lives  of  individual  men,  weighed  against 
the  interests  of  the  inexorable  cause,  seem  light  and 
trivial  as  the  dust  of  a  butterfly's  wing.  John  Brown 
would  have  been  at  home  among  the  armies  of  Israel 
that  gave  the  guilty  cities  of  Canaan  to  the  sword,  or 
among  the  veterans  of  Cromwell  who  ravaged  Ireland 
in  the  name  of  the  Lord." 

Briefer  Notice. 

Cattle  Raising  on  the  Plains  of  North  America* 
treats  of  the  past,  present,  and  future  of  the  business 
of  cattle  raising  in  the  great  cattle  country  west  of 
the  Mississippi,  and  paints  its  chances  of  success  and 
money-making  in  most  glowing  colors,  giving  numer- 
ous examples  in  which  men  have  made  immense  for- 
tunes in  a  very  few  years.  The  statistics  that  the 
author  gives  do  certainly  make  it  look  as  if  it  had 
been  a  wonderfully  profitable  line  of  business  in  the 
past,  and  was  now,  and  would,  in  all  probability, 
be  in  the  future.  But  it  may  be  that  his  estimates 
of  the  future  will  go  amiss  in  two  ways.  The  first 
and  most  serious  trouble  that  the  cattle  men  have  to 
guard  against  is  contagious  and  epidemic  diseases ; 
and  their  past  immunity  from  these,  when  the  coun- 
try was  supporting  only  a  few  wandering  and  discon- 
nected herds,  argues  nothing  for  a  time  when  the 
grazing  land  is  certain  to  be  taxed  to  its  limit  to  sup- 
port the  immense  herds  that  will  inhabit  it  in  the 
future.  Climate,  pure  water,  and  nutritious  grasses 

2  Cattle  Raising  on  the  Plains  of  North  America. 
By  Walter,  Baron  Von  Richthofen.  New  York:  D. 
Appleton  &  Co.  1885.  For  sale  in  San  Francisco  by 
Jt-mes  T.  White. 


666 


Book  Reviews. 


[Dec. 


are  certainly  factors  in  the  health  of  cattle,  but  they 
can  hardly  insure  them  against  disease.  Then,  there 
is  competition  with  the  improved  means  of  trans- 
portation from  the  Mexican  table-lands,  the  Pacific 
slope,  parts  of  South  America  ;  and  for  all  we  know, 
Africa  and  Asia  may  enter  seriously  into  the  market, 
as  Australia  has  already.  But  still,  as  the  climate  is 
what  it  is,  tnere  is  but  slight  chance  that  it  will  be 
anything  but  a  very  profitable  business  for  many 
years  to  come.  The  book  is  one  that  should  be  read 
by  our  farmers  in  this  State,  and  might  convince 
them  that  there  are  more  rapid  means  of  making 
money,  even  on  moderate-sized  farms,  than  grain- 
raising. The  Himter's  Handbook^-  is  evidently  "  by 

an  Old  Hunter,"  or  camper,  as  we  should  say  here, 
who  understands  well  what  he  is  talking  about  in 
regard  to  camp  arrangements  and  cookery  and  pro- 
visions. Of  course,  the  directions  in  case  of  bad 
weather  are  out  of  place  in  most  parts  of  California 
— during  the  camping  season,  at  least.  The  com- 
parative list  of  provisions  would  be  quite  a  help  to  a 
camper,  as  would  the  advice  about  canned  goods, 
groceries,  etc.  The  chapters  on  paraphernalia,  camp- 
fires,  utensils,  cooking  (with  nearly  a  hundred  reci- 
pes), and  camp  amusements  and  routine,  are  good, 
and  make  the  book  a  valuable  adjunct  to  any  camp- 
ing expedition. Mr.  Edgar  Fawcett  has  for  some 

time  been  writing  novels  of  New  York  fashionable 
society,  and  he  now  follows  them  with  a  collection 
of  brief  studies  in  the  same  line,  under  the  title  So- 
cial Silhouettes?  They  consist  of  sketches  of  social 
types,  such  as  "The  Lady  who  Hates  to  be  Forgot- 
ten," "  The  Young  Lady  who  Tries  too  Hard."  They 
doubtless  contain  much  truth,  but  are  very  weak, 
dealing  in  platitudes  and  exaggerations,  and  to  any 
sensitive  ear  ring  false,  giving  an  unmistakable  im- 
pression of  affectation  and  insincerity.  The  reader 

feels  that  the  writer  is  posing  for  what  he  is  not. 

The  author  of  The  Morals  of  Christ*  would  seem-  to 
have  taken  up  a  subject  wherein  not  much  original- 
ity was  possible.  Nevertheless,  while  he  very  natu- 
rally supplies  no  new  views  on  the  Christian  system 
of  morals,  he  "puts  things"  freshly  and  interesting- 
ly, and  the  subject  is  one  perennially  interesting, 
when  taken  up  with  any  sort  of  individuality.  Of 
course,  most  of  what  we  hear  and  read  about  it 
is  the  merest  conventional  repetition  of  accepted 
thoughts.  Mr.  Bierbower  has  an  epigrammatic  man- 
ner, and  is  fond  of  balanced  sentences,  balanced 
paragraphs,  and  a  presentation  of  his  thesis  as 
precise  as  that  of  a  mathematical  problem.  Thus: 
' '  Christ  took  three  departures  from  other  systems — 
one  from  the  Mosaic,  one  from  the  Pharisaic,  and  one 

iThe  Hunter's  Handbook.  By  An  Old  Hunter. 
Boston:  Lee  &  Shepard.  New  York:  Charles  T.  Dil- 
lingham.  1885. 

2 Social  Silhouettes.  By  Edgar  Fawcett.  Boston: 
Ticknor  &  Co.  1885. 

s  The  Morals  of  Christ.  By  Austin  Bierbower.  Chi- 
cago :  Colgrove  Book  Company.  1885. 


from  the  Grseco-Roman — these  being  the  three  moral 
systems  of  his  time  and  country — the  moral  systems 
respectively  of  his  ancestral  religion,  of  its  then  prin- 
cipal sect,  and  of  the  outside  world.  .  .  .  In  depart- 
ing from  the  Mosaic  morality,  he  sought  to  develop 
morality  from  its  primitive  rudeness  and  simplicity  ; 
in  departing  from  the  Pharisaic  morality,  he  sought 
to  recall  it  from  a  ritualistic  divergence  to  the  proper 
subjects  of  morality;  and  in  departing  from  the  Grseco- 
Roman  morality,  he  sought  to  substitute  the  tender 
for  the  heroic  virtues.  His  object,  accordingly,  as 
viewed  from  these  three  points  of  departure,  was  re- 
spectively to  fulfill,  to  correct,  and  to  supplant ;  or  to 
effect  an  extension,  a  reformation,  and  a  revolution. 
He  sought  to  extend  the  Mosaic  morality,  because  it 
was  inadequate  ;  to  correct  the  Pharisaic  morality,  be- 
cause it  was  corrupt;  and  to  supplant  the  Gneco-Ro- 
man  morality,  because  it  was  radically  bad  ;  so  that 
he  made  a  departure  from  the  imperfect,  from  the  de- 
generate, and  from  the  wrong,  and  a  departure  toward 
a  more  comprehensive,  a  more  practical,  and  a  more 
generous  morality." Mr.  Adams  has  issued  en- 
larged editions  of  his  Handbook  of  English  Authors,* 
and  Handbook  of  American  Authors.*1  As  always  in 
such  lists,  some  of  the  inclusions  and  exclusions  are 
unaccountable:  for  instance,  several  young  scholars, 
fellow-students,  as  it  chanced,  of  governmental  and 
sociological  problems,  published  at  nearly  the  same 
time  each  a  first  book,  upon  various  branches  of  the 
subject  of  their  common  interest.  By  far  the  most 
notable  of  these  books  was  that  of  Woodrow  Wilson, 
which  was  at  once  taken  up  by  the  best  reviews  with 
enthusiasm,  inspired  some  magazine  articles,  and 
went  through  several  editions.  Yet  Professor  Wil- 
son's is  the  only  name  of  the  group  omitted  in  this 
handbook.  Other  curious  discriminations  might 
be  mentioned ;  nevertheless,  the  handbooks  are 
in  the  main  convenient  and  desirable  possessions. 

William    R.    Jenkins's   very    satisfactory    little 

French  reprints  are  increased  by  Idylles,6  which  con- 
tains several  short  sketches  of  Henry  Greville's,  in 
the  "  Contes  Chaises"  series,  and  by  Pailleron's 
satirical  comedy,  Le  Monde  ou  fan  s^Ennuie?  in  the 

"Theatre    Contemporain"  series. Mr.    Augustin 

Knoflach's  ingenious  German  Simplified6  series  of 
pamphlet  numbers  reaches  its  eleventh  number, 
carrying  out  systematically  its  excellent  plan  as  here- 
tofore. 

4  A  Brief  Handbook  of  English  Authors.     By  Oscar 
Fay  Adams.     Boston:  Houghton,  Mifflin  &  Co.    1885. 
For  sale   in    San  Francisco   by   Chilion  Beach. 

5  A  Brief  Handbook  of  American  Authors.     By  Oscar 
Fay  Adams.     Boston:  Houghton,  Mifflin  &  Co.    1885. 
For  sale  in  San  Francisco  by  Chilion  Beach. 

6  Idylles.     Par  H  enry  Gr£ville.     New  York :  William 
R.  Jenkins.     1885. 

7  Le  Monde  ou  1'on  s'Ennuie.     Par  Edouard   Pail- 
leron.     New  York:  William  R.Jenkins.     1885. 

8  German  Simplified.    By  Augustin  Knoflach.     New 
York:  A.  Knoflach.     For  sale  in  San  Francisco  by  Jo- 
seph A.  Hoffmann. 


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045" 
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U.C.  BERKELEY  LIBRARIES 


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